ONE MONTH TO GO!!

The Spartan Race is ONE MONTH away from today!

WOW! 

In four weeks I will be crawling through mud, jumping over walls, swimming, wrestling Spartan warriors, and in general, doing the toughest physical thing I have ever done in my life.

Do I feel ready? 

Its hard to say.  I have a feeling that even after the race I still won't feel ready for it. However, I am so much stronger! If I was forced to run today, I think I could do it, and I could run it well.  Still, there are several obstacles I need to push through.  I still have never run 3 consecutive miles in my training, let alone tried running them uphill (as most of the race is uphill).  But I truly believe I will be ready on the actual race day!

Each week it's easy to see how much I'm progressing in the things I can actually do.  I work out a lot with my husband (he is an amazing trainer!) and when I first started training there was one workout that I could only get halfway through in one hour. Now, I can do that same workout in about 25 minutes!

Every Wednesday I do a special hill training workout at my office. (we have a fairly steep driveway). This is the workout:

1. Run to the bottom of our driveway
2. Run back up the steep driveway
3. 15 pushups
4. 20 lunges left leg
5. 20 lunges right leg
6. 5 burpees (OH! I have such a love hate relationship with Burpees!)
7. 30 squats

The first week I did this workout it took me 60 minutes to do this 5 times.  Just two weeks later, I could do the whole thing 8 times through in 60 minutes! AMAZING!!!!

As if that progress wasn't enough, I've decided to post some progress pictures. My weight has pretty much maintained at about the same level, but I now have muscles!

AS a reminder, this was me in March 2011before I had started any training:

And, now, here I am today:

Yes. I do have a huge grin on my face. I have it because for the first time ever in my life, I feel really content with my body. 

Now, please, do not mishear me! This has been a process. Why do I feel really content with my body? It's because every single day I am working hard to actively love  my  body.  Each day I make a choice as to whether or not I'm going to actually take care of myself by eating right and working out. I definitely fail at that a lot.  However, there is grace in the process. 

With one month to go I am increasing my training! Also, I'll be cutting alcohol and sugar out of my diet for this month... Please! Don't tempt me! :-)  I want to make sure that I feel I have prepared myself to the best of my abilities for this race.

Alrighty! Enough typing! Time to go for a run!