Category Archives: CROSS TRAINING

MONTHLY TOTALS

If you would like to contribute to Liz’s Bike to Build at NBSS fund, click here :

Sitting on my couch on the last day of May 2014, I am looking at my monthly workout calendar and reflecting back on how much things have progressed in terms of my fundraiser in the last 31 days. Here is a peek at the monthly totals as I can recall and itemize them:

  • 23 individual bike rides totaling 340.7 miles (averaging 14.8 miles per ride), which will be increasing considerably over the next 11 weeks until my ride to NYC
  • Walked Hope 860 minutes, or 14.3 hours
  • Biceps: Lifted 992 repetitions, Back: Lifted 945 repetitions, Legs: Lifted 1,212 repetitions, and Chest/Shoulders/Triceps: Lifted 1,318 repetitions
  • Drank 560 ounces of G2 Gatorade and a lot more ounces of H2O
  • One GREAT tune-up of Old Yeller at The Bicycle Link
  • 59 plus hours of grooving to Spotify tunes
  • $2145.00 Raised ($400.00 which went to South Shore Habitat for Humanity) from 30 separate donors, averaging $71.50 per donation. LOTS  MORE TO RAISE, so feel free to donate here.
  • 20 thank you notes written with 10 more to do…and I’m happy to do plenty more, so keep it coming :)
  • 15 Facebook status updates and 22 emails sent on fundraising, bicycling, and training
  • Registered for one 50 mile Ride for Habitat to benefit South Shore Habitat for Humanity on June 21, 2014
  • Countless hours of brainstorming, writing, and drawing up ideas of how I can raise the money to get to North Bennet Street School.

Thanks to all the people who have helped me with ideas, support, encourage, and donations this last month! BRING ON JUNE BABY!

If you would like to contribute to Liz’s Bike to Build at NBSS fund, click here :

OBSESSIVE LIFTING DISORDER (O.L.D)!

If you would like to contribute to Liz’s Bike to Build at NBSS Fundraiser, click HERE.

Although I had begun riding my bike 8 to 10 miles every couple of days about 3 weeks ago, I can unequivocably say that my TRAINING HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN! How do I know that? Well, ask any muscle in my body, from my “abs” when I do something strenuous like BREATHE…to my “glutes” when I try to sit or walk…to the most angry muscles in my body, my “lats” and “traps,” who are convinced I must be training for Marine Corps Boot Camp rather than a voluntary solo bike ride. I have aches in places I didn’t know I had muscles.

From this description, you might think I have been riding my bike for several hours a day and getting nasty saddle soars. Not the case! While it is possible that a few of the muscle aches could be from my cycling, which capped out at 72.5 miles this week, I have a strong suspicion that the main culprit is O.L.D.

I may have hinted in a previous post that simplicity and I have not met before. So, when presented with two options of roads to take in any given situation…(one short, nicely paved road with no twists or turns and one made of gravel with hair pin turns around a steep cliff lined with gigantic pot holes), I almost exclusively choose the second road because I love a challenge. Allow me to translate this analogy  into the current challenge of getting physically prepared for my Quincy to NYC bike ride. I designed a “Liz simple” workout schedule for me to follow including cycling, cross training, and oh yes…weight training. The weight training portion of my “Liz simple”plan grew rapidly from a handful of weight lifting exercises that I could recall from my soccer and basketball days to designing an elaborate 8 day rotation of exercises divided into muscle groups, from which I choose 10 to 12 exercises a day from the 3 ring binder I put together full of 135 exercises. A sneak peak at the evidence (calendar detailing all my exercises I plan to do for the next three months of training, my 3 ring binder of weight lifting exercises, and a sample of the weight lifting I’ve done over the last couple of days) can be found below. Hopefully this lends creedence to the condition I am beginning to accept that I am inflicted with as of late…O.L.D.

Obsessive Lifting DisorderObsessive Lifting Disorder 3

 

5/5
Barbell trunk rotation 10×3 each @ 20 lbs…heavy on neck (1)
Barbell side bend no weight on bar 3×10 (2)
Dumbbell side bend (5) 3×10 @ 10 lb
NEED NEW AB EXERCISES BESIDES ABOVE 3
Barbell bicep curl (52) 3×10 @ 20 lbs
Barbell bicep curl standing close grip concentrated (55) 1×10 just bar and 2×10@ 10 lbs
One at a time biceps curl (58) 3×10 @ 10 lbs
Seated concentration curl (70) 3×10 with barbell no weights but 4 ends GET 2.5 lb WTS
Barbell bent over row wide grip head supported 3×10 @ 20 lbs HEAD TOO LOW SO 2nd 2 SETS NO HEAD (91)
Barbell good morning (93) 3×10 @  20 lbs
Barbell dead lift (95) 3×10 @ 20 lbs

5/7 CHEST (no bench), Shoulders, & Triceps
Barbell upright row (26) 3×10 @ 20 lb
Military press (27) 3×10 @ 20 lbs
Military press standing behind neck (29) 20 lbs 1×10, 1×9, 1×10
Palms in shoulder press (33) 10 lbs dumbbells 1×8, 1×9, & 1×10
RAN OUT OF TIME

5/9
Abs, Back and Biceps
Barbell bicep curl (52) 3×10 @ 20 lbs
Barbell bicep curl standing close grip concentrated (55) 3×10@ 10 lbs
One at a time biceps curl (58) 3×10 each @ 10 lbs
Seated alternating bicep curls (63) 3×10 @ 10 lb dumbells
Barbell bent over row wide grip head supported 3×10 @ 20 lbs HEAD ON BED (91)
Barbell good morning (93) 3×10 @  20 lbs
Barbell dead lift (95) 3×10 @ 20 lbs
Hollow Hold 1 min
Superman 1 min
50 leg lifts
Plank 2×30 sec and 1 min plank
Side plank each side 30 sec…SHOULD DO ON RUG
Sit-ups 3×50
Barbell trunk rotation (1) 3×10 @ 20 lbs

