Push-up Challenge - Day 8

For months, I have been saving the monthly workout calendars from Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans with intentions of using them. Each time, I print the calendar, hang it up, and walk right past it. I might remember a few days out of the month to complete the day's challenge, but not often.

This month, I decided that I'm going to commit to this month's Push-up Challenge:

This time, I didn't print the calendar. I scheduled each day's workout into the calendar on my phone so it's at my fingertips at any time of the day. I announced on Facebook that I was going to do this challenge, and challenged my friends to join me. Of my 488 friends, only two accepted the challenge.

My friend and boot camp instructor, Tina, decided to check in with each other on our push-ups. And guess what... we're doing it! One day I forgot to do them, but I made them up the next day and what should've been a rest day. 

Most days, I have been doing my push-ups at the countertop. One day I did wall push-ups, and last night, I did my last two sets on the ball (as pictured above).

On the first few days, I found sets of 2 and 3 to be way too easy so I combined them into one set. On Day 7, I had to start splitting it up into 2 sets. This morning, Tina and I got our push-ups done in boot camp. Not just 4 sets of 4, but 3 sets of 25! Ok, I admit that I didn't really do that many, but on the first set, I made it to 18 (I lost track of the other sets).

In boot camp, we did our push-ups on the floor, which has always been a challenge for me. This morning, I found them to to be easier, which means I am getting stronger.

Love Yourself

This is the first thing I saw when I turned on my computer this morning. That's something I've been working on.

September Workouts

I use the Map My Run app on my phone to log all of my workouts -- walks, boot camp, cardio. Everything. Every week, they email me a workout summary. On the first of each month, they send a summary of the previous month's workouts. Yesterday, I received my monthly summary email:

This doesn't seem like a bad total, but I know I can do better. I wish I had kept all of my previous monthly summaries so I could compare what I do now to what I was able to do before my knee injury.

For October, I am going to set my goal at 50 miles for the month. It's time to get off my butt and get moving again. This is the time of year that I love to walk. I enjoy the feeling of the cool air on my face as my body warms up from the workout.

With kids, it can be difficult to get my walks in, My oldest has a job now, and is also involved with drama club rehearsals so she's not there to watch the other two kids while I walk. For now, the weather is decent enough that I can make them walk with me.

As it gets cooler, I will have to find another way. I could go to the YMCA and use the treadmill, but I loathe walking on the treadmill. For one thing, I find it extremely BORING! For another, I am paranoid about falling on the treadmill. I saw it happen to a guy once while he was running. He got up and got back on, but I would probably break an arm or leg or something.

So 50 miles in October. That's my goal. I will get it done, one way or another.

Starting Over

Back in January, one of my Facebook friends posted about teaching her first boot camp class at the local YMCA. When I asked when the class was held, she told me 5:30 am on Monday and Wednesday. I thought, "Holy hell! I'll never be able to get out of bed that early!" Tina said, "Give me your digits, and I'll text you in the morning."

In my first boot camp class, I struggled to keep up, but I kept at it and made it through. The next day, I was so sore that it hurt to walk, it hurt to stand up, it hurt to sit down, it hurt to do almost anything. But I kept going, and I got mad at myself if I overslept and missed it. After a few weeks, I could feel positive changes in my body!

In April, my knee started hurting. I've had trouble with it for years, but I must have done something to strain it. I woke up one morning to find it stiff and swollen. I babied it where I could and kept going to boot camp. A few weeks later, I hurt it again in boot camp, and a few days later, I could hardly walk on it. Well, that put an end to boot camp for awhile.

So I saw my doctor who prescribed a brace, sent me for x-rays and an MRI (hope I never have to do that again!), and referred me to an orthopedist. The orthopedist just gave me a cortisone shot, and told me to come back if it keeps giving me problems.

Since then, I've only made it to boot camp sporadically, but I've decided I need to start getting there again. This week, I've been leaving my phone in the living room to charge so when the alarm goes off in the morning, I have to get out of bed to turn it off. I'm still dragging but when I get out of bed, and I've been late getting to boot camp, but at least I get there.

This morning as I joined in with the rest of the class, I had to pause to catch my breath. I thought to myself, "It's like I'm starting all over again." I'm back to day one of boot camp where I was struggling to keep up with the rest of the class and having to stop to catch my breath. I hate that feeling. I want to be strong. I want to be healthy. I want to rebuild my endurance. The one good thing is that I can still use an eight pound weight instead of going back down to five pounds. I think I may even be ready for ten pounders soon!

From now on, I'm going to keep going to boot camp so I don't have to keep starting over!