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Winding down week three (I never logged my first week haha) with a second strength workout and a run tomorrow. squats" 30-30-35 push ups; 17-15-14 lunges: 18/18-18/18-16/16 planks: 65-45-46 Well I met my squats goal from last week and my planks one for now, which is good. I wondering why I'm doing that so fast because I have no idea. Mind over matter? Working on those push ups and lunges, but it's a struggle when I get to those last few in the final set. It's going, that's all I can say about it.

Update from Tuesday: Strength: Squats: 25-25-30 Push ups: 15-15-12 Lunges: 17/17-15/15-15/15 Planks: 62-40-34 I moved up in lunges and managed a few more push ups. My goal is to reach 50 push ups on my knees so I have a good base for standard push ups. I definitely have the most muscle strain with push ups and lunges. Planks seem to be a lot of mind over matter and I want to work on getting my second and third sets longer, getting them up to 45 and 35 respectively to start. squats I do well in, I'm making some relatively big jumps in them and I'm pretty sure I can do more a set but I don't want to ramp it all up too fast and hurt myself. Next time I'm aiming for 30 across the board and to hover there for a little bit and see what kind of progress I can make. I'm going to over the next few weeks get up to 20 lunges across the board and hopefully 20 push ups as well. Keeping up with it all on Excel is working pretty well. I'm having a lot of fluctuation in my weight and my measurements, but for now I'm not going to worry about it and I'm just going to concentrate on doing my thing and making progress there. My measurements at week 8/beginning of week 9 are what I'm really going to pay attention to.

Updating pretty much the whole week all at once. Sunday I had a great day doing fun things. As a late birthday gift my boyfriend (Cody) and I went to the zoo and walked around for about 6 hours, staring at pandas and taking pictures of seals. I had worked out the day before so I was really feeling it. It wasn't a "workout" so much of a "get out an do fun things that make me move lots." Tuesday Cody and I went for what is becoming our weekly run. 1.47 miles at an average of 13.41 minutes/mile. I will eventually be able to run next to him instead of half a block behind him, but he has a huge stride and it takes me three steps to make one of his. Today was strength and a ton of stretching. Squats: 20-20-25 Push ups: 12-12-12 Lunges: 15/15-12/12-12-12 Planks: 61-43-33 I jumped up in a couple areas, made a big leap. Mostly that's just a confidence thing I think becausee I took that break and I was so worried I wouldn't be able to do things like I was before. Clearly, I can still do a lot and that's a good feeling.

I'm coming back off a bout of not working out because I am a lazy person and I'm in the thick of grad school right now. As a lover of superhero metaphors, it seems that I hung my cape up for about three months and stopped trying to reach my goals. Well that's stopping now and I'm putting the cape back on. Today I did my first strength workout of the week and followed it up with a 1.25 miles run (3rd run of the week). Strength went like this: squats/push ups (rest) 3x lunge/plank (rest) 3x squats: 15 reps 3x push ups: 7 - 10 - 10 lunges: 10/10 3x plank: 41 - 30 - 31 From my 3 runs this week I'm averaging 14.06 min/mile which is better then where I was when I started last time; I'm pleased that I haven't had too much of a back slide. My goals have changed since I started, fell off the wagon, and got back on again. I'm in the thick of graduate school now and an internship that I do two and half days a week. I'm getting close to being a Real Adult as opposed to a person of technical adult age who lives with their parents and still has trouble making decisions on my own sometimes. My relationship isn't a " okay we're dating" type of thing anymore, it's more of a "oh shit I don't think we're ever breaking up" kind of thing. Life has changed and moved on, basically, and I need to establish good habits before I get out in the world mostly on my own. Currently I'm 169.6 lbs (I was 170 last Sunday). The measurements I'm tracking are thigh, stomach, and hips (25.5, 37, 42.75). I've got a spread sheet and everything because I'm a dork and love Excel. My biggest goals are just to establish good habits and manage my FM. My secondary goals are spread out over the next 7 weeks and they are 1) loose 10 pounds and reduce my measurements 2) Take my average mile time down from 14.06 m/m to 10 m/m

Today I did my first strength workout of the week and followed it up with a 1.25 miles run. Strength went like this: squats/push ups (rest) 3x lunge/plank (rest) 3x squats: 15 reps 3x push ups: 7 - 10 - 10 lunges: 10/10 3x plank: 41 - 30 - 31 From my 3 runs this week I'm averaging 14.06 min/mile which is better then where I was when I started last time; I'm pleased that I haven't had too much of a back slide. My goals have changed since I started, fell off the wagon, and got back on again. I'm in the thick of graduate school now and an internship that I do two and half days a week. I'm getting close to being a Real Adult as opposed to a person of technical adult age who lives with their parents and still has trouble making decisions on my own sometimes. My relationship isn't a " okay we're dating" type of thing anymore, it's more of a "oh shit I don't think we're ever breaking up" kind of thing. Life has changed and moved on, basically, and I need to establish good habits before I get out in the world mostly on my own. Currently I'm 169.6 lbs (I was 170 last Sunday). The measurements I'm tracking are thigh, stomach, and hips (25.5, 37, 42.75). I've got a spread sheet and everything because I'm a dork and love Excel. My biggest goals are just to establish good habits and manage my FM. My secondary goals are spread out over the next 7 weeks and they are 1) loose 10 pounds and reduce my measurements 2) Take my average mile time down from 14.06 m/m to 10 m/m

Today managed 1.40 miles run with my boyfriend! Downside, forgot a fork to eat my dinner with in class.

