A Case of the Runs

I remember when "checking in" meant finding your current location on Foursquare , but since those times, the app tanked, and ain't nobody got time to check in everywhere anymore. There really isn't a lot of "everywhere" to check into, anyway.  I'm usually either at home, at work, at the grocery store, picking up Baby Tuesday, or taking him to a select number of places that I wouldn't care for people to know, anyway. March is nearly over, and for a month that normally is as slow as molasses, it has pretty much just come and almost gone.  In about a month, I will be 31.  I wonder if 31 will "hit" me hard, since I was still is a postpartum whirlwind when I turned 30 and had it not been for the date on the calendar, I would not have known that this went by.  I definitely feel a lot older than I was, though.  Most of the time, I am tired and feel unfit and a piece of work in general when I don't really have the time to work on mysel...

I have been sitting on this review for quite a while, as I have had the  INSANITY Max 30 set since last summer and am just posting a review of the first workout now. If you've been reading here for a while, I am a huge fan of Insanity (it's supposed to be all capitalized but I am going to leave it like this from here on out).  I've done the 60-day program twice and some of the workouts here and there a countless number of times over the past 4-5 years.  I also own Focus T-25 , which I should really get on soon, but I keep coming back to Insanity! What keeps me coming back to Insanity is: challenging but do-able workouts maximize time spent by working out different body parts at a rigorous pace no equipment needed doesn't require much space Shaun T is motivating workouts really do produce results in fitness and appearance if program is followed This is my second half-attempt at doing the program.  I have not been able to commit to doing a program becaus...

Everything is pretty much a blur here lately, so it's pretty hard for me to believe that we are already in March.  I have to think reallllly hard to recall the last couple of months, or even the past month. I was generally feeling a lot better about life in the second half of February, partly because I got to finally race again.  I've been sleeping a bit more lately, which makes all the difference in the world. For Valentine's Day, was a bit industrious and made tea sandwiches, biscuits, and chocolate-covered strawberries for "The Ukrainian" and Tuesday.  Well, the baby ate the blueberries and some plain strawberries instead of chocolate, but he enjoyed the tea sandwiches and biscuits that were made with him in mind.  If you're wondering that that means, it just means that I used relatively healthy bread and no raw veggies or overly salty things.  I find I barely touch the salt shaker anymore since I've started accounting the baby into my batch cooki...

EVENT: Los Angeles Chinatown Firecracker 5K DATE: Sunday, February 21, 2016 LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA RACE BEGAN: 08:00 am FINISH TIME: 0:25:08 For the fifth year in a row, I participated in the LA Chinatown Firecracker Run.  It has become a yearly tradition/goal for me to participate in this event.  You can see all of my previous medals in last year's recap .  Since there are 12 animals in the zodiac, I guess I still have seven of these races to do, but luckily, it's always a good time. Speaking of good times, I did pretty well in this particular 5k.  This race kind of snuck up on me, as I've totally fallen out of the groove of racing.  Since I had Baby Tuesday, I walked this 5k last year and ran one in July  that took nearly 28 minutes, which I was already happy about. Between November and mid-January, I barely ran at all.  I was burnt out from running quite a bit in August and September... though by quite a bit I mean up to 5 miles at...

Life right now is well-reflected by this salad-in-a-jar that was my lunch not too long ago. Things are contained, but basic and kind of boring.  Oh, and lazy. I haven't been doing too well on one of my goals for the year, which was to get back to my baseline weight.  I started the year doing really well... and was so close at that time.  But somewhere in that timeframe, I got the stomach flu and then treated recovery like a free-for-all since the holidays were just ending.  Suddenly, all the treats I didn't feel like eating that were still lingering around the house fell victim to my post-illness buffet. Shortly after that, Baby Tuesday had a string of poor nights, some illness related, that left me going for carb-ville.  I'm now required to take yearly A1C tests to monitor my blood sugar, and it didn't really go in the direction I had hoped.  So I know I need to do better, but man. I currently feel (and probably look) really terrible, and all ...

After finishing a program that got me to work out 13 and then 17 days in a row, my motivation muscle got a little more toned, so I didn't work out for three days and come Monday... ... I ran, everyday, for a week. Technically, I ran five days in a row, but at least that's every"week"day.  I skipped Saturday and gave up Sunday after less than half a mile because it was already mid-day, and I haven't re-mastered the mid-day thing yet.  Still, considering I barely ran at all after September when I got burned out, I feel pretty good about my week of running, though my legs were admittedly not the happiest. I ran about 18 miles in total over those five days (18.5 if you count the weekend), which is not much, but it's a post-partum mileage peak.  Of course, most of those miles were run in the cold of the morning, which is kind of cheating to me, since that's a heck of a lot easier than logging on the treadmill, which is my only viable option on some days....

Back in June, I did a 30 -Day Squat Challenge that was, frankly, quite empowering.  It was the first fitness-related thing I've been able to commit to since -- probably even before I had or carried a baby.  I had not been able to commit to training schedule.  But why? I'm going to guess here: along with life changes -- longer commute, changing work hours, availability of gyms, moving, etc., I think I just could not stay motivated.  I've completed many marathon training cycles, the Insanity (60 days!) program twice, some other stuff like the 100 Push-Ups Program ... and I think I just got burnt out.  Since I bought it, I tried to complete Shaun T's other fitness program, Focus T-25 , on two separate occasions, never making it past the first two weeks.  One of these attempts was pre-baby.  This gives me a pang of shame, because the workouts are only 25-minutes long.  I mean... really?!  But then I factor in getting dressed, getting clea...