Wednesday, June 27, 2012

G.I. Jane (minus the whole shaved head thing...)

So...my husband and I have this genius idea to start training for what we would each need to do to score a 300 on an Army PT test. Really, it was his idea for himself...and I just decided to join the craziness for moral support....you know, being a good military wife and all. haha.

For me, that means 68 sit-ups in 2 minutes, 34 push-ups in 2 minutes (yep, the real kind, not the girl kind), and a 2-mile run in 17:12...For him, that means 80 sit-ups, 75 push-ups and 13:00 for his 2-mile run. Our goal is to be able to do this by the end of November, which gives us somewhere around 23 weeks, but the sooner the better.

As you probably already know, I am an Insanity fan. I have actually never successfully finished the full 9-week program, but I did manage to make it through the first 7 weeks not too long before our wedding...then I went to China for a conference, we went to Cozumel for our wedding-moon, and moved to California right after...so that's as far as I've ever gotten. Nonetheless, I suggested Insanity as a good starting point for him, because it is an AMAZING way to jump start your cardio. I used this to drag him in:

I broke my PR for my fastest 5K (for those of you that don't know, that's 3.1 miles) time in March at 27:25. Prior to that, my fastest 5K time was 29:57, and I attribute that to my 60 lb. Pit Bull who thinks running is fun...in other words, imagine he was a husky and I was his sled. I had been doing Insanity for about 4 weeks at that point, but had not been running...at all. I was really nervous for that run, because I thought I wasn't going to make it the entire 3.1 miles without stopping, much less do it at a respectable pace. Turns out...Insanity is the best cardio I have ever done. I cut two and a half minutes off my prior 5K PR without running at all!

He bought it. (Man, they should hire me for advertisements or something!)

So we started Insanity on Monday.

All that to say...I think I can get my 2-mile run down to 17:12 fairly easily. Push-ups and sit-ups however...make me want to give up and eat nothing but ice cream. So Walter, being the amazing husband he is, found these workout plans online to help you with those awful things:

200 Sit Ups

100 Push Ups

So in addition to Insanity, we also started these this week. We started with sit-ups on Monday. For week 1, day 1, I started in column 2. I followed their suggestions for sets 1-4, and managed to squeeze out 24 sit-ups for set 5 (I accidentally skipped the Initial Test...guess I probably should have started with column 3, but oh well). Walter did column 3 and his max for set 5 was 25.

We did push-ups yesterday. For week 1, day 1, I started in column 2. I can do right at about 6 legit, good-form push-ups consecutively. And that is pushing it. I am a weenie. I may have needed to start in column 1...but I did column 2. I think my max for set 5 was 6, but they were ugly. Walter did much better than me, but he is a boy. That's my excuse.

Our plan is to do Insanity as recommended by the program (6 days a week) at least for the first four weeks. Then we are going to see where we are with our running. We are also going to alternate days in which we do our push-ups and sit-ups. Today is back to sit-ups. My abs and back are going to hate me (anybody else's back hurt more than anything else from doing sit-ups? I thought it was weird...)

I am hoping to keep track of our progress and see how we improve. Maybe one day I'll be fit enough to pass an Army PT test. For no reason...other than supporting my husband. haha. I will keep you posted!