P90X: Week 8 - No Rest for the Weary

As with any good training plan, it's always important to schedule in a rest week. That's where I am today, coming to the end of what will be a great "rest" week. You're probably wondering why I put the word rest in quotes. Well, P90X is extreme. That's what the X stands for. It's not easy by any stretch of the imagination. And even rest is taken to the extreme. For one, you take a week off from the extreme weight workouts that you've been mastering over the past 3 weeks. For me, I actually add in more cardio during this time so that I can get the extra calorie burn. And the workout you do twice during the week is Core Synergistics. There's also 2 days of Yoga, a day of legs and back, and two days of stretching. All of these are integral pieces to the puzzle. It allows your muscles to recover after taking a beating.

But you know me, I modify things to fit my ridiculously hectic and crazy schedule. Here's a recap so far:

Monday: 5am run with my running partner Paul. We went out on a different course then we normally do. We headed out 2 miles up the new Twin Peaks interchange. It's a really steep hill, and was a nice increase to our normal flat 3.5 miles that we normally do.

Tuesday: This was my first double of the week. It started out at 5am with a Hill workout with the running group. About a dozen crazy individuals getting together to suffer as one. And suffer we did. The workout was 15x300 up a consistent grade. My target times for each set of five was decreasing at 1:28, 1:25, and finishing at 1:23. Let me just say....OW OW OW OW......1:28 seemed easy, I totally butchered and ran the next 5 too fast at 1:23. I then told the guy I had the same targets as to go ahead and I would try and keep up. And keep up I did, and I hit 4 of the 5 target times. The workout ended up at 5.9 miles on the Garmin and a little over 900 calories of fat SHREDDED. My second workout was Core Synergistics. That's an hour long Cardio Weights workout. OMG. Talk about another round of SWEAT drenching workouts. Over 1200 calories later, I was totally wiped out. So, 2100+ calories for Tuesday was a good P90X "Rest" day.

Wednesday: Well, I screwed this day up. Perhaps it was because I destroyed over 2100 calories the day before. Dunno. I was RIDICULOUS tired. So tired, that I never heard my alarm. I either didn't set it the night before, or subconsciously turned it off without even knowing it. What did that mean?? Well, it left Paul out in the cold. I always give him a hard time for missing, and it was my turn to take the ribbing. It also meant that I had to adjust my schedule. Normally Friday is my day off. Well, thanks to sleep in Wednesday, I am now going to run on Friday instead of sleeping in till 6am. No worries, I'm flexible.

Thursday: BACK to the grindstone of running with the group. I didn't sleep through my alarm and made it to the group run at 5am. Today's workout looked easy on paper. Well, that's the only place it looked easy. It was 4 sets of 800m, 400m and 400m. A total of 4 miles of HARD running. My target times were 3:50 for the 800s and 1:50 for the 400s. I have to say, I hit ALL but 3 of my target times. My first 800 was 3 seconds slow. I had 2 of my 400s 3 seconds slow. But, on the flip side of that, I had 3 800s that were all 5 seconds fast. So in the end, that all washes out. When you add in the warm up and cool down, I ended with 5.5 miles.

So, that leaves Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Right now I have a total of just over 15 miles for the week. Last week, I ran 22 miles. So, I am on track to easily run more miles then last week. Tomorrow I intend to run another 4 miles of the same course I ran on Monday. I may even make it 5 miles. That would take me to 20. Saturday, I'm going to run a 2 mile time trial. The group is running it at 6am, but I may have to run it before or later in the afternoon since we have the early football game. That will be a minimum of 4 miles. That would take me to 24. Then Sunday, probably 8-10 miles. That will take me over 30 miles for the first time in a long time. I also plan on adding in a Core Synergistics or Saturday and a Yoga on Sunday. I really love Yoga. It's such a great workout. You do SOOOO much without doing anything but move your body around. And the stretch at the end is such a relaxing end to such a great workout.

Finally, on the weight front, I did gain a couple of pounds from last weekends binge eating. By a couple, I mean 2 pounds. Not much, but still not the direction I wanted to go. I can say that those 2 pounds are gone. The scale is back where it should be, and I have just a little over 10 pounds to hit my goal. When I close out this week, I'll be at Day 56. Four days later (one week from Today) I'll be taking my Day 60 pictures. I have to say, there is a HUGE difference. I can see new things everyday in the mirror. I'm starting to see the top two layers of ABs, and I'm really starting to shed that fat. I think I have at least 15 pounds of fat left. I'm FEELING PHENOMENAL! It's incredible how strong I feel. Doing P90X and doing Mamma Micheles running workouts are HARD by themselves. TOGETHER, they're even harder. Some would say insane. But that's INSANITY......A totally different set of workouts that I'll probably take up once I'm tired of this. I actually don't see that happening anytime soon though.
And thank you for taking the time to read my journey. If I can help one person attain their goals, then I'm happy. If you're reading this, and are looking for someone to help you attain your own goals, head to http://www.beachbodycoach.com/kidstallyn. I can provide you with free support to help you attain your goals.
Keep pushing play, and keep bringing it.