Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health. Carl Jung

Spartan Shape-Up, Day 234:

Woot, Woot! BlogLand... It was a good day. Just in general, my mood was in a good place. Work is going well, my finances are evening out (Yay! Travel to races is less stressful!), and some exciting opportunities are on the horizon.

That said, when I got home, I knew I had to get a run in.
With a quick text, I managed to suck in a run-buddy and prepped for my run. Clearly, I needed a warm up. In homage to all my fellow Spartans that were travelling off to the GA Spartan Sprint today, I decided 30 burpees were in order. Yeah. I did that to myself. 30 Burpees. I figure I better get used to it, it's good for me, and NO EXCUSES. I managed this in a set of 10, then 5 at a time with a short 10-15 second break between sets. Burpees are the devil incarnate, I'm pretty sure (second only to Wall-Ball Burpees. WTF, CrossFit, for REALS?!). I felt more competent with those, than I have in the past. Progress! Waha!

Needless to say, I was decidedly warmed up and trotted off to meet my buddy.

... this is always an interesting process, as she lives at the top of a substantial hill.

But you know what that means, BlogLand! ... A hill sprint! ... and by sprint, I mean, it was trying to be a sprint the first half of the hill of death, and it morphed into a "steady" pace, just trying to finish the hill. hehe... I wanted to pretty much die when I got to the top, so I figure I did alright.

Commence buddy run. It's so nice to have someone to chat to, check out different routes with, and just generally have some companionship. I'm too social of a person to always attack these things alone, and it's super nice to be able to have a buddy every once and a while. Plus, thanks to all the wonderful support and knowledgeable people that have embraced me the last 234 days, I have some tidbits of knowledge to share. It's nice to feel like I'm able to pay it forward, in a sense, and pass along the help that I've received toward reaching my fitness goals.

During our buddy run, it came up that my buddy had never done a burpee. *GASP*. I know, right? How does that happen? Therefore, I saw no other option, at the end of our run, but to push her over this metaphorical hurdle.

I gladly demonstrated a few times, and then proudly watched as my buddy competed her first burpee! It was a proud moment, BlogLand. She'll be at the start line of a Spartan Race before she even knows what's happened. WAhaha.

A short run home brought me back to some stretching and foam rolling. I'm still having a little bit of that pulling/ouchiness in the back of my knee, toward the end of the run (Today's Run: 3.53 miles)... According to the GT, I must just bond more fully with my roller and learn to do some yoga. Argh. Yoga. I'm looking into this... I'm sure you'll see more of this yoga related whining in the future.

After that, it was 3 sets of 10 pull ups (alternating one leg on a stool!). My goal is to just do random short sets of these during the day. Must eradicate t-rex arms. Soon.

And... here I am. It's way past bedtime, I have 452 things to do tomorrow and I'm hungry. Off to get this process started.

CrossFit in the morning! YAY!!