Chelsea's 6 Week Challenge Sep 8 - Oct 20

[cacodaemonia]

Thanks Hannibal. I suspect I won't have all As for the challenge as a whole, unless I can pull off (haha, see what I did there?) that pullup by Thursday morning, but we'll see!

I did end up registering for the 5K on the 28th. It will be in the evening, so I'll have to be careful with what I eat that day. I'm used to running in the mornings, so hopefully I won't have any digestive upset. I ran a 5K a couple weeks ago at about 29 minutes, I think. So I guess I'll try to beat that. I wonder if I can bring my phone with me...? I always use that to tell me how fast I'm going, so without it I don't think I'd have a clue.

+++

Meditated after yoga this evening. I don't know if it was exactly five minutes, but it was somewhere around there.

No sugar. I continue to be shocked out how easy this part of the challenge has been. I really didn't think I'd be able to do it.

Still greasing the groove on the neg pullups. I've gotten to the point where I'm just giving myself a nudge off the chair to get myself up even with the bar, then slowly releasing down. So definitely making progress, but I don't know if it's going to happen by the end of Wednesday.

Uhhh, what else...? Oh right, running. I ran 1.7 miles (9:21 pace) with Azu this morning.

[cacodaemonia]

Greasing the groove on neg pullups, no sugar, rest day for running, meditated about 7 minutes but it was interrupted in the middle by my housemates' retarded little dog who wouldn't stop barking.

[faraxk]

Greasing the groove on neg pullups, no sugar, rest day for running, meditated about 7 minutes but it was interrupted in the middle by my housemates' retarded little dog who wouldn't stop barking.

Doh! Our cat does that to me too. It's like, can't you see I'm meditating and don't want to pet you right now?

You have totally rocked your challenge! Awesome job! Can't wait to see what you come up with for your next one!

[Robzilla1983]

Do you give the dogs water breaks on your runs? I drive a bit to get to my usual trail, and I always leave a bottle in the car when we are on the run. I've got a portable bowl, so when we get ack to the car I fill it up for him. Always a bit concerned that we should stop for breaks in the run though. His bowl attaches to the leash so the I my extra weight would be the water bottle. I figure this time of year it's cool enough, and lately it's overcast, not sunny, when we go so I think it's probably ok.

[cacodaemonia]

Thanks farax! I'm looking forward to your challenge as well.

Rob - I don't normally bring water for Azu when I run with her, but she's also in mixed breed in very good condition, and unless it's cool out we run quite early in the morning. If I were silly enough to try to take Storm, my greyhound, on a run, he would definitely need water, and obviously long-haired or short-nosed breeds might overheat more easily as well. Dwight is a golden retriever, right? So he's got the long hair, but they're also sort of a sporting breed, so I bet he's pretty good at cooling off... Another option is to get him a backpack and make him carry the water. This is the one Azu wears on all our walks/runs/hikes. On daily walks she carries about 8# of weights in it, on runs usually 4#, on hikes she hauls our water, and on Saturdays she carries veggies back from the farmer's market!

+++

Yesterday I meditated after yoga, greased the groves on neg pullups, avoided sugar even though I kind of wanted a sweet alcoholic beverage in the evening, and didn't run (rest day).

Today Azu and I ran a 5K to the dog park. We finished in 28:01 (with two short pee breaks for Azu and a brief traffic light, during which my phone paused the clock) for a pace of 8:59/mile or 5:53/km, which, aside from a 1.5 mile run I did a week or two ago, is the fastest pace I've had yet. I felt like I was going slowly, probably because the dry weather is making it harder for me to breathe. My mouth and throat get SO dry when I run in low humidity. Blech.

Anyway, so that was the run, still greasing the groove and lowering myself down more slowly, no sugar today, and meditated a little while ago. I wasn't able to concentrate very well though, because I'd just spoken with the peeps at the humane society, and they said that someone is interested in adopting Boomer! So I'm hopeful!

[Robzilla1983]

Well I feel better on the water situation now, thanks

I figured he was OK. Just always interested to hear what other people are doing, especially where you run a similar distance/speed

[cacodaemonia]

No processed sugar, but I did have a treat of some honey in the coffee I bought this afternoon. Honey is allowed though, according to my challenge rules.

Greasing the groove on the neg pullups. Two more day to try and get a real pullup in!

Meditated this evening.

Rest day for running. Last run of the challenge is tomorrow.

Blech, I've been feeling pretty crappy and stressed out the past few days, and I guess that's been making me overeat. I feel like I'm overeating, anyway. I have IBS so sometimes that causes me to feel bloated and full even when I haven't eaten much. So maybe it's a combination of the two, but I need to get back on track tomorrow. I mean, I've been eating all healthy foods, but still, I feel gross. And for some reason, even though I exercise every day, I've been feeling like it's not enough lately. I guess I feel like I have more energy that I could be using? I dunno, my brain is crazy. Sorry about the whining!

