Action Packed Weekend - Part 1

The weekend before (Sat 7/18 & Sun 7/19), my husband had another activity planned, so it was me and the kids since Thursday evening.  We got through Friday pretty easily - I took off from work and spent the day in DC with my daughter and a friend.  My son and her kids were finishing their last day of camp so we spent time exploring parts of DC that I have never visited.  (Will come back to our DC day in a later post).

On Sat, my baby girl (she may be 6, but she is still my baby) had gymnastics practice for three hours.  I decided to take my son (he is 9) to go rock climbing.

(sidebar: I haven't been rocking in 10-13 years since my husband and I were relatively newly married. I wasn't belaying him properly and he didn't let me know he was tired and was coming down and he just let go. Since I didn't want to drop him, I caught the ropes as best I could and ended up with major rope burn and blisters in both palms. I will never belay my husband again (and really he wouldn't trust me to do it properly either), so I've avoided the rock climbing center.)

Honestly, I was pretty scared to do this and my son needed some encouragement too when we got started.  I had to remind myself that I needed to show my son (and myself) that I could be a little brave and conquer my fears.  So up and down the wall we went.  It was quite a workout!  We both made it to the top of the shorter walls and then maybe half way up the top of the tall walls.

I was super proud of my son for his willingness to climb and then asking to do a week of summer camp there!

Here is picture proof that I was on the wall at some point.

Here is my son (in the blue shirt) - we both got to this same rock (actually he climbed first and I had to push myself to make sure I at least got to that same spot - whew!)

P,S. I did workout today (still on my Combat/Pump hybrid) and my son ran on the treadmill near me to train for his upcoming kids triathlon!

Pressing on

I completed Week 2 Day 3 yesterday (Thursday) late afternoon. Morning workouts are better as it's harder to get motivated to get down there and workout as the day slips away!

I am thankful that I was jet lagged for most of the week so I could wake up between 4-6 am feel and feel ready to go. Unfortunately, I think that is wearing off and I struggled to wake at 6am this morning.

Yesterday was Pump Challenge and Hard Core Abs. I've done Pump Challenge over 10 times now at least and just realized I've been facing my palms the wrong way for my chest presses :(. Maybe now I'll get more results :). I start out on 5lbs each side and then after the second exercise I went to 7.5lbs each side for the back and arms. I also raised to 5lbs each for the shoulder segment. My underarm area still hurts on the right side when I try to raise it too high, but I just keep pushing through. I should be able to start at 7.5lbs each side next time too for the squats! Excited to see progress in my capabilities!

As for the hard core abs - this is the first time I've done this dvd. What I haven't enjoyed as much about this set versus t25 is the amount of switching in coaches. Shaun t is the constant in t-25 and I love that. I'm constantly trying to figure out the new coach accent with pump. Anyway, abs started out doable but my back was getting sore - maybe from the extra weight on the deadlifts and rows earlier - so I concentrated on trying to not hurt it. It was a bit scary to hear / feel a pop in my back each time I did a crunch / leg extension so I was pretty careful and leery about the workout. Some of the push ups got harder too so definitely need to up my game and stick to this. Extra pain points from my fall where I bruised the back of the forearms so it was hard to lay on that to hold a move and then my bad ankle was not wanting to support my weight to do the side lift.

No pain, no gain - I just wish the gain would be more proportionate to the pain 😁.

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Forgot

I totally forgot to post yesterday! We had to take the kids out for swim lessons and it was pouring out so was just dashing about in the rain.

I didn't get my workout in until late in the afternoon, but I did get my combat 30 complete. My six year old did it with me for about the first seven minutes. I gave her some tips before we started so it wasn't awful, but her arms and legs were all over the place 😆.

I was really tired though especially my arms so throwing those punches were not easy!

On another note, I twisted my right ankle yet again after falling right inside the swim school doors because it was so wet. I twisted it earlier in Barcelona as well. May have to just wear the ankle support for a bit until I can get more stable!


