muscle Archives | This Mama Runs

Well, another week has gone by. This was a bad one. I just ate too much food. Not enough self control. I barely worked out at all! BUT I did have one good run, yesterday. It was a very windy day, and the wind kept catching the jogging stroller, so it was tough. I did walk/jog intervals for about 10 1/4 miles. My averaged out pace was 12:32 min a mile, so I’m pleased about that. I’m happy overall that I was able to get the distance in! I did meet my Winter Miles Challenge, woohoo! You can read more details in my Fitness Friday post at Mylifeaworkinprogress.com.

The next few days are supposed to be cool, but mid-week the weather’s supposed to warm up. The forecast says we may even get into the 60s! As exciting as that is, every time this area has a good extended forecast, by the time we get there, some storm or other has moved in bringing snow and cold.

I’m just really hoping that we have good weather by March, so I’ll at least have a month of good training for my half marathon. As it is now, I could completely the half, but not as fast as I’d like. Baby J and I are going to visit his Daddy in Florida in a couple of weeks. We’ll be there for about 2 1/2 weeks, so perhaps I’ll get some good runs in while I’m there!

One other thing, my arm muscles are getting stronger. I was able to do more reps and more weight this week. I need to be more consistent though. I have a lot of work to do, so hopefully next week will be better.

Baby J loves to ride in his stroller during mama’s runs!

How was your week? Your weekend so far?

www.simplesharebuttons.comLike it? Please share it!

Push-ups are another one of those things I’ve always hated. Possibly it’s because push-ups are a popular form of punishment in the Army, especially during training. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “FRONTLEANINGRESTPOSITION…GO!” I’d probably own a nicer car.

The official term was “supplemental PT (physical training).” The unofficial was “getting smoked,” as in your working so hard, there’s smoke coming out of your ears. “Make the walls sweat” was also a term I heard often. Of course, there were other activities involved in these smoking sessions like the overhead-arm-clap (doesn’t sound bad, until you’ve been doing it for an hour), the cockroach (painful and embarrassing), front-back-go (my least favorite EVER), the low crawl (most effective when you’re doing it across 50 feet of sand or clay), or forward lunges for a 1/2 mile with your rifle over your head.

But I digress. Sorry! I don’t get to tell my training stories very often anymore. One of these days, I’m going to dig my old letters out and blog them. I wrote my family every day, so I did record much of what was happening.

It’s probably not true to say I HATE push-ups. I like the long, lean, and toned look they give my arms when I’ve been doing them regularly. I’m just not a fan of actually doing them.

Last night I came across an iPhone app called “The PushUps Coach.” I currently have the free version downloaded. The app is designed to go from being able to do just 6 push-ups consecutively to 100 in a row. That sounds good to me! The most push-ups I’ve ever been able to do in a row (real, Army-standard push-ups) without stopping was 30 in two minutes. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was a great improvement for me. When I started Army basic training, I couldn’t even do 1 “real” push-up. I have the muscle memory now, and I know what good form feels like, so even though I’m out of shape…I feel like I’m ahead of the game compared to a few years ago.

The free version of this app allows you to do a bunch of things, including:

Track your push-ups
Track calories burned
Share your results (if you want) on Facebook and Twitter
Custom push-ups reminder
Push-up plans
Custom plans
And more

Push-ups Coach.

Today I did Week 1, Day 1. That was 5 sets: 6 push-ups, 6 push-ups, 5 push-ups, 4 push-ups, and 5 push-ups. It was pretty easy, especially since there are timed cool downs in between each set. I’m going to look into a custom plan and see if I should make my own, because I do feel that this is easy. I mentioned above that the best I’ve ever been able to do was 30 consecutive push-ups. Well, I only got to that point by doing one handed assisted push-up sets throughout the day for several weeks. I think to see the improvement I want, I can’t just do this once a day. I realize that the plan will get harder over time, but I think it’d be more effective if I was doing it a few times a day, when possible.

So I’ll have to tweak the custom plans, and see what I come up with!