Summa summa summa time! How’s your summer time fitness coming? I haven’t done a Fitness Friday post in a while, so this is going to be a catch-up post. Summer time is a hard time for me to stay in a routine in general, but this summer’s been especially difficult. We’ve had a lot of short trips, coupled with visits from grandparents and random activities that have made it tough to stay on a regular schedule. That makes fitness more challenging for me. I thrive on schedules and routines. Even though it’s been tough, I’m happy to say that I’ve kept up my fitness pretty well over these summer months.
It only takes four days to get out of shape.
Have you heard that before? Somewhere along the line a coach hammered that into my brain. Strangely, I can’t remember which coach it was, but those words have never left me. So, is it true? I’m not sure.
What I do know is that when we went to Michigan over the Fourth of July we were gone for five days and working out just didn’t happen. When I got home, I couldn’t wait to get back into it. (When I do get into a good fitness groove, I crave it like crazy and just feel off when I don’t workout for a period of time.) It took me a few days, though, to feel like I was back where I was when I left. So while I don’t think I was completely out of shape, those days off certainly did set me back some. I guess there was some truth to that coach’s words. What do you think?
Remember my Summer Fitness Bucket List? I’m checking things off!
My way of checking things off is to turn the line into a ray of sunshine (get it? It’s a #summerfitnessbucketlist in the shape of a sun!) and color it in. Here’s what I’ve checked off so far:
-Run a hill workout.
-Run 6 miles
-Do <1 speed workout on a track.
-Complete a 30 day Plank Challenge (started it…I’ll color it in when I complete it)
I posted the hill workout I did on my Facebook page, but if you didn’t see it, here it is:
I still have a lot of things to check off before summer ends, but I will do it!
I haven’t run in a road race yet, but I did run in a track meet. Yep, I sure did. When I went to the local high school track to do a speed workout, there was an older man doing a speed workout at the same time. We got to talking and he told me about summer track meets that were held at another local high school that were open to everyone. This man was in his 60’s and had competed in the senior olympics as a sprinter. He was 5th in the world in the 100 meter dash! How inspiring is that? Well, he inspired me to show up at one of the track meets.
I showed up feeling so weird about being there. It brought me back to high school and college–the smells, the atmosphere, everything. The only difference was that there were all ages here: the youngest competitor was probably 5 years old and the oldest was in the 60-70 year old range. With much trepidation, I signed up for the 100 meter dash and the 400 meter dash. I was in no way prepared to run either of these races, but I thought I could treat it as a speed workout.
I wish I could report that I did amazingly well and am just as fast as I was when I was in college. Ummm….no. In high school I ran the 100 in 12.33 and while I didn’t run the 100 in college, I did it as part of the 4X100 relay and clocked a 12.00 in those years. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you my 100 meter time as a 36-year-old. I was the oldest woman competing in the 100, the next oldest woman was 25. The other woman in my heat was in her low 20’s (I didn’t talk to her like I did the other woman, so that’s a guess) Aaaand both of those women beat me. I had a great start (the picture above shows the track marks on my knee after the race…) but couldn’t sustain my top speed very long. I finished in 14.24! Aaaaahhhh almost 2 seconds slower than my high school time and more than 2 seconds slower than college.
After the 100 a thunder storm started and the rest of the meet was cancelled so I didn’t get to do the 400. Saved by the storm! If nothing else, participating in the meet motivated me to get some speed back. It’s hard when I’m running longer distances, but I would love to work on my speed more.
I realize this post is more ramble-y than usual, but I just wanted to give you all an update on how this summer’s fitness is going. We have a week-long vacation coming up and I’m motivated to do some workouts at the beach! How’s your summer fitness coming along?
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