Sprintervals

  After a really relaxing Friday that included a massage, power yoga, and gluten-free pizza, I was ready(ish) to hit the pavement on Saturday. Just not at 6:45 in the morning... but, my Mom's boss had asked me if I would run with him at his local running group's weekly long run, and who am I to refuse an opportunity for chitchat, a view of the lake, and free water, even if it means getting up, yet again, at the crack o' dawn?
    8 FAST miles later, we were finished, and my legs were yelling for some pancakes and compression socks. My lovely, wonderful mother made me the pancakes, but alas, I seem to have misplaced all my socks in the laundry my drawer. Then it was off to a 5-hour shift at the pool, back home for an AWESOME circuit bike-ab workout, then off to babysitting. Where I played monopoly. For 1.5 hours.
  Luckily, the kids also owned a Wii, which meant I got to show off my mad skills at Wii mini golf before settling down to watch some gymnastics.
    Unfortunately, about 2 minutes in to watching the gymnastics, a girl who was running for the beam landed wrong and injured herself. This kind of freaked out the girls I was babysitting, so it was good that their bedtime was soon after, since they kept gasping and looking aghast. Babysitter of the year? Yes.

 Bike-ab workout:
4 minute warmup on bike in low gear
20 side lifts
30 bicycle crunches
10 push-ups
2 minutes of 30 second side plank, 30 second yoga plank x 2
15 jumping jacks
4 minutes tempo pace on bike in highest gear


I did this 6 times, then did 7minutes on the bike of 30 seconds Hard, 30 seconds Easy, followed by 2x 60 bicycle crunches, 20 pushups, another 2 minute plank, and 30 jumping jacks, ending with a 4 minute cooldown on the bike. I sweated up a STORM, which I always take to mean that the workout was effective. I am trying to keep up with the intervals, since they are interesting, speedy, and allow me to work up more of a sweat in a smaller amount of time. I no longer feel the need to always get 3 hours of exercise everyday, because with all the intervals I am doing, I know that the 2-2.5 hours I am getting is 2.5 hours of HARD effort.