Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Insanity Day 1

This picture of our barn has nothing to do with this post, but I wanted to share it anyway!
Our dogwoods have been so pretty this spring.

Insanity + Running = Torture

I barely survived Day 1 of Insanity--the Fitness Test. The workout lasted only 32 minutes, but it was TOUGH! My three oldest children watched me try to keep up with Sean T. I was glad to provide them with such comical entertainment at 6:30 in the morning!

This workout consisted of a series of exercises performed for one minute, counting how many you could do in that one minutes. There was also a warm-up, stretching session, and cool-down. After I was finished, I could hardly walk! I continued to be super sore all day, and I had a difficult time going up and down our stairs.

Then I ran.

My legs felt like 100 pound weights. I ran two miles with Leah, and thankfully she needed frequent walk breaks. I ran one more mile alone to have 3 miles in all, and it was PAINFUL. Those three miles were as bad as the last three of my marathon. Really. When I got home, and I climbed the stairs from the garage to the kitchen, I was ready to cry. My legs hurt that bad! And they hurt in places that never hurt after my long runs.

I consulted my friend who had done both Insanity and continued to run. She reported that she was extremely sore for 2-3 weeks! And that her legs felt like lead while running, and that it was a struggle to run at first. So, my soreness and fatigue were normal.....but I began to question myself. Do I really even want to torture myself this way? Last week when I totally rested from running after the marathon, and the week before when I ran very little before the marathon, I felt so good. I was not tired all of the time. Yesterday that familiar feeling of fatigue accompanied me all day, and every time I moved, something hurt. Why am I doing this?

After discussing all of this with Jimmy last night, he asked me what my fitness goals were. Here they are:

1. Maintain my current size.
2. Keep up my weekly running mileage so that I can run a half-marathon whenever I want.
3. Train for the St. Jude Marathon beginning in late August.
4. Run the St. Jude Marathon in under 5 hours. I would be thrilled with a time of 4:59.
5. Run a 10K in under 55 minutes. (not going to happen this May!)

Does Insanity help me to achieve any of these goals? Probably not. Insanity is an extreme workout. Super-charged aerobics. Lots of jumps and squats. It is a great workout, and if you follow it, you WILL be in great shape. But I think I am just going to stick with running. I really don't want to be sore for three weeks, and I am really afraid that I may end up injuring myself. Like Jimmy said, I AM 41! And I haven't done aerobics in about 18 years! My muscles are specifically trained right now to run, and I am just going to keep in shape by running.

So now I am going to rest from running until my muscles are no longer sore. I am hoping to be able to run by Thursday or Friday. Then I will finish my 12 miles for this week and run 14 the next.

So that's my one and only Insanity report!

3 comments:

  1. I'm so disappointed that I won't have you a couple of steps ahead of me the whole time. I think at this phase in my life Insanity will be helpful. I don't like running in the morning before I've nursed and somehow at 10:30 pm I don't feel like going outside to run. I think an exercise DVD will help me get in the workout at home at night. My husband, who is not interested in doing Insanity AT ALL, says my evening workout will help him get to the gym (he doesn't even want to see me do it.) I guess we'll see if it works for us. Thanks for sharing!

    Celee

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  2. I wish we lived near one another ,too. I'm sort of running 2 nights a week and sometimes on the weekend. I say sort of because it's not very far or fast. I want to do insanity straight through, but know we will travel before the 60 days is up. I guess I'll have to improvise. I'm excited about it, but scared, too. I ordered it Sunday morning after I read your blog. If it comes in the next couple of days, I'll start Saturday.

    Celee

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  3. wow, it sounds hard! I am going to take on Insanity after this little one is born! :)

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