Hike

Today I went for an awesome hike up Camelback Mountain. If you ever come to Phoenix and you want to go hiking, I highly recommend it!

We did the Echo Canyon trail which is 1.2 miles in length and gains 1,264 feet. The summit is at 2,704 feet in elevation. The hike is called "strenuous".

I went with two of my girlfriends that I used to work with- Esther & Stephaine.

I'm excited to report that the hike was pretty easy for me. We had to stop a few times for one of my friends who needed to catch her breath, but I felt like I could have kept going. My legs never got shaky or fatigued at all and I barely broke a sweat. That's a major difference from the first time I did it a few years ago.

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First day of the rest of my life...

So, I haven't blogged a whole lot because I went a few days without working out. No reason, just busy. We have season tickets this year to the Arizona Rattlers, which is an arena football team here in Phoenix. We went to the game on Saturday and ended up going to Buffalo Wild Wings after the game. It was Michael and I and another couple and we drank, watched UFC, ate lots of not-good-for-us food and just hung out. We even did tequila shots so needless to say, I was not feeling like working out on Sunday :) This old gal can't party like she used to that's for sure! I wasn't hung over or anything, just really tired from being up so late, which is something I am not used to!

Then of course I couldn't sleep Sunday night because Monday was my last day at work. I was nervous and yet so ready for it all to be over with. The day turned out to be very anti-climatic which I'm okay with but by the time I got home, I was super tired from not really sleeping well.

Today was my first day not being a work-a-holic. It went fine but I kept thinking it was a Saturday so once I realize this is my life right now, I'm sure it will be weird. I'm still not sure what my plans are- I know I'm going to give my Fiscal Fitness business a try full-time and see if I can't drum up some consistent business. But, I'm also going to keep my eyes open for both full-time and part-time positions that tickle my fancy.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life... let's see what I make of it.

So, that brings me to my workout today which turned out to be a killer. It was much harder than it looked on paper.
4 rounds
5 minutes of row followed by 3 minutes of rest

Before I did it, I was planning on doing 75 kettlebell swings and 75 thrusters afterwards but after the row, I called it quits. I didn't have much left in the tank. Here are my total meters each round
1,056
1,064
1,076
1,080

That's pretty consistent so I'm happy with it and I got faster each round although that was not easy. Back on March 13th, I did 20 minutes straight rowing and did 3,803 rounds so by breaking it into four 5 minute rounds meant I was able to keep a much faster pace and do a total of 4,276 meters.

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Killing it

What a great workout! It's actually difficult to type this post right now b/c my arms are so jello-y and my hands are numb from gripping the bar.

I'm just so stinkin' glad that I had another great workout. I felt really strong on Tuesday for the first time in what seems like forever. I swear- ever since I was sick in January, I just could not get out of my workout funk. I was still working out, don't get me wrong, but they felt hard right from "Go!" and I felt weak. The workouts I was doing were mostly for maintenance- just to stay active.

FINALLY this week I feel like I'm back to making progress. Yes! Tonight's workout was seriously wonderful and I can't believe how many rounds I was able to do. I felt so strong and I was able to just keep pushing myself further and further.

AMRAP15
5 Toes to bar
10 Lunges (20 total, 10 each leg)
15 Back extensions

I did 10 total rounds plus 5 Toes to bar and 5 lunges (10 total) so 10 + 10! That means I did-
55 Toes to bar
210 Lunges (105 each leg)
150 Back extensions

All in 15 minutes!

Michael and I went at the same time and he finished with 11 rounds + 10 so only 1 round more than me. Our friend Mike who works out with us did 8 rounds + 14 so I totally kicked his butt! That does not normally happen! (In Mike's defense, he was recently sick so I think he's still recovering...)

I have Friday and then Monday left at the office and then I'm going to be an unemployed joke! haha! I probably shouldn't be so excited about that fact huh?

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All around good day!

Today was an all around great day. I actually already wrote one blog post today because I wasn't expecting to have much else to write about. I was so excited about funding our dream fund earlier that I wrote about it prematurely I suppose.

My workout tonight was fricken amazing. The other day when I did front squats, I felt like the weight was soooo heavy. Tonight, I felt like I was throwing it up! I did 3 sets of 5 reps at 75#, 85#, and 95#. I felt great for every rep!

Then I did 3 sets of 5 kipping pull-ups. During my warm-up, I worked on deconstructing my pull-up and did shoulder shrugs only, then did some "swings" only using my upper body, etc. If you recall, my pull-ups have been giving me issues lately and I needed to take them back to square one.

I'm happy to report that tonight they were fricken MONEY! I swear, they were so easy and I was clearing the bar with my chin by a long shot. I even used the correct grip by wrapping my thumb around the bar and didn't have any issues in that regard either. I did all 3 sets of 5 kipping pull-ups without any problems and they felt super strong. I wonder if I would have been able to keep going but since the WOD only called for 3 sets of 5, I stopped at 5 each time.

It felt great to have my pull-ups go RIGHT! Yes!

Then we did these ab thingies that sucked. You rock back and forth for 3 minutes. When you stop to rest, the clock stops so do a full a 3 minutes of the exercise by the end. They sucked. I stopped a bunch of times but oh well. I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow from them!