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Wannabe

I tell my husband frequently that I want to be a runner. I watch all these people run by and I want to run. Why? Because all these running b***** are so skinny - surely if I run I too would be skinny?!?!? He reminds me that I'm not built for running. That I'm short and my bad ankles and flat feet would not do well. I already go to bed and wake up every morning with pain in my feet and ankles so I'm sure he is right (I just hate to admit that).

We walked so much in Europe (17k-25k steps daily) that my knee started to hurt on a hike we did so I'm sure knee issues would be next if I took up running.

I just wannabe skinny, but I love food too much, but running is probably not my get fit quick shortcut. There are no shortcuts for me so just need to continue plugging away.

Time to meal plan my 21 day fix soon I guess and see how that goes? :)

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Week 2 Day 1

Pump and Burn- my first time doing this video. Started a bit strange feeling with the live format, but it got a lot better. I did 5lbs each side all on all exercises since it was my first time through.

I have a love hate relationship with bottom halves. I hate them because they hurt! I love bottom halves because they must be working if they hurt so much?!?

I think next time on the chest track I have to debate if I go 2.5 on each side or if I try the 5 again. I need to add 2.5 each side to the third track (maybe arms/back?) and give that a shot.

On a side note- I skipped week 1 day 7 rest or flow since I just had a long rest from vacation.


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Productive Morning

First of all... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOMMA!!!  (I thought she was turning a certain age because I calculated her age from mine thinking I was 36.  My husband corrected me that I am 37 - doh... I guess forgetfulness is surely a sign of aging lol.)  My mom is an amazing woman, she came to a new country 30 years ago not really speaking the language, not liking to drive and she had to pretty much bring us up by herself while my dad worked in our home country.  Through all of this, she has remained the kindest and sweetest woman who would do anything for me, my brother, my dad, her family, and my kids.  

We went out to a local tapas place for dinner last night (coincidentally called Barcelona) as I was craving some red wine sangria.  While the food and drink was good, it's not quite like being in Spain.  That and I think having the kids there who didn't like the food (sauces) as much was rather difficult.  We tell our kids they can't live on mac and cheese forever and constantly work on expanding their palate.  They did try everything we asked them to even if it wasn't to their liking.  I do have hope though as my oldest didn't like any fish or non cheese sauce at all and suddenly started gobbling down salmon and pesto pasta.  I did follow this up with some tasty gelato that was around the corner because we enjoyed those on the many hot days/nights of trekking across Europe.  

I digress... either the sangria or just still trying to adjust to the time zone difference made me very sleepy.  Pretty sure I was fully out by 9:30pm.   This led to waking up at 4:30am.  My norm would be to read in bed and then fall back asleep.  This is not really a good idea as I hit another sleep cycle and wake up even groggier when it was time to wake up (alarms were set for 5:45, 6:15, and 6:30 as my son had to be ready for camp by 7am).  

This morning I got my butt out of bed and went in my disaster of an office and cleaned my desk a bit.  It felt really good!  I also got my to-do list written down and then went and got in my workout.  

Day 6 of the combat / pump hybrid = Pump Challenge.  I increased my weights from 2.5lbs to 5lbs each side for the final arm / shoulder workout.  I can see and feel my arms still shaking while blending my shakeology so I think it was a good challenge to my muscle.  

1 child off to camp and now time to get my 'work' day started although I may need to squeeze in a quick rest later to function.  

America's Birthday

Has it really been a month since my last post?  Shows how life just moves on by quickly.  My husband and I went to Europe for a nice break while my in-laws watched our kids.  We missed our connection in Frankfurt yesterday so we had to travel home on the 4th.  When we planned our trip, I did not want to be traveling on the 4th as I figured there were greater risks or more security measures to go around - the best laid plans and all that right?  We didn't even have to remove our shoes so I'm not sure how security was intensified, but we had an uneventful (thank God!) second leg home.  

Happy to be home in time to celebrate America's birthday and enjoy fireworks with the family.  Some photos from the fireworks display :)

Loved the purple hues of this one!

Back to reality and working out tomorrow!