A Merry Workout Pledge Recap

A Merry Workout Pledge started over on Mary's site. I didn't participate last month; I didn't know about it till I saw Kat and Steve tweet about #amerryworkoutpledge (twitter handle), that is how I found Mary's blog and instantly became a follower!

So this month when Steve hosted the workout pledge post, I jumped at the opportunity to pledge! Last month was 90 minutes of cardio, I could only imagine what this month's total would be....

.... 221 comments, which translated into

                           110 minutes and 30 seconds of cardio.....

OMFG.... I have never done that much cardio in one setting. I liked Mary's take on it. It can seem like a large number so breaking it up throughtout a day seemed do-able. But I really wanted to try and see if I could do it (a bit of a challenge to myself).

The whole purpose of the challenge is to move more. Challenge yourself to move more. Well actually, I believe the first challenge was to help encourage Mary to get back to the gym, but it created a new life and grew into something bigger.

It's great when the bloggy world comes together for something good.

I needed to get back to the gym, between working crazy and being sick forever, I haven't been to the gym. The weather has been nice, so I would rather do something outside. So today, on a bright and warm day (65 degrees) I went to the gym, sat down on a stationary bike and busted out some cardio. My machine would only go for 60 minutes (plus a 5 minute "cool down") so I had to get a little creative.

I did a total of 23.57 miles. Seemed like I was kicking ass the last 45 minutes! If you can trust the machine, looks like I had a good calorie burn.

My usual cardio machine of choice is the elliptical, and I felt as though the machines were staring at me, like I had openly cheated on them with another... but really 110 minutes, I needed to be more comfortable for the long haul.

The first 30 minutes or so was just spent trying to get comfortable, I would end up either with an ass cramp or pain in my calves. I was constantly re-adjusting the seat. Then I hit a stride that carried me to the end, until I had about 5 minutes to go and my knee pain started, so I just re-adjusted my seat again and slowed down, it seemed to work.

I tweeted about having my ass cramp and going through my entire Glee selection of songs. I ended up watching 90% of Evan Almighty since it was on one of the tv's and even read a few chapters of my book. I like using the bike, it's great if you need to multi-task or tweet during your workout.

All in all, I am super proud of myself for having completed this workout pledge/challenge. And it's great to read some of the recaps, I can't wait to read some more. I was pleased also just to get back into the gym.

And because Steve likes sweaty after pics, here are mine! (I almost forgot to do this, hence why I am in my car. Trust me the outfit was significantly soaked in sweat.)

Lovin the hair! Forgot my Bondi Band!

I can't wait to see what happens next month! Any more time, and I may have to switch to breaking the challenge into multiple cardio sessions.

One thing I did notice, is that people were looking at me, probably wondering what my fat ass was doing on a bike for so long... but I caught several people looking over at me and looking at the time to see how long I had been going. Not sure what it was, am I that much of a hot mess when I do cardio? Meh, just something that I noted.