Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 183

Day 183 Well today officially marked the 1/2 way mark to my goal of 365 days of exercise. 6 months have come and gone and I have not missed a workout. I don't think I believed I would get this far. I just wanted a really difficult challenge to push myself and make this year interesting. When I was playing badminton I had tournaments and competition to motivate me. When I was in university I wanted to be as big and as strong as possible, but over the last few years I have found my motivation waning. I don't care if I have bigger muscles than the next guy, and I haven't played a high level competitive sport for a long time. I needed a challenge and a reason to workout other than just being healthy.

I set quite a few mini goals along the way. finishing 1 week was my first. Then 1/2 a month, and then a month. Unfortunately, I had let my fitness slip a bit prior to starting this thing. This made things really difficult physically in the beginning. I was really sore and really tired during much of January and into February, but after a while, things started to get easier. My body changed very quickly. A lot of my co-workers noticed how much weight I had lost in just a month. Its pretty cool how fast things can improve when you're consistent.

By March, I had the momentum going. I was feeling great physically and mentally I was really dialed in. However come April I was starting to get a little burn out. I felt great physically but mentally I was getting tired. Coming up with workouts and writing my blog was becoming more of a challenge. Weekends were especially hard, but I pushed through. The weather improved and allowed me to get outside a lot more. This allowed me to break up the monotony of being in a gym so much. Plus it was really nice to see the sun and get some fresh air.

I made it through the spring pretty well. My conditioning group had started, so I was able to jump in with that quite a bit. The ability to workout with a group was really helpful when I wasn't really feeling like pushing myself. As June hit I suddenly became super tired. I don't know why but I was just really lacking energy and focus. April and May were really heavy months in terms of hours. The exercise was one thing but the work hours had definitely taken a toll. One saving grace was that I had committed to running the Kananaskis relay towards the end of June with some friends. I've mentioned before that long distance stuff is not really my thing, but I wanted to a decent job, so I was logging a lot miles to get ready. Being able to just head out and run when I wasn't feeling overly creative, made getting my exercise a lot more convenient.

Unfortunately, the Kananaskis Relay was cancelled due to the terrible flooding in the mountains that eventually created all the devastation here in Calgary as well. The last week was really difficult. I spent a lot of time helping out with the flood recovery, which was physically very strenuous. I did claim some of the work I did pulling furniture out of basements and swinging sledgehammers as exercise, but I felt I needed to add something extra to make it really count. By the end of the week, I was exhausted with only a couple days left to reach my 1/2 way mark. I managed to push through the weekend and make it to day 183.

Today's Workout:

The Goal: 100 burpees without stopping

I managed 75 in a little over 4 minutes.

After the first 10 burpees I thought, there's no way I'm going to make it to 100 but then as I broke 50 I thought I might just have a chance. At 60 I was getting a little worried but thought I'd be able to keep going for a good few more, but at 70 I just hit a wall. The last 5 hurt like hell. I thought I might be able to squeeze off 5 more and hit 80 but I was toast. In fact I'm pretty sure I would have puked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7RchdiJIAc&feature=youtu.be

I was pretty happy that I managed to as close as I did to 100, but I was still kind of disappointed that I didn't make it all the way. Oh well, next time I'm going to get 100, even if it means I throw up. I did finish the 100 after resting about a minute. In the end it amounted to less than 7 minutes of work but I felt nauseous for about 30 minutes after.

Well in a way it feels like I'm starting all over. I still have another 6 months to go. However, from this point the number of workouts left will be less than the number of workouts completed. I feel pretty proud of myself. I thinks half a year is a pretty big accomplishment, but again I'm not finished yet. I'll be going to Europe this August to visit family in Ireland, so I'm pretty sure I'll be faced with some logistical challenges, especially on travel days. I think body weight exercise will be my friend. Although, Nicole has told me if I start working out at our departure gate, she's going to pretend she doesn't know me.

Nicole really has been amazing throughout this whole process. Having someone so incredibly supportive and understanding as I've been doing this has made more of a difference than anything possibly could. Making time in our days so that I can get my workouts in, putting up with me writing my blog until well after bed time, and helping me get through my workouts by helping me come up with ideas and joining me as my workout partner. Nicole had made everything easier. She believes in me and knowing that makes me feel like I could do anything.