One year later, a whole lot stronger

Today was an extremely busy and productive day! Unfortunately, in order to accomplish everything and make my flight, I had to be up at 4:30am… yuck! I scurried through an abbreviated morning routine (no workout, shower) in order to catch my 6am flight home… but it was totally worth it in order to have a day in New York to just get things done.

My project’s big launch was yesterday, so this week has been pretty intense and low on sleep. Last night, I bailed on the group dinner in favor of getting to bed early… but ended up not getting to bed till 10pm. I suppose that’s early enough, but with a 4:30am wakeup call and me short on sleep, I was hoping for more like 8pm! Oh well – hopefully I can catch up on my mini-vacation in Bermuda this weekend (you know, because marathon vacations are so relaxing and restful).

Due to the extreme rain and win, and the fact that I was on my usual teeny turboprop back from Charlottesville, the flight was the most turbulent I have ever experienced (and I fly a lot. One minute things were a little bit bumpy, and the next, things were flying around the cabin (including my laptop, which flew off of my tray table and into the aisle before I could reach for it). The flight attendant urgently asked everyone to hold onto anything thye could or stow it under their seats, but warned us not to get up to retrieve or stow anything – not that I would have tried with all the sharp sudden drops we were making! I still had a book in my hand, but I couldn’t concentrate on it – instead choosing to pray that the flight would eventually arrive safely. Scary stuff!

We landed in the middle of a big downpour, but right on time at 7:30am. I headed for the US Airways club to get some work done before picking up my rental car at 9am, which I gratefully used for a quick trip to Ikea before its intended purpose of heading home. By lunchtime, I was proud to say that I had flown home, unpacked, redecorated my living room (except for painting – that will come in two weeks), gone to the library, and hit up the hardware store for a new set of keys. That’s more than I usually get done in a whole weekend!

The rest of the afternoon and evening was slightly less frenetic, but I still caught up on work/email, did laundry, and packed. Packing was a pretty big ordeal this week – I had to pack a small suitcase for my Bermuda trip tomorrow, and then since I wouldn’t be getting home until about 11pm on Sunday night and would have to be back on a flight to Virginia first thing Monday morning, I opted to pack a separate suitcase for the next week so it would be mostly all ready to go. But since I’m heading straight to a family ski trip in Vermont from my Virginia work week, that meant double duty packing for that bag as well! I really had it covered: beachwear/marathon gear for Bermuda; business casual, workout clothes and party clothes for work in Virginia (we’re having our launch party next week, after things calm down); and winter wear / ski gear for Killington next weekend. If I took both of those suitcases with me, I’d pretty much be set for any destination!

I had intended to get in a really intense workout yesterday as well, but didn’t end up having time to squeeze it in. However, my best friend has recently decided to get serious about fitness (at least for the next day or two until he gets distracted and gives up, though I’ve tried many times in the past to get him to stick with it), and I had agreed to go workout with him and put him through his paces, personal trainer-style. I had originally thought we’d hit the weight room and I’d give him some free weight routines to try, but decided instead to have him do the Insanity Fit Test. I knew it would be really hard, but I thought that perhaps doing something so numbers-oriented and focused would motivate him to stick with a workout routine (and give him a wakeup call!).

I hadn’t done Insanity since last summer, and I thought I’d be crazy out of shape and not able to do any of it. However, I surprised myself – while I didn’t do quite as many reps of each exercise as I would have liked, I recovered fairly easily from each one – especially compared to Mat, as he collapsed onto the floor and begged me to pause the video while a pool of sweat collected around him. (To his credit, one of the breaks we took was when he insisted on Swiffer mopping the floor in between… so he has made the commitment to keeping his apartment clean).

I felt pretty good about my numbers – they weren’t as high as when I ended Insanity in June (except for power jumps, which I beat all previous numbers – score!), but they were nowhere near as dismal when I first tried the program last spring (except for pushup jacks – oops). Given that I haven’t done the program in 7 months, I think that speaks to my overall fitness being stronger, rather than it just being specialization of certain exercises. Woo hoo! Check it out:

I ended the brief workout feeling pretty proud of myself – and surprisingly not nearly as sweaty as I used to get from all these Insanity shenanigans. Perhaps it’s time to give it another go? It could be a lot of fun to do it with Mat and motivate each other when we just don’t feel like “pressing play”!