I am a 44 year old wife, mom and athlete. I started running in high school and have loved it ever since. As I got older, I had to stop running every day so I added in weight training and all sorts of fun work-outs like Insanity, P90X and Turbo Fire. I'm a certified personal trainer and I love all aspects of fitness.
Today I have a lot to get done so I decided to make my 43 a complete work-out. (I did add in 2 10 minute speed walks with a friend for fun.)
I decided to use my stairs as a work-out!!
Entry way stairs
I went up the stairs 43 times, skipping every other step and then went down using every step. I felt it in my quads and glutes and also got my heart rate up!!
I haven’t posted any times but I thought it might be fun share them on work-outs like this. Then, if any of y’all are doing your own 43 you could share your times as well.
I spent years completely avoiding all things yoga because I didn’t think it was a hard enough work-out. I was wrong!!! I love the way all of my muscles are used during a yoga session.
For my Vinyasa, I went through the following steps:
hands in prayer
inhale up
exhale fold forward
inhale – hands to shins (flat back)
exhale hands to floor
walk or jump back to plank
lower to Chaturanga
rise to upward-facing dog
move to downward dog
walk or jump feet in
rise up with hands in prayer
(Thanks to Hunter, my 11 year old son, for filming me and taking pictures for me today.)
Hunter was in the room while I was doing 43 of these and when I got to about 35 I said, “I wish I was younger.” He asked why and I told him that then I wouldn’t have so many to do. His reply, “Suck it up.” So I did and finished my 43!!
I completed my work-out with a little Turbo Fire – Fire 45. Any day that I get to do some Turbo Fire with Chalean is a good day!!!
Today’s 43was a fun one. I did a modified version of a single-arm clean and press.
The single arm clean and press is a whole body exercise focusing on the lower body, the core and the shoulders. By doing this move one arm at a time, the core has to work extra hard to keep your body balanced and the combination of movements really gets your heart rate up.
Stand with feet hip-width apart, holding a weight (I used a 10 pound dumbbell) in the right hand.
Squat down touching the weight the the floor and keeping the back straight, abs in and the knees behind the toes.
Push back up, pulling the weight up into a single arm row.
In a smooth movement, flip the elbow down and the weight up and press the weight overhead.
Because I’m still trying to take it a little easy on my lower body, I took out the squat (thus the modified version). I did 43 reps with my right arm and then immediately did 43 with my left arm. I think I might feel this in my shoulders tomorrow.
After my 43, I decided that a light jog would work out the last of the soreness in my legs. I’m happy to say that even though it is a couple days late, I finished my 43 miles!!! I did an easy 5.5 today and felt good doing it.
Today had to be recovery of some sort after the high mileage run/walk. If you have never tried foam rolling, I highly recommend it. My first experience with it came last year when I did P90X2. On the Recovery and Mobility day Tony Horton shows you how to spend plenty of time using the foam roller to work out the kinks. There are lots of options when choosing foam rollers. Here are a few:
My foam rollers
If you are interested in finding a foam roller, I have seen them at Wal-Mart, Dick’s, Best Buy and Amazon. They start at $15 and go up from there. The one with the ridges will really get deep into your muscles!!
43 of the day: Crunches with foam roller behind lower back. Nothing fancy – just a basic crunch but the foam roller really changes the feeling of the crunch.
Today I did a second 43. I spent 43 minutes using my foam roller to stretch and recover. The nice thing with the foam roller is you can use it to roll out stiffness or you can just hold it on a spot where you really feel it. I spent 30 of the minutes really focusing on my calves, quads, hams and hip flexors and it hurt but in a good way!
left thigh – trying to ease the stiffness and pain
An advantage of a recovery day spent foam rolling – no need to wear tennis shoes so my blisters can heal!
I decided to start this blog to coincide with my birthday event. For a couple of years I have run my age on my birthday. This year is 43!! I decided to carry the theme a step further and spend a year incorporating 43 of something into every day. Since I love to work-out I decided that it would be fitness related. Some days it will just be a small part of my workout. Some days will be easy (recovery days).
I always want to be “real” on this blog so there may be times that I am unable to complete 43 of anything. There may also be times when I don’t hit the goal.
My kick-off 43 event was to run 43 miles. Because I have battled a hip injury for the last 5 weeks and have had to stop running and doing any high-impact activities, I decided that it wouldn’t be quite the same but that I could walk the distance and still have the same outcome. Once I got started I decided that maybe some easy jogging would be OK. Ultimately, this happened:
If you look closely, you can see that I went 37.5 miles so I was 5.5 miles short. My body said, “NO MORE!!!” Total time was 7 hours 32 min 45 sec.
