Couch to 5K: Complete!

After an excruciatingly long period, I finally finished the Couch to 5K program! Some might argue that my on-again/off-again approach was less than orthodox, but all things considered, the goal was to finish and I made it through the week 9 exercises running more than a 5K and feeling pretty awesome about it.  That sounds like goal achieved to me!

I considered going through it a second time since I've had a setback in my general training, but I don't think I need to go back to the start, so I'm going to close this bad boy out and think about new fitness goals for the rest of this year and next.  I still have to work on my yoga and getting to a place where I can knock off the 4x a week workout goal, not to mention the 5K race which is tentatively scheduled for November 21. Stay tuned!

Working on my Fitness

I haven't decided when I get to cross off the exercise tab.  Because really, if you want to get technical, I probably get to once I've finished one week with four days of exercise for 45 minutes.  The spirit of the item, though, is to really make this a habit.  So I'm going to give myself a little bit more time before I start patting myself too hard on the back.

For a couple of weeks, I was hitting the gym about three times and getting in some sort of fun maybe-fitness weekend activity (like whitewater rafting or dancing on Fire Island).  This past week, however, was the first time that I really had full on workouts for the whole week.  My new workout schedule is a 2-1/2-1 plan which is two days of strength training (one day upper body, one day lower) and cardio (roughly 30 minutes each although I skimp on the cardio if I'm running late) and one day of either longer cardio (45-60 minutes) or some fun class or outdoor activity like yoga or whatever strikes my fancy.

I'm planning on continuing this for another couple of weeks at least or until I have to stop for personal reasons (which will be some time in the next two months).  I will have to think about whether I get to cross it off then or if I should wait until I'm back on track again to make sure I've really picked up the habit. For now, I'm just excited about the workouts which included two yoga classes and a lot of sore muscles.

26. Do Yoga At Least Once Per Week.

I found my cardio yoga class - Core Yoga at Yoga People in Brooklyn.  It's offered by my favorite teacher twice a week so I have two options to take the class.  I am trying to go to the Gentle Restorative Yoga class weekly as well since it is so relaxing and generally needed after I spend the week working on my fitness.  Now that I've been a few times, I may try and do it on my own at home which leaves more room on the old yoga card for this Core Yoga class.  It is definitely a workout and really helps me focus on strengthening everything.  

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Cooking up a storm

To start out the 101 things challenge, I got a number of things started today.

Tried 2 new recipes: southwestern beef brisket from smitten kitchen (will post soon) and Chinese marbled tea eggs from Steamy kitchen (another post to come).  I haven't eaten them yet, but will be tasting them later tonight. 

Use the crockpot: the beef brisket is a crockpot recipe.  Two birds, meet my one stone!

Took a yoga class at Yoga People in Brooklyn - gentle restorative yoga which was a great way to ease into the new year.  I'm finding a bit of back discomfort when I am done, so I have to figure out what exactly is going on. In general, it's a great class though, so it will be repeated in the future.

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