P90X Update: Finally Reached "Week 4"

Push ups are easier (yay) but my calves have never been more tight (meh, fine). And though its taken me a month to complete the first 21 days of the program schedule (I had taken a liberal number of rest days), I gotta say that I feel that I've gotten through the toughest part. I'm patting myself on the back right now. Go me.

Running Update: Folly Beach, SC

Probably the funnest and most scenic races I've ever ran.

And as fun and wonderful as it was, I've decided to take a break from running to follow a new exercise regimen: P90X. The fad has reached me since my running buddies, Win and Cleo, convinced me that its difficult but awesome. So I'll give it a try.

And you know, "sometimes the hard thing and the right thing are the same thing," said Liz Lemon quoting a tea bag (God, I love 30 Rock).

Running update

Old news for some and new news for most—I ran a 10k. And it was delightful. Back in January my buddies from Richmond, VA convinced me to sign up for the Ukrops Monument 10K in our college campus, VCU. After contemplating for a few days, I signed up and never looked back. After some gruesome training for 2 months, I ran that thing in 01:01:36 (horrah!) which was my best timing ever. I don't think I've even ran this fast in high school, which is saying a lot.

Not only was it an accomplishing feat, but the run in itself was beautiful. Think of concrete, brick roads surrounded by historic, southern houses with giant porches, blooming dogwoods on a sunny saturday morning, giant monument statues of old civil war leaders that mark every roundabout you pass, and (lordy) the people. Imagine running with hundreds of people down

the same brick road as you all pass by cheerleaders, volunteers handing you cups of water and powerade, dozens of rock bands, and you look to your right and see a giant squirrel chasing a paper mache acorn, a tornado, and a man holding a washing machine. Next year perhaps i'll wear something more awesome than 3 shirts plus 2 pairs of pants (after all it was 36 degrees that morning).

And! The New York runners (Steph, Jacob, Francis, and I) got to see the sites and eat the food that is Richmond. Even with a short lived flat tired drama towards the end of the Richmond vacation, everything was a worthwhile adventure.

Resolution 2010: post more than three blog posts this year.

It's possibly do-able.

Has there ever been a time when you've come across an old diary, read your entries (dear diary, i can't believe i got a B on that science test), and thought, "Man, I am so lame." Well, after neglecting my blog for nine months, looking at my last post, I'm thinking, "Man, I am so so so lame." But I guess that's my critical nature. By the way, I'm not going to hand write my blog anymore, what was I thinking?

Moving on, it's a new year. New me. New things. In New York. As an update on the resolutions from 2009, I did keep up with running, had a personal best at running 7 mph around April, had shin splints around May, took a break around June, read some articles on preventing running injuries around July (runnersworld.com is just awesome), started running again at 5/6 mph (after stretching and warming up in the midst of strength training my legs) around August. I currently run around a manageable pace (5.2 for two minutes switching to 5.7 for the next two minutes and then switching back). I never ran a half marathon (2009 resolution), but I'd like to start running 5k races (that's a 3.1 mile race and a 2010 resolution). I figured a realistic resolution was better than a somewhat real but not really resolution.

As for the resolution of working out regularly, I've accomplished that too. Lucille Roberts gym is my haven now on Mondays and Wednesdays. Treadmill running (to reinforce my running resolution) and yoga on Mondays has helped me make it a habit of anticipating the gym. Now that they have a belly dancing teacher, I've taken to belly dancing on Wednesdays which is quite exciting. I even bought a belly dancing skirt. So, we'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll update on that in the future (but maybe not).

Also, as I'm writing this blog entry, I just left my first bikram yoga session about 4 hours ago. If you ever want to feel hungover without drinking, this is the activity for you. I swear, within the first 20 minutes I looked like I was melting—there was just so much liquid dripping off of me—and i felt like fainting...while already laying down. Leaving the session, I felt like my head was cracked open—it hurt so much, and after trudging on home, I wasn't sure if i should eat or throw up. But yea, I'm getting my money's worth (10 sessions for $20) and it can only get better than this...hopefully. So as bad as it was and as bad as I still feel actually, I'm looking forward to the next session.

Other than taking advantage of New York (resolution #7 of 2009) of which I did a lot, I did not nurture my creativity, limit my addictions (ha!), or live simply (haha!). For some reason, after taking advantage of the activities of New York, those last two don't seem all that important to me anymore. Eh, we'll see how it goes this year, I would like nurture my creativity more often though. To the 4 people who are going to read this blog entry, any suggestions on how I could accomplish this?