Dueling Alarm Clocks

Yesterday I got all suited up and headed over to the Terrier swim. When I got there, there were only a few people there. That wasn't too surprising as it has seemed like the last few times there haven't been a lot of people attending. The problem? No coach showed up. We all waited for about 15 minutes before giving up. It's a little frustrating to get all ready and then have no coach, but there isn't anything I can do about it.

This morning, Drew and I both set our alarms so that we could get up and go to the gymnasium. Except that we both kept hitting snooze, so our alarms were each going off every 5 minutes or so for quite a while before we both gave up and realized that we weren't going to get up early to go to the gym, so we turned off the alarms and slept in.

Today at work was our flu shot day. While we were waiting for the nurse to come in, the woman said that although your arm might be a little tender from where you get the shot, you can still exercise. I thought that was a bit of a bummer as I was hoping to have an excuse to skip the gym tonight. No such luck.

After work, Drew and I headed to the gym like we had planned this morning. My main purpose for going was to do my weight lifting. Drew took one look at the busy weight room area and said that he felt like punching someone, so I was left to lift all of the heavy things myself. The book said that this week was supposed to be challenging reps and that the last two reps should be really difficult. I bumped up the weights a little bit on some of the sets to try to make it harder. And it was! This is what I did:

Dumbbell Bench Press: 1 set of 15 reps @ 20 lbs (per arm) / 1 set of 12 reps @ 20 lbs
Lat Pulldown: 1 set of 15 reps @ 60 lbs / 1 set of 12 reps @ 70 lbs
Leg Press: 2 sets of 15 reps @ 110 lbs
Dumbbell Pullovers: 2 sets of 15 reps @ 20 lbs
Barbell Curls: 2 sets of 15 @ 25 lbs
Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 1 set of 15 @ 12.5 lbs (per arm) / 1 set of 10 reps @ 12.5 lbs
Crunches: 2 sets of 15

20 lbs on the Dumbbell Bench Presses wasn't my first choice, but there was a girl on the weight bench next to mine who was hoarding all of the free weights. I would have liked to do 15 or 17.5, but they all were being held hostage underneath her bench. Instead, I just did fewer reps the second set. I guess it all evens out. Also, my arms were dying by the time I got to the Dumbbell Shoulder Presses. They were exhausted during the second set. I could only eek out 10 and even that was a struggle.

After doing the crunches, I thought that maybe I should take Coach Spencer's advice from last week and try out some foam rolling on my shins. Holy cow. It was so painful. I had no idea. I had to grit my teeth to keep going and there were a couple of times where I couldn't even convince myself to roll backwards (after having already rolled forwards). Mostly, it made me want to yell out some really bad words, which I was yelling in my head, but kept to myself.

After the foam rolling, I still needed to do some cardio, even though I would have been happy to avoid it. I have to tell you, running after foam rolling your shins is not the best idea in the world! I tried to stick with it, but it wasn't really happening. I did a combo of walking and running and managed to get 2.5 miles, but then I was done for the day.

I did realize during the disaster of a run that perhaps the reason I don't like the actual shoelaces on my new shoes as much is that perhaps they're not as tight as the Jack-Rabbit laces, which causes my foot to slide around a little bit more than I'm used to. I think I'm going to give up and start using the laces that I like on the shoes, as that seems to be the best plan and then I'll have no reason to complain.

Weight Lifting
Time: 25:37
Calories: 184
Maximum HR: 154
Average HR: 125

Running
Distance: 2.5 miles
Time: 24:45
Pace: 9:54/mile
Calories: 316
Maximum HR: 188
Average HR: 172