Will spin for Spudnuts...

My husband will be the first to tell you, as healthy as I try to be with my food (most of the time), I have a serious sweet tooth.  I always have.  Sugary and dessert-y over salty and savory every time.  I've mentioned in previous posts how much I love Spudnuts, which are basically doughnuts made with potato flour.  They are slightly healthier than your typical fried delightfulness, but oh-so-yummy.  We try to keep our indulgence to a minimum, but today after my husband and I spent 2 hours at the gym, one hour doing weights and one hour of spin class, I talked him into stopping by The Donut in Pocatello to pick up a dozen of these babies to take home.  Believe me, it was tough, you know, talking him into it. ;)  As you can see, I have a preference: the chocolate and coconut Spudnut...mmmmm.

What are your indulgences?  Are you more likely to treat yourself on days when you work out hard?

I'm thinking that after I run the Pocatello Marathon in September, I just may eat two or three of these! After we run the Ogden Marathon in May, my husband wants to dive into a burger at 5 Guys. ;)

It's hard to believe I ran that far yesterday.

Yesterday's run has made my invincibility quotient move up a couple of notches, at least in my mind.  I won't say I'm not sore at all, but my recovery has been amazing compared with the other times I've run that distance.  I was even more than able to get up this morning and head to the gym for a (heck-of-a) spin class and an hour of weight lifting.  Who knows, maybe it will catch up with me in a day or two.  In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I (basically) ran a marathon yesterday and today has been just like any other day.  That means my fitness level is improving, and in the words of Martha Stewart, "That's a good thing!"

My friend, Lindsay over at A Fit Family wrote about the improvement she's noticed in her swimming ability as she trains for her first triathlon, which got me thinking...

Question: How do you gauge your fitness gains?

3 mile run and a little spin.

Another great spinning class this morning with our favorite instructor!  One hour of pure, endorphin-induced bliss.  Well, maybe my idea of bliss is different than most people's, but I can truly say I have officially become addicted to spinning.  After the class, Chris and I hit the weight room.  He did his strength training yesterday before work, so he recovered from spinning while helping me do my usual weight rotation.  We spent an hour doing that, and I even added a few new things, like inverted sit-ups using a 9 pound medicine ball in between my reps of bicep curls, and sideways sit-ups in between my lat pulls and tri downs.  It kind of fun to start to see some visible increase in muscle definition in my arms.  It's helping me to feel more like the athlete that I know I have inside who is scratching her way to the surface.  Apparently, it's a slow process.

After our hour in the weight room, I found an open treadmill and cranked out 3 miles in 30 minutes.  As an added bonus, I came home to a UPS delivery of a brand new pair of my favorite running shoes, ASICS Gel Nimbus 13's!  Nothing more exciting than getting new running gear.  My feet will be happy running 10 miles this weekend. :)

Another 5 miles, post Spin Class.

This morning Chris and I made it to the 8:30am Spinning class at the gym.  I just love that class. Our instructor is awesome (tough) and I sweat buckets.  It's like a purging of sorts.  My heart rate stays up above 165-175 for the whole hour - and that's a great workout.  After spin class, I did 30 minutes of weight lifting.  Chris spotted me, and he has also been tracking in a notebook where I'm at with my weights.  Today I went up on several, including the bench press, lat pull and tricep pull downs.  After that, I got on a treadmill and ran for an hour, getting in a little over 5 miles.  It was tough, considering my legs always feel like Jell-O after spinning.

Mid-week workout, spin-style!

I warmed up this morning with 20 minutes of Pilates.  Then, since I had to catch up on Monday's episode of "The Voice", I did 30 minutes on the elliptical followed by 40 minutes on the stationary bike.

After lunch, my husband and I took the little guy to the gym, where the boys played basketball while I did a spin class.  Well, it was supposed to be a spin class, according to the schedule, but when I got there the spin instructor and the kick boxing instructor decided to turn it into a circuit, since there weren't quite enough people to do 2 separate classes.  We began with 20 minutes on the spin bikes, then we jogged through the hallway to one of the big workout rooms where we did kick boxing moves combined with plyometrics for about 10 minutes, then we jogged into the basketball gym where we had to do two running ladders, then jogged back to the spin room and back on the bikes for another 20 minutes, then repeated the whole cycle once more.  Hardest.  Workout.  Ever.  But I loved it. I know, I'm sadistic.  I was wearing my heart rate monitor for the whole hour long class, and my heart rate hovered around 175 for most of the time and actually went up to 189 (that's very high).  After my class was finished, I went and relieved my husband of "daddy-duty" so he could lift some weights, and I played some hoops with my little buddy for about 1/2 an hour.  Then we all went swimming, but I spent most of my time in the hot tub soaking my muscles.

Still on the agenda for tomorrow: a nice, long run with my husband.  :)