Establishing my Dallas routine

They say that the most successful people are those who have routines – and I’m excited that I finally seem to be getting into some routine healthy behavior here in Dallas! It looks like I’ll be down here for another year at least, so it’s high time that I made my Dallas life start working for me in the long term.

A few weeks ago, I started checking out the Crossfit class that’s held out in the parking lot at noon. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always been kind of skeptical of the cult-like atmosphere that Crossfit has built up… but now I’m starting to take the first steps into joining that cult, and am considering signing up for a full time membership in Dallas! It would be nice to check out the box and also get to do more workouts with weights (we do a lot of bodyweight stuff since it’s hard for our coaches to bring all the equipment over). But even with the equipment limitations, yesterday’s and today’s workouts were both incredibly awesome. Want to get sweaty too? Here you go.

Monday:
Take a deck of cards, shuffle. Face cards are 10, numbered cards as valued. Flip each card and perform the movement and the number of reps specified. Cycle through the whole deck.
Hearts – Burpees
Diamonds – Pushups
Spades – Squats
Clubs – Situps
Aces (no matter what suit) – 200m run

Tuesday:
Start with the one rep exercise, then do the two rep exercise followed by the one rep exercise, then do the three rep exercise followed by the two rep and one rep exercises, etc. You are done when you’ve done the set that goes 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.
1 rep: 200m run
2 reps: Star jumps
3 reps: Pushups
4 reps: Mountain climbers (right then left = one rep)
5 reps: Tuck jumps
6 reps: Lunges (one leg = one rep)
7 reps: Squats
8 reps: Burpees

I love these types of workouts where we mix it up and do a ton of different things for time – it makes it so much fun, and I’m always trying to push myself to go faster! Also, since I usually have to skedaddle from class to a meeting, my lunch has become pretty routine – a grilled chicken wrap with lettuce, tomato, onion, and mustard, sometimes with a side of salad if I’m feeling extra hungry. Not having time to ponder my options seems to be helping me just grab my new default, and since it’s healthy, that’s definitely a good thing.

The other routine I’m getting pumped up about? Running. Thanks to all your great suggestions last week, I’ve downloaded a few podcasts to check out, and tonight I did 1.5 miles on the Katy Trail listening to Marathon Training Academy. And once it started to get dark? I linked up with the Lululemon Katy Trail Blazers running club, which provided great company for another 3 miles. It was definitely pretty hot and humid (actually, it started raining just as I was getting back to my car!), but I was still proud to keep a decent pace throughout, especially since I was feeling pretty tired from the Crossfit workout/running earlier. This was my first time running with the Blazers, but I think I’m going to try to make running with them on Tuesday nights another one of my weekly rituals. It’s certainly a healthy habit to adopt!

And post-run? I always (okay, the two times I’ve run in Dallas so far) stop by Whole Foods to hit up their salad bar. It’s great to get to eat something where I can control what’s going into it, instead of having some random chef adding mysterious ingredients! Almost makes me feel like I’m “cooking” instead of having something prepared for me. (Fine, that may be stretching it, but it’s still nice to have control over my dinner.)

Do you do better with a routine or variety?