Heather's High Heels Camp

Howdy all,

I hope you are all having a nice Thanksgiving week and getting ready to gobble up some good food on Thursday! I know I am excited and ready to do so!

Well, with tighter finances and the holidays coming up, I decided to not do my "boot camp" that I have been doing the last 2 months. Its really hard to justify doing it when you have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up and a small trip and a really large 3200 mile trip coming up in the next month. So, I decided I would save the money to spend on the trip and not sign up for boot camp for this round. It started today and I miss it already but HEY! I can do this on my own. This is my life, I am the "Captain of my life and the Master of my own Destiny" right? So why can't I just try to do this on my own. I have taken notes and have all the emails from the last 2 months and I can count to 20 and have a watch to time myself, so I have decided that I am now my own coach! Yep, that little inner voice in my head is going to be yelling at me and telling me to push it harder...and I am going to listen and to do it by-golly! I decided to call mine "High Heels Camp" because I hardly ever wear boots and who doesn't want their legs to look good in high heels? So, welcome to Heather's High Heels Camp!

So, this evening I started with running some sprints...I am going to try to share some of my workouts with you so that you can do it yourself if you want or just laugh at me for looking silly. Anyway, start out with about 5 minutes of warm up...so I walked basically across my yard and did high knee walks slow, then tippy toe walks, then hurdler walks on one leg, then the other led, walking lunges, backwards jogging, and maybe a few other things just back and forth across the lawn. This is just an easy way to get your muscles working. If it is really cold outside, you might want to go longer to get your body warmed up a little before you take it up a notch. Now on to the workout...

I started out tonight by running suicides up my driveway. For those of you who have never experienced a suicide, here is an example...if you were on the football field and you were standing on the goal line, first you would run to the 5 yard line then back to the goal line, then you would run to the 110 yard line and then back to the goal line, then on to the 15 yard line and back...etc. These are torturous and exhausting workouts but they do great things, so I did them. I just used the tension line spaces in my driveway as my yard lines and I ran back and forth. My driveway is not that long, so I just kept doing the over and over. I would run the sprints constantly going back and forth in 2 minute increments, then rest for just a tad and grab a swig of water, and then do it again. I probably did this for at least 5-6 rounds so probably 14 minutes or so with short breaks in between. Then I ran longer sprints by going from the very end of my driveway to the front door and back over and over again, I again did this in 2-3 minute increments with short breaks in between. I would walk fast if I got too tired to run/job but most importantly, I kept going. I did that for probably about 20 more minutes. It works up quite a sweat! (I should mention, and not to rub it in to those in the colder climates, that is was about 73 degrees and beautiful.)

After that I went inside and did 30 second series of small hand weights, mine are 5 pounds each, of lateral raises, kickbacks, curls, tricept curls, and bent over flies with a twist at the top. (If you need directions on how to do any of these, just post a comment and I will give full discloser!)

Then I did 1 minute of each of the following...
squats (make sure your bent knees are not going past the end of your toes)
lunges
push ups
sit ups

Then I did forward stomach crunches for 30 seconds
left side stomach crunches for 30 seconds and then right side for 30.
Then I did V ups (like a side sit up kind of) for 30 seconds on each side.

Then I did a plank for 1 minute, push ups for 1 minute, then another plank.

Then I stretched with a cobra back/ab stretch and finished with a few other stretches...

And that was my workout! the only equipment I needed was running shoes and hand weights...so there is NO excuse that you do not have a gym membership or the right equipment, it is easily attainable.

Our trainer told us this weekend that we should all set an outrageously high fitness goal for ourselves and then to work towards it, because you just might be surprised at how you do in attaining that goal. my friend Angie wants me to train for a half marathon. While I don't think I would be ready by March, its still a good goal...and the fact that I didn't out and out laugh at her when she suggested it, says that I have come a long way from where I was 6 months ago. She told me I could do it and I actually believed her...so I think I am going to work towards that goal and see if I can maybe do one further away. I think March might be too soon but we will see, like I have mentioned probably before...the word "marathon" of any sort and "Heather" generally do not mix unless it involves shopping, so the fact that this one involves actual running, is quite amazing! We will see folks...stay tuned!