Sketchitar: Respawning Sketchitar is not always good at life and I know why. I hit all the "oh well let's just take a break" walls for fitness. New relationship (not so new now), graduate school, and an internship (wtf is free time) so I gave up on my superhero alter ego for a little while. That was all well and good and I thought I was still eating pretty okay until I realized I was hurting again. That's the funny thing about FM, it's hard to realize when you're in pain again because it's still a normal resting state for you. Then I noticed my pants are not fitting so great. So I stepped on the scale and . . . I've gained 10 pounds since the last time I was on here. I'm a 170 pounds. I was 180 in high school and got down to 155 at my lowest after that. So I went on a 2.49 mile run and i found out that even though my cape got a little dusty, I can still be a super hero. I even used my 20 seconds of insanity, and the motivation of Crazy Train coming on Pandora, and went up the Monster Hill. I usually use the bottom of it as the turn around on my route because it's Huge and Long and Steep (all of those deserve capital letters). I also made myself a nice little spread sheet with my goals and a table to track my progress over the next 8 weeks. I'll write more specifically about those later, but the big one is to be 10 pounds down. And in three weeks I want to be able to go 3 miles on a run. So here we go again, only smarter and better this time.

I actually haven't stopped running, I just fell off the planet for a bit while I adjusted to my new job. Not to say I didn't slack on my three weekly runs, but I did get at least one a week done while I was adjusting to the bakery. In other news, I am working on a program (probably not sophisticated enough to call it that) for body weight exercise to work on that whole joint mobility deal and allow my muscles to support my joints when they hurt. Longest run so far: 2.90 miles! Longest sustained distance: 2.25 miles!

2.14 miles 29:18 total 13:41 minutes per mile 13.29/14:11/11:27

2.14 miles 29:18 total 13:41 minutes per mile 13.29/14:11/11:27 YAY

If any one else is counting, it's now TWELVE days of rain (some news organizations count 14 to 15) and we're starting to feel a bit like Noah over here. So instead of going running and risking busting my butt on the road, I decided to google up a Fitness Blender workout because, hey, that's how I lost the weight after high school. *angry buzzer sound here* What looked like a good, 60 minute workout turned out to be Hips From Hell. Having my FM mainly target my hips, I've had a cortisone shot in my right hip--basically they lubed up my joint so it doesn't hurt to move it as much. Well now it hurts. I made it half way through, I was sweating at some point, and may have gotten some good lower back strengthening in but NEVER AGAIN. At least not that one ever again. But I did work out for 30 minutes so there's that. Not my plan, not what I wanted to do, and feeling kind of not work it, but whatever. I did something.

And thus we enter the eleventh day of rain in Northern Virginia. 1 hour/11 miles stationary bike followed by 10 push ups & 60 second plank X3. Stretch to cool down.

It is cold and it is sprinkling here in Northern Virginia.I sat through a pointless web meeting for a class that is over. But today I did my run. Distance: 2.09 miles Time: 27:48 Pace: 13:18 min/mile Splits: 13:29--13:21--10:41 (this was REALLY steep down hill for 250 feet) Judging from the little charts, I'm really bad at keeping pace. I also know I pushed too hard in that first mile and on my uphills because I could feel it and I spent most of the second mile walking. It does not help that my route is ALL HILLS and I always manage to time my walking so I have to run uphill. Finished off with stretching and some yoga, and a 60 second plank. Woo!

Right now I'm going through one of those interesting times in life where everything is shifting about two inches to the left so you keep knocking into all the furniture. I'm graduating with my BSW on the 14th and starting my MSW on June 27th. I'm in a relatively new relationship with a man I love very much. I'm starting a new part time job tomorrow (right now I wait tables, I'm starting at a 3 AM baker somewhere else). And my parents are starting to take moving seriously. In the midst of all this I am still fighting my greatest enemy: fibromyalgia. This means that, as far as science knows, my nerves basically had a panic attack, got used to being panicked, and stayed that way so I'm in pain pretty much 90% of the time. Really I don't notice most of it because I'm used to it. The way to fight it is a nerve blocking medication (umm, no.) or with things like reducing gluten, aerobic exercise, yoga, and loosing weight. Current states: 160 lbs. 41"-36"-41" (chest, waist, hips) Goal stats: 153 lbs. 41"-34"-41" (those two are not moving much, trust me.) Plan: Make dinner 1-2x weekly (I'm 20, live with my parents, I like cooking) Run: 3 normal runs weekly, 1 long run. (current normal is 2 miles, I cool down and stretch with some yoga. I track and rate my runs with Run Keeper.) Other: 2 other work outs weekly (cross training, strength training, whatever. Doesn't have to be on a different day, could just be a long workout day) Life: finish two quilt tops, a skirt, and a dress. Tracking: Pictures weekly, measure weekly.

Did my first run today since September! I did 2.10 miles in 30:00 minutes, at 14:19 minutes per miles! During the run I felt okay, after it I felt pretty great. I am very proud of myself and I'm glad I convinced myself I could run 2 miles.