Well, hello Monday.  We meet again.

I think Jack understood the Illini loss even though he was asleep for the game.  His evening wake-ups were not cheerful.  Maybe it messed up his brackets?  Wisconsin’s loss messed with my final four picks.  Darn Badgers!  So when I was planning my Monday morning workout and saw “The Badger” I knew it was a good chance for redemption.

The Badger

3 Rounds for time:

30 65 lb squat clean

30 Pull-ups

Run 800m

This workout was modified due to Mr. Sleepy-pants.

I waited around for him to wake up to feed before heading out to the gym.  By the time I got to the gym I had enough time to do a bit of stretching, jump rope warm up and then performed as many reps of Badger as possible in 30 minutes.  I wish I could say that I can do an unassisted pull-up but these were all performed as jumping pull-ups.  And I was certainly not speedy on the squat cleans.  But I think I owned those 800’s. I made it through 2 complete rounds and 10 squat cleans before I had to head home.  My arms and legs have been getting progressively more tired throughout the day.

I hope your week is off to a great start!

Are you one of those people who loves Mondays?  If you answered yes, then I think you are lying.  Is anyone a Monday person?

Luckily I had a great workout ready to go to start my Monday.  I warmed up on the dreadmill treadmill and then got to work on this awesome AMRAP workout I borrowed from Jen at Peanut Butter Runner.  Great variety to keep my interest on an ADD Monday morning.  Good tunes help too.

And here’s a quick snapshot of my roasted veggie salad I mentioned in yesterday’s post.  (Let’s hope my officemate doesn’t think I’m too weird for taking pictures of my lunch)  Roasted beets, sweet potatoes and onions with black beans and wild rice on top of spinach.  Delicious!  I tend to do a lot of repeats for lunches during the week, so I will be having this same exact combo for the next two days.  I do a lot of salads for lunch and am always looking for some good variations.  Any salad addition recommendations for next week?

Hope your Monday was happy and productive!  One day closer to the weekend!

This morning on my drive home from the gym I started thinking about accountability.  There is something so motivating about showing up to a class where you see some of the same faces week in and week out.  I notice when one of the “regulars” isn’t there, and feel like the same happens if I’m missing.

I was talking with a friend last week about how much we miss meeting up in the mornings to workout.  I stopped going to Crossfit right before getting pregnant with Jack and she has continued to go (& is amazingly strong!).  In all of our time working out together I don’t think we ever bailed on one another and sometimes it was the best part of my day.  (Off topic:  Are any of you watching Crossfit Games on ESPN?  Crazy strong people!)

Luckily I have an awesome group of runner friends that love our morning meetups.  Now that I’m starting to get my pace back up I’m running with the gang again.  There are many times I’d rather hit snooze, but knowing my friends are expecting me is great accountability.  I know just how lucky I am to have these people in my life.  But I have also had times in my life when I haven’t had people physically near me for workout buddies, and would have loved to have had some extra incentive.

I love Wednesdays because although half of the week is over, you still have the second half to accomplish your goals.  Reflecting on my week I am very happy with my fitness efforts this week, and have recommitted to achieving my remaining goals through the end of the week…Back to the thought about not having workout buddies nearby or just wanting some extra accountability.  Feel free to add a comment about your fitness (or other) goals for the rest of the week for accountability.  We can check back in with each other at the end of the week.  I’ll go first:  I’m planning to meet up with my runner girls tomorrow morning, a sculpt fusion class Friday, and some strength training on Saturday.  I hope you have a great second half of the week!

This morning I started the day with me time. Good sweaty me time. When my alarm went off at 5:30am I was on autopilot and ready to hit the gym. Then I remembered that the new mom routine requires a couple of extra steps before heading out the door including pumping milk. After a 3 hour stretch of Jack not eating, pumping (or waking him to eat) is 100% mandatory to be able to do things like run. I think my wake-ups might need to be a little earlier – yikes!

After missing my Wednesday workout I wanted to make sure that today’s was sufficiently intense. I have a spiral bound notecard deck full of some of my favorite Crossfit and Crossfit inspired workouts and knew that any of them would be a great Thursday workout and that I wouldn’t have to think about putting exercises together. I randomly flipped the book open to “Kelly” which is a workout of 5 rounds of: 400m run, 30 box jumps, and 30 wall balls. So after a 15 minute warm-up on the elliptical I set out on this workout. You can bet I was breathless and sweaty by the end! If you want to check out proper form for any of these exercises make sure to visit Crossfit’s website as they have great instructional video clips.

After the workout, I rushed home to a hungry baby and had a leisurely morning of feeding and coo-ing before taking Jack to day care. When I put him in his teacher’s arms this morning he gave me his huge toothless grin. Today was certainly easier than yesterday – partly because of starting the day doing something good for myself and partly because I think we are starting to get more comfortable with the flow of our days. And who can really have a bad day when you get a genuine smile of love from such a sweet innocent face?

I hope your Thursday left you feeling happy and accomplished too!