Little Victories

Yesterday was a non-practice day which meant it was a "heavy" gym day for me (running and upper or lower body). I've tried running on practice days in the past and it usually meant a not so great practice. Of course, since I recently realized my nutrition was all out of whack, I could have easily been trying to practice on 500 calories or something.

Eating was great in the morning, though maybe a little carb heavy and I felt good pre-workout. Today I wanted to switch up my run in case my body was starting to get used to what I had been doing (Personal Running Trainer on iPhone), so I winged a little HIIT.

I started with a 3 minute warm-up walk, then bumped up to a 2 minute jog (5.5-6mph), followed by a 20-30 second sprint (about 8.5), then drop down to 3.0 to lower my heart rate a bit before I repeated the jog/sprint again for a total of 25 minutes. My goal was to keep my body guessing and vary my heart rate as much as possible. Much to my disbelief, I actually enjoyed this workout and felt damn good afterward.

After cardio came lower body: walking lunges, 3 minutes of squat and holds (20 seconds squatting/10 second hold while squatting), and hip thrusts. My legs are tight today, but I probably could have done a little more.

Like I said, my workout was good, but what I was really happy about were my little victories:

#1) My heart is getting healthier, ya'll! It used to be nothing for me to get my heart rate up. A very short jog could get my heart rate up to 199 with no problem, but I realized yesterday that the highest my HR got up to after sprinting was 176.

#2) Yesterday I finished a mile right at 10 minutes! As I mentioned a few posts ago, I hate the shit out of running, but it is undeniably good for me. Yesterday after incorporating sprints, I made that mile my bitch.

BONUS #3) This morning I was down another .4lbs. I don't know why, but at first I was kind of discouraged by this, but then I remembered that I have lost 2.4 lbs in 2 days and my goal is only to lose 2lbs per week. I'm losing weight and I'm not starving myself!!!

Every day I feel a little change and a little better. It's working!

Keep on keeping on, people :)