Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of regular posts the last couple of days. I felt kind of off-sort of like I was stuck in a rut. That kind of bothers me since I haven’t really felt like that all summer, but I did feel that way some during school. I just didn’t feel like DOING anything. I skipped Crossfit last night, but I did get my butt in gear for a nice walk, which kind of threw me out of the funk. I’m pretty sure the funk may have been partly because I ate too many carbs…they mess with my brain!

Anyways, now that I’m done complaining, I’ll highlight some pictures from the last couple of days and get onto TODAY!

A pretty view of San Francisco from my walk the other today. Sad news-I finished my audiobook mid walk. This sure as heck beats mid-12 mile run, but meh. I feel a little nostalgic about that audiobook-it took me through my long runs of my first half marathon training!

This dinner was not really supposed to be this. The plan was to make a quesadilla with this recipe. However, my mom had to brief the guy taking care of our cats while we’re on vacation, and before I knew it it was 9pm and still no food. Instead of going through the effort of making the tortilla, I just microwaved the leftover meat we were planning on using with a can of diced tomatoes and pepper, plus taco seasoning. I also whipped up some guac. Add a bed of lettuce, and we were good to go! I may have gotten a little seasoning-happy. This was SPICY. (Well, keep in mind all the seasoning was mild…#wimp).

Thursday morning was the kitten nursery. I really do love working with them.

Followed by breakfast-it turned out to be much bigger than this but this is what I got on camera. Yesterday, I discovered I had 2 days to eat 6 mangoes. Challenge accepted. There’s one left. 

I also took a “cat nap.” Haha…I’m going to miss that when I go back to school!

Aaaand here’s some more food. Nothing too crazy. I want to get to today’s workouts!

Ok, onto today! 5:45am spin was cancelled due to Labor Day weekend. Booo. But it did give me an opportunity to sleep in a little and make my own spin workout. I really want to be a spin teacher someday, and it’s been a while since I’ve made my own class. Plus, I want to do a post on my local fitness blog about HIIT training, but…I’ve never done it before. So that would be a little hypocritical. I’ve been reading about the benefits in the book I’m reading, and so many bloggers do HIIT training. I designed an hour long class, which included 18 minutes of HIIT training. I did 1:00 of intense, all out work, followed by 1:15 of moderate intensity. I did this sequence 8 times through.

OMG I was DYING. I have NEVER worked that hard on a Spin bike before. To get the true benefits of HIIT, you really need to go 100% max effort during the minute on. Whew. Ouch. And why did I put this at the beginning of my class? For the intervals on, I did a mix of high resistance fast speed, and pretty high resistance super fast speed. My legs hurt….

Anyways, in case you’re wondering, I thought I’d post the “class” so you can all go out and feel my pain. Sound good?

Here’s the playlist I made.

And here’s the sequence:

(Song #)

1-Warm Up

2- Hill: increase resistance every minute and hold 80 RPMs

3-hill: heavy, hold 1:30 and then repeaters

4-first 2:00 downhill then start Hiit

5-9 HIIT then downhill

10-flat road endurance-hold 100 RPMs at working pace

11- hill- 30 sec intervals in/out of saddle

12- hill: heavy repeaters

13- hill: jumps (8 sec on saddle, 8 out/4 in/out, 2 in/out)

14- downhill, high speed (over 100 RPM)

15- flat road intervals

16- flat road intervals

17-cool down

*Repeaters- 20 seconds in saddle, 20 seconds standing straight, 20 seconds standing over bike

I followed this with 10 minutes of abs.

And then cursed myself for being dumb and not running BEFORE my spin workout. It’s one thing to not run before a 5:45am class, but when I could spin ANY TIME, and it’s not even early, I should run first.

4 miles were on the schedule for today. I actually did a decent portion of it on trails-which I hate but need to practice. It was pretty hot. And I did not choose my clothing very well. A big, thick, cotton t-shirt, already drenched in sweat. I was literally drowning in my own shirt. Eh. Oh well.

I decided to mix it up a little today shoe-wise and wear my Brooks. They actually felt better than I remember! Maybe it was my new inserts?

The rest of my day will be spent getting ready for tomorrow- I’M GOING TO HAWAII! I leave super early (well, as a regular at 5:45am spin it won’t be too bad…), so I have to get everything ready to go tonight! I need to go to the library for fun books and to look for new audiobooks. I also have Crossfit tonight…legs rest up quickly! I refuled from my sweaty run with my post-workout recovery drink (aka homemade chocolate milk) which I made in my Vitamix so I wouldn’t have to heat the milk, and could add in an extra ice cube or two.

In Hawaii, I actually have quite a few workouts planned. Which is probably good-it’ll keep me sane. I have 4-5 days of running, including 2 long runs. I’ve contacted some of the Crossfits in Maui, and will drop in for a class or two while I’m away as well. How cool is that??

I might pop in once or twice with a post while I’m away since I’m brining my laptop, but don’t worry-I’ve got you covered with some AWESOME guest posters while I’m gone! Like, really great. While I read the posts I kept wanting to comment!

I hope you all have a GREAT holiday weekend! I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures while I’m gone!

What are you doing this weekend?