Thursday, July 31, 2014

Workout + Volleyball

I had a very active day yesterday! I decided to use my gym bag (which had been packed and sitting in my office since Monday...) and changed at work, prior to taking the bus to Carr's Hill field, where Joey was doing a track workout. I started by running 2 miles around the field. Each lap around was just about 1/4 mile, and I alternated between running a lap on the turf field, and running on the asphalt surrounding the field. I did the 2 miles in 19.5 minutes, which was a pretty good pace for me! I'm pretty sure it's the longest distance I've run straight, without any breaks.

After I cooled down from running, I did 3 sets of bodyweight exercises.

50 crunches (legs down, lifting the shoulder blades and upper body straight up)
50 crunches (legs up, lifting the shoulder blades up and forward, kind of like a sit-up)
10 pushups
10 walking forward lunges (per leg)
10 triceps dips
25 side crunches (per side)
20 calf raises (per leg)
10 V-ups
10 walking reverse lunges (per leg)

For both sets of walking lunges, I tried not to put my foot down between lunges. For example - with a forward lunge, if I stepped forward with my right foot, I would push off the right (front) foot to bring the left (back) foot forward, right next to my right foot. I would try not to put the left foot down, and would only gently tap my toes down, if I needed to catch my balance. If my balance was okay, I would just hover the foot in the air, right next to my right foot, and then step forward with the left foot, continuing the process. I found that if I really used my front foot to strongly push off, I could get better balance and not need to touch down. I had a much harder time keeping my balance with the reverse lunges!

After we finished up our workout, we drove over to Foods of all Nations to pick up some sandwiches and drinks for dinner. Then we drove back to Nameless Field (pretty close to where we originally were), to meet up with some friends. There, we played volleyball for almost two hours! This was the first time I had played volleyball in probably 10+ years, and I had a blast! Back in middle school and high school, I tried almost every sport out there, and failed miserably at all of them. I lacked the balance and hand-eye-coordination that were required for most sports. At the time, I also lacked the general athleticism that helps when you don't have talent. Now, I have gained some athleticism from my running and workouts, and have also gained confidence in my body and its abilities. I think that has made me feel a lot less self conscious about trying new things out in front of other people. Before everyone else got there, I even threw the frisbee around with Joey some. With both frisbee and volleyball, I wasn't great, but I definitely wasn't the worst person there! It's something I would consider doing again. I had a great time, got to see some people outside of the typical work environment, and was active for hours without it feeling like an actual workout.

Coming up soon - I'm going to post about my experience in the Downtown Mile - I promise! 

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