[faraxk]

I'm sorry you're feeling so crummy! You've been doing a great job with your challenge. I hope your body (and brain ) get back to feeling balanced soon.

And you guys are moving to Vegas? When is that? Did you get jobs there?

[cacodaemonia]

Thanks. Well, yesterday I thought it was pretty certain, but then Nick just had another potential job offer, so who knows! Augh, it stresses me out for all this to be so up in the air.

+++

Today was my last run for this 6 week challenge: 2.2 (9:01 pace) miles with Azu. I felt pretty good, though Azu kept lying to me and pretending she had to pee. >:[ Anyway, that's a total of 7 miles for week 6.

Still greasing the groove on neg pullups. I just have to give myself a little push off the chair to get up over the bar, but if I try to pull myself up with only my upper body strength I don't go anywhere at all. :/

No sugar so far today, and I don't foresee having any problems the rest of the day.

Meditated after yoga. It felt very nice to just lie there for a while in the heat.

[cacodaemonia]

My six weeks ended last night. Here were my initial goals:

Diet/Fitness:

1. Consume no refined sugar or foods that contain refined sugar. I'm allowing myself honey and stevia, but only a tiny bit.

2. Run 4-6 miles per week. I don't want to do too much in case I aggravate my healing Achilles injury.

3. Do at least one pull-up. This involves getting a pull-up bar first.

Life:

1. Practice mindfulness meditation 5 minutes each day. If I miss one day, I have to do 10 the next day to make up for it.

And here are the results:

Fitness:

Run 4-7 miles per week: I adjusted my goal so that I could run up to 7 miles per week during the latter 3 weeks. I met all of my weekly goals (interval training, trail runs, 5Ks), and stayed within the 4-7 miles/week range. Very happy with my running progress, and most importantly, I'm starting to kinda-maybe-sorta enjoy it.

A

Do at least 1 pull-up: I got a pullup bar, started doing sets of negative pullups every other day (was incredibly sore for the first week or two), and during the last two or two and a half weeks I've been "greasing the groove" with the negative pullups. That seems to be increasing my strength more effectively than doing sets, but I still haven't been able to do an actual, full pullup. Lots of effort but did not reach my goal.

C

Diet:

Consume no refined sugar or foods that contain refined sugar: This was waaaay easier than I thought it was going to be! I had a couple unintentional slip-ups where I consumed a tiny amount of processed sugar, but I never once deliberately gave into any cravings.

A

Life:

Practice mindfulness meditation 5 minutes each day: I actually managed to do this, only missing one day, which I made up for the next day by meditating for 10 minutes.

A

Overall: B+

Despite the pullup fail, I'm going to keep working at it, and otherwise I'm very happy with my results! I definitely couldn't have stuck with it if you wonderful NF peeps didn't keep me accountable.

[scotticus]

My six weeks ended last night. Here were my initial goals:

And here are the results:

Fitness:

Run 4-7 miles per week: I adjusted my goal so that I could run up to 7 miles per week during the latter 3 weeks. I met all of my weekly goals (interval training, trail runs, 5Ks), and stayed within the 4-7 miles/week range. Very happy with my running progress, and most importantly, I'm starting to kinda-maybe-sorta enjoy it.

A

Do at least 1 pull-up: I got a pullup bar, started doing sets of negative pullups every other day (was incredibly sore for the first week or two), and during the last two or two and a half weeks I've been "greasing the groove" with the negative pullups. That seems to be increasing my strength more effectively than doing sets, but I still haven't been able to do an actual, full pullup. Lots of effort but did not reach my goal.

C

Diet:

Consume no refined sugar or foods that contain refined sugar: This was waaaay easier than I thought it was going to be! I had a couple unintentional slip-ups where I consumed a tiny amount of processed sugar, but I never once deliberately gave into any cravings.

A

Life:

Practice mindfulness meditation 5 minutes each day: I actually managed to do this, only missing one day, which I made up for the next day by meditating for 10 minutes.

A

Overall: B+

Despite the pullup fail, I'm going to keep working at it, and otherwise I'm very happy with my results! I definitely couldn't have stuck with it if you wonderful NF peeps didn't keep me accountable.

So much success - great work! Looking forward to your next challenge.

[Hannibal]

B+? Great job! Too bad you couldn't get the pullup done, but hey, you can't force yourself to get stronger, right? Sometimes things just take longer than expected. Are you going to keep trying and work toward that in the next challenge too?

[cacodaemonia]

Yeah, the continuing lack of a pullup is really disappointing to me. :/ I do plan to continue working on it in the next challenge, though.

[cacodaemonia]

One last post in this thread to link to my new 6 Week Challenge thread: http://nerdfitness.com/community/showthread.php?5704-Chelsea-s-6-Week-Challenge-Oct-24-Dec-5

BAM.