stairs are hard!

i don't think think there is a muscle in my body that isn't hurting today. and this is day two of muscle pain. this year i made the decision to up my fitness level. i have been working out at a gym a couple days a week for the last year or so, but i've really not done much more than work on cardiovascular health. after a lot of years of not doing anything to help my heart function at it's highest potential, it has been slow going. on top of that, most cardio activities bore me to tears after just a short time. i've gone from the treadmill to the stationary bike to the cardio wave and now back to the treadmill. i'm now actually enjoying my time on the treadmill as i've found a way to run without getting as bored. and i'm seeing results every day. so now i feel ready to up the level a bit and add a couple different types of workouts.

this is the first week this year that my schedule has been normal so i didn't get a chance to start the added workouts until now. my typical gym schedule is monday and thursday and friday, but i don't always make it on fridays. so i decided to put the other workout in on tuesday and take a break on wednesday. good thing i did.

i added some weights, core and lower body exercises on tuesday. most people say i'm crazy when i say this, but i find a strange sort of motivation when i do those types of workout if i use a workout dvd. i have one that i really like from Jackie Warner that includes 15 min workouts for each upper body, lower body and core as well as a 15 minutes total body and a 40 minute total body workout. tuesday i popped the dvd in, stretched, warmed up and got about 10 minutes into the 40 minute workout when i realized i totally wasn't ready for the entire 40 minutes. still, i continued to struggle through it because i hate to give up. i managed to complete the entire upper body portion and the entire upper body portion. i gave up about a 1/3 of the way into the core workout. the way Jackie's workout runs is instead of doing sets of say 20 reps on each exercise, she has you do a full minute of each of three separate exercises followed by all three in a single minute she calls a power burn. each 4 minute cycle focuses on a single muscle group. a full minute of lunges or chest presses or side planks is a LONG time.

all that leads to my having very achy glutes, hamstrings, quads, abs, and shoulders. yesterday was rough going. i nearly fell down several sets of stairs several times through out the day because my legs just didn't function well. didn't help that i spent 2 hours wandering the beach and sand dunes along lake michigan with a 3 year old. this evening, i'm suppose to spend some time running on the treadmill. i'm hoping a handful of advil and some fierce determination will get me through 3 miles on the treadmill though i have a feeling i'll be on the treadmill for a VERY long time in order to get through those three miles.

now i have to reconsider how i'm going to add in the other workouts without putting my legs out of commission every week until i get used to the extra workout.