5/10
LEGS
Barbell Squat (110) 3×10 @ 25 lbs
Barbell front squat-heels elevated (113) 3×10 @ 25 lbs…A LIL AWKWARD BUT DOABLE
Barbell hack squat heels elevated (117) 3×10 @ 25 lbs
Barbell front lunge (119) 3×10 each @ 25 lbs
Reverse lunge (124) 3×10 each with 10 lb dumbells in each hand
Dumbbell swing through (127) 10 lbs 3×10
Toe Raise (129) 3×10 with 10 lb dumbbells

Although I can do the math and willingly admit that O.L.D. equals P.A.I.N., I will accept the PAIN any day if it means accomplishing my dreams.

Many thanks for your time and attention!

If you would like to contribute to Liz’s Bike to Build at NBSS Fundraiser, click HERE.

 

 

HOPE BENEFITS FROM TRAINING

If you would like to donate to Liz’s Bike to Build at NBSS fund, click here.

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to my main training partner, Hope Rice. Although we have not biked together YET, she has been with me during my training every step of the way. She gets me out of the house everyday without fail, be it sunny and 90 degrees or 20 degrees and two feet of snow. She is psyched to be outside, regardless of the conditions. She hangs out and watches me lift weights, and is unfazed by the din coming from the speakers as I blast Pink and Eminem. She jogs with me, speeding up when I am feeling ambitious and in shape…and slowing down when I am feeling tired and out of shape…which happens most often. Most importantly, she has been my most loyal and dedicated friend throughout all of the ups and downs of the infertility, always by my side no matter what mood I was in. I can’t wait for her to meet our future child because I know she will be the best big sister and protector that a dog could be.

The lifestyle changes and training I’ve gone through have benefitted her greatly because she is now getting scraps of lettuce and turkey instead of the junk I used to be eating…and it shows because she has definitely lost more weight and looks more toned than me. Thanks Hope for showing me up!

If you would like to donate to Liz’s Bike to Build at NBSS fund, click here.

Hope on Wollaston

BODY IN SHOCK

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YES, MY BODY IS OFFICIALLY IN SHOCK! Not the kind when one witnesses some kind of traumatic, earth shattering, or life-threatening event…more the kind of shock your car might go into if you have been filling it for years with el cheapo gas from Paco’s Petroleum Stop and then inject it with Mobile’s high test fuel for a month. The last six weeks or so I have been trying to eat a little better…not a crash diet, but a lifestyle change if you will…the DASH Diet to be more specific. After turning 40, I started counting the years I have left and thinking about the changes I want to make with the time I am allotted…morbid I know. I thought of when I was first diagnosed with hypertension at 15 years old and my doctor recommended I try the DASH diet, a recommendation that was made dozens of times since. Unfortunately, their recommendations fell on deaf ears and I’ve spent years throwing whatever food I craved down my garbage disposal without a care in the world. Over the last two years, as the fertility Gods let us down repeatedly and the stork continued to evade us, I was eating ice cream as if my last breath depended on it. These eating habits with some resulting weight gain and a general lack of exercise, led me to the point I am in now…BODY IN SHOCK! Not only is my body wondering what the foreign green leafy substances are that have been greeting it at least once daily as of late, but it is reading me the riot act for the ambitious weight lifting I started this week. Did I mention that it has been at least two years since I lifted weights and exercised with any degree of consistency?

If you are picturing graceful resistance training with bands or even high-end personal training lifting kettle bells or balancing on yoga balls, that is not what I am doing. I am standing in front of my closet mirrors with my 1980’s barbells and dumbbells at 7:00 a.m. every other morning and doing my best to recall my high school physical education weight training exercises….bent over rows, bicep curls, overhead press, squats, dead lifts…are we done yet? It is a work in progress, as am I. I will add a few more exercises each week, and I will hopefully notice some definition by September 2nd when the NBSS doors open to me. Needless to say, I am not walking quite right this week!

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The benefits of having a compulsive personality, even a recovering one, with a side of ADHD, are the enthusiasm and intensity with which I approach any task/challenge I am interested in. In other words, if I am in, I am in WHOLE HOG!For example, once I decided that I will be riding my bicycle to NYC to raise money for both school and charity, I jumped on the computer and downloaded training schedules, mapped out my route electronically and the old fashioned way, made lists of the items I need to bring and those I need to purchase, laid  out my daily exercise plan between now and August 15th when I set off on my journey, joined Adventure Cycling and Map my Ride, had my bike overhauled, signed up for Web Hosting Hub and then Word Press, listed a fundraising page on YouCaring.com, started this blog, and advertised it all on Facebook and email. The bulk of this was done within the first 48 hours because that is how I roll…fast and furious, and the details have continued to be worked out since.

Now that I think of it, my body isn’t the only thing in shock….my mind is as well. Considering for almost three years I have hyperfocused on doing everything in my power to will myself to get pregnant, it is truly SHOCKING for my mind to have been relieved of that obsession. Whether or not I have been relieved of that obsession or have just replaced that with another one…well the jury is still out on that! Happy riding, lifting, and whole hogging it!

If you would like to contribute to Liz’s Bike to Build to NBSS Fund, click here.

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