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!