Hello, Abs!! Nice to meet you, Core!!
Oh my Glute-ness — it’s been a long time since I last visited you …
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Eleven days ago I started doing the “Insanity” workout series on DVD. It was my Mother’s Day gift to myself.
Holy crunches! It is ridiculously hard BUT I like it … so far.
The first few days my glutes and shoulders ached like they haven’t in a very, very long time.
“Insanity” is a DVD series produced by Beachbody. The instructor is choreographer “Shaun T.” You’ve probably seen it on Sunday morning infomercials. The Insanity regime and diet promises you to transform you from mush to hard-body within 60 days.
Insanity peaked my interest because I have friends on Dailymile who’ve followed Insanity and other programs like it such as P90X and they swear by them.
I also turned to “Insanity” for a bigger reason: After I finished Boston last year and my BQ honeymoon was over, I felt let down. I needed another goal.
How DO you top your running goals after you qualified for Boston, and you have run the Boston Marathon? Do you even NEED to top that?
These are questions I have been asking of myself now for awhile.
It’s sort like any big event in your life and the aftermath. How do you deal with the hype when it’s all over?
Boston has been that way for me.
I like setting my sights on new goals and I’ve been struggling to find my next one.
Many of the women I’ve profiled on Boston or Botox have turned to ultras after Boston. (In fact, one of the posts I’m planning to write soon is a recap of where many of them are today.)
The idea of running an ultra (a race longer than 26.2 miles) appeals to me; however, the training does not fit into my lifestyle right now.
Enter “Insanity” into my life.
No, I can’t plan for an ultra at the moment but I CAN get in better shape.
AND I would love to become a “serial” qualifier — someone who’s qualified for Boston more than once. (I’m sure becoming stronger will help.)
Insanity comes with a schedule of which specific workouts and DVDs to do each day; you work out six days a week and rest completely one day a week.
Each session is roughly 40 minutes. You start with a warm-up (about 10 minutes); then there’s stretching (5 minutes), high-intensity intervals (20 minutes), and a cool-down and more stretching (5 minutes).
It doesn’t sound like much at first, especially compared to hours and hours on end of running day in and day out, but in essence it’s boot camp everyday, microwaved.
You work at an extreme intensity for a quick duration.
Whereas traditional interval training might get your heart rate up for 30 seconds and then have you rest, with Insanity you get your heart rate up for three minutes straight during the intervals with only a 30-second recovery, and then go again and again.
Each time I finish a workout I end up sweating more than a pitcher of Coors sitting out in the July sun at Mile High Stadium. And “Shaun T.” gets me hopping and jumping and squatting and push-upping and wide-legged sprinting like I’m Peyton Manning.
I’ve joked to my husband that I think I’ll be ready for Broncos summer training camp at Dove Valley by the time “Shaun T.” is finished with me.
I already can see some improvements. Other exercises are so difficult I look like an idiot and I’m glad to be doing them alone in my basement so no one else sees how embarrassingly weak I am at them. (Yes, Shaun T. is also serving me humble pie.)
You have to start somewhere, I guess. And it’s good to mix things up to get your body and new muscle groups stronger.
Time will tell if “Insanity” turns me buff or simply “deranged.”
Do you cross train, too? If so, what do you do? Have you ever tried Insanity or P90X?
I’d love to hear from you, too.
Until then, as the “ab-tastic” Shaun T. himself would say: “Dig deeper! You can do it! You can do it!”
Peace out, y’all.
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“Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Lace up your shoes, and let’s go!”
Mileage yesterday: 6; Mileage for 2012: 508