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Weekend Workouts

I updated my Fiscal Fitness blog with some tips on no longer dreading the personal budget. Let me know what you think!


I had a great workout today and yesterday. Again, nothing major- just maintenance type workouts that aren't hardcore or anything. Staying active has helped my mood these past few weeks with everything going on at work. I may start a workout feeling down or exhausted, but I always feel amazing when I'm done.

Yesterday was a 20 minute tempo row. It was super hard and I had to stop and break a few times. Rowing is not one of my strengths but I thoroughly enjoy it so I hope the more I do it, the more efficient I will become at it. As you can see by the pic below, I ended up doing 3,803 meters on level 7.

Today was an array of different movements:
5 rounds of 5 reps w/ each leg of step ups holding two 25# dumbbells (so 50 total reps w/ 50#s)
4 rounds of 5 reps of single leg deadlifts holding one 25# dumbbell
3 rounds of push press as many reps as possible
and
3 rounds of strict pullups as many reps as possible which for me is 1!

I started off at 45# for the push press which was too easy. I did 20 reps. Then I took it up to 75# for rounds 2 and 3 and was able to do 9 reps at that weight.

I'm sure my legs will be super sore tomorrow from those step ups and single leg deadlifts. I worked on my grip when I did the pull-ups and although I absolutely hate it, I wrapped my thumb around the bar. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually but right now, it just feels bizarre.

My husband bought us season tickets to the Arizona Rattlers arena football league. Last night was their game opener and it was a lot of fun. There's actually about 10 of us who bought tickets- we take the light rail into the city and all watch the game together. There are 9 games total and I think it was money well spent!

I'm hoping this week goes smoothly at the office with little drama and no major issues. I'm ready to move on and begin a new chapter of my life.

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Strength

I did a strength workout tonight-

Front squat - 7-5-5
95#-95#-95#

Power clean - 5-5-3-3
80#-80#-80#-80#

Shoulder press - 3-3-1-1-1
65#-65#-80#-75#-80#

Let me say that it was not a very good workout. I felt so incredibly weak tonight. Weight that shouldn't have been difficult was and every rep required what seemed like a lot of extra effort on my part. Ah well, I guess you can't have a good workout every time.

I have a meeting at 10am on Thursday with my boss to "discuss my career". It's during this meeting they will present to me the offer that they're hoping will convince me to stay. Right now, I'm not sure what I'm thinking except that I really wish the whole thing was just over. I'm sick of thinking about it to be honest. I thought I had things figured out and I as going to give my notice on Monday and that was going to be it. All over. But no, of course not, they don't want me to leave, which of course feels great, but now it's delaying what may be inevitable.

I hope their offer is crap so the decision is easy. I'm not sure I have the desire to keep thinking about this.

Of course, I'll keep you all posted.

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Unexpected to say the least

Well, t-minus zero days 'til I give my notice! That's right~ today at work I gave my two week's notice!

If you recall, I was so nervous. I didn't know how they would react at all. A lot of times, when you give your notice where I work, they escort you out that day. Although you may be willing to work two more weeks, they don't really take you up on that nice gesture and you're just done right then.

So of course, that's what I expected to happen today.

I certainly didn't expect them to say the following, "We're not going to let you leave without putting up a fight" or "by the end of the week, we'll have a counter offer for you."

Yeah...like I said, definitely wasn't expecting either of those things but sure as shit, that's what happened!

I told them about Fiscal Fitness and he said he'll try to come up w/ an offer that affords me time to work my new business as well as continue to work there.

So, as far as I know right now, I'm working through the week but by the end of it, I may have an offer to stay that is worthwhile. I've been thinking about what exactly I would want in order to stay and adding additional members to my team is a necessity. Otherwise, the stress I feel and my employees feel will remain and I can't (won't) continue to work that way.

Unfortunately, it means that this rollercoaster isn't over yet and may not be until the end of the week. But of course, blog followers, I will keep you updated!

When I got home, I did a quick 2K row for a time of 9:13. I don't have anything to compare it to because this was the first time I did this distance and only this distance. Usually I will do an exercise before or after so I can't really use it as a good comparison.

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Vacation!

We had an awesome vacation and we made it home just this afternoon. We met some friends for dinner mainly because we had zero groceries in the house and we were too lazy to go buy any!

We did awesome on our vacation budget and came in just under. We took out our spending money in cash but literally everything we purchased at the resort was billed to our room. This was the only way they would do it. I swear, people probably lose track of how much they're spending. We were really good though and at the end of every night, we took our receipts from the day and took the cash out of our spending money for those receipts. So we always knew exactly how much we had spent and how much we had left.

The best part of the trip by far was the scuba diving adventure. It was both of our first times and I was terrified initially but it turned out to be absolutely perfect and I loved it! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the dive but you'll just have to believe me- it was A-MAZING!


Here are some pictures from our vacation!

View from our hotel room

mango margarita- yum!

taking the public bus to downtown Cancun

strawberry margarita - delish!

this drink was called "Million Dollar Legs"



After a run along the beach



this was a pina colada- see a trend in these pictures? :)

I hope everyone had a fabulous week!

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