Two More Days

until my week of freedom. Good god, I can't wait.

I've been plowing through my to-do list at a decent pace this week, which is always a good thing. But I'm not going to lie -- it's taken a pretty good amount of self control to keep myself focused. My distraction levels are way up.

Also way up is my tendency to get songs stuck in my head. Right now, it's a great little number from the classic Bloodhound Gang CD "Hooray for Boobies." Great. Let me just draft a bunch of important documents while the lyrics "Nowhere to go, I can't wake up late, just sit around and wait for my Old Spice to activate" bounce through my head. (Look, I never claimed to be cultured, OK?)

Last night PhillyGuy and I managed to hit the gym together for the first time in a good week or two. We motored through our buddy Tony's Chest, Shoulders and Triceps, which is one of my favorite workouts from P90X. I'm actually improving -- I can do a couple of one-arm pushups. On my knees, of course. And I can only go down a few inches before my chest and arm threaten to collapse on me. But it's definitely deeper than when I first tried it, and I bet within a couple of weeks I'll be able to do at least one full-depth pushup. (On my knees, of course. Let's not get crazy.)

We didn't lug the laptop to the gym with us, since the booklet of written exercises is perfectly fine for this workout. A lot of times, I actually prefer going with just the book -- I get the workout done much faster. At first, you don't realize how much time Tony kills between exercises with his incessant chattiness and "instruction" -- but add an extra 20-30 seconds between every set, and that starts adding up. I also find the initial "warmup" exercises excessively long. Do I really benefit that much from marching in place for 45 seconds before doing pushups? I'm not convinced. So, I skip most of that. I do a few stretches and get to it, and I end up shaving a good 15 minutes or so off the workout time, while still blowing up my arms and chest.

After we headed home, we set up our yoga mats in the living room to do Ab Ripper X. Which the dogs were not all that happy about. Sophie was convinced we were trying to have fun without her and didn't really understand why we were on the floor, if not to play with her. Trying to do roll up/v-ups with a twelve-pound dog running underneath your back and barking at your head is challenging...just not at all in the way it's supposed to be.

I'm really looking forward to my run tonight -- a five-mile tempo run. I haven't done a tempo run in forever. I'm debating whether to run on the treadmill or outside...it's humid as crap out, and they're also calling for thunderstorms later. BUT...knowing how bored I got the last time I did five miles on a treadmill? I'm just not at all sure I want to deal with that.

PLUS, if I run outside I can wear my new running skirt. I somehow don't think it's OK to wear a running skirt at the gym. Don't ask me why -- a lot of my "rules" are not necessarily based in logic.