Here for the next few days while Hubby is here for a seminar.  It’s nice to be back in the Windy City for a visit, even if it is f-ing cold outside.  Our room is pretty cool, because it looks east to downtown, and we can see the skyline.  The last time we stayed in Chicago (besides our stopover on our move from Colorado to Pennsylvania) was when we ran the Chi Town Half Marathon in April 2012.  That was awesome, running around Lincoln Park, staying at the Hotel Lincoln, partying sans enfant downtown.  The fun part about being back is having our daughter with us.  Even though she’s too young to remember, it’s fun having Burrito here, where Hubby is from.  We’ll try to get a picture in front of the Bean!

All this reminiscing (all 15 minutes of it) has me itching to run again.  Add to that I saw an ad for a color run (or one of its various iterations) coming to Youngstown in April, and now I’m REALLY wanting to get back into running.  I even thought to myself “5K is easy.  That’s only 3.1 miles…”  I remember when 3 miles was my personal best and now I think of it as something I can easily do. I know that when I actually set out to run 3 miles it is going to be a much bigger deal because I haven’t run since June or July 2012, but I also know that I’ve run 3 miles (and more) many times, and I know that I’m in much better shape than I was in when I first ventured out to become a runner so I’m going to go with my inner Runner that is shouting “Do it!  It will be much easier now that you’ve done Focus T25 and are doing P90X3!” 

 

In case you’re just tuning in, Focus T25 and P90X3 are the two fitness programs that Hubby and I have done so far to get ourselves back in shape post-baby.  I chose Focus T25 for us because it’s a FULL workout in 25 minutes.  I thought that was perfect, because the thought of working out for an hour was too daunting for me, even though I wasn’t in bad shape.  I stayed active during my pregnancy, walking every day, doing lighter weights.  When Burrito was born 10 weeks early, though, things got rough.  It actually made it easier to get our early morning walk (Hubby ran) on the treadmills in, because we had to wake up early so I could pump, but it made for LONG days and our evening lifts got put by the wayside so we could go to the NICU to see Burrito.  Then, we moved into our house, so we lost the fitness center at the apartment complex so we needed something to do at home.  Enter Focus T25.  The first 2 weeks were ROUGH!  I thought I was in decent shape, but I was moving in ways I hadn’t moved in a LONG time, so it was good.  I REALLY like the progression from Alpha to Beta phase (5 weeks each) and then to the 4-week Gamma phase.  And I am SO glad that we did that before doing P90X3.  While it is only 30 minutes in length, it is a P90X workout, and you are definitely pushing your body.  I find that it is easier to push myself in these 30 minutes, because I know that it’s only 30 minutes, and that each minute or so in each movement is completely doable because it’s only a short amount of time.