I actually biked to work this morning, and it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Granted, the radio was warning people to watch out for cyclists because there would be a lot more, but I think I might continue cycling to work. It’s a great workout – especially up the hills, and I’m looking forward to going down the hills on the way home

Update 1pm: found an awesome mashup at http://veloroutes.org. Here’s the elevation profile for my ride in.

Elevation graph for my commute

I know some of the women who read my blog have already had children. After talking with Brian about the possibilities and problems associated with childbirth – I’m pretty sure I don’t want to give birth – for multiple reasons. The biggest is that I’m needlephobic, and while pregnancy and childbirth *can* happen with no needles involved, Brian has said he won’t support my desire to not have a needle without my permission. i.e. he’ll let the nurse/doctor stick me with a needle without asking my permission first. I will not have an IV put in me “just-in-case”. The second is that I’m a pretty selfish person, and after several horror stories about bodily functions after birth (incontinence, bleeding, and hemorrhoids), I’m not sure that it’s worth it.

So, it basically seems like I’ve heard all of the horror stories, and none of the good ones of giving birth. I’m inviting my readers/friends/family to share with me non-horrible birth stories, or reasons why I’d want to actually give birth. I have no problem with the raising children part – we both want to be parents, and there are options other than giving birth that result in raising children, so “it’s all worth it” is not a valid reason. My mom loved me just as much as she would have loved a child who wasn’t adopted, so unless you’ve got one birth child and one adopted child, the “you’ll love them more” isn’t a valid reason for me either.

So, stories, reasons?

I had to take a break when we went to London because I wasn’t taking a laptop with me, and we were planning on doing a lot of walking and biking anyway, so I took a break. Unfortunately, I somehow pulled a lower ab muscle (and I mean *pulled*, not just made sore), and getting out of bed was painful. I waited a few days to rest, while walking all the while, and restarted at Yoga on Wednesday. I couldn’t do some of the moves (plank) because of my stomach muscle, but I did what I could. Yesterday, I did the Legs & Back for the first time. It was nice. I haven’t worked my leg muscles like that in a very long time. They’ve always been really strong and muscular, and most of the body weight exercises I know wouldn’t really work them out much. I learned a lot of new ones that *will* work them out now

I had trouble with the back exercises – they were all pull-ups and chin-ups, and while I have a doorway bar, I can’t lift myself up, so I took some advice on various forums, and used a chair to get myself up, and let myself down without too much assistance. I’m still having trouble. The next step is to get a set of resistance bands that I can use instead, and then move up to the pull-up bar when I can actually do something there.

My pulled ab muscle is feeling a little better. I can sit up in bed without pain, but sneezing and coughing still strain it a little bit, and anything that specifically targets those muscles is out of the question for a while, so no Ab Ripper for me.

Tonight is Kenpo. I’m still trying to decide if I should do it before or after Brian and I go up to his dad’s in Baltimore..

I’m not as sore as I was on Monday (day 2), but my shoulders and my arms are weak. I didn’t get up this morning to do the Yoga workout. It was too cold in the house and I didn’t want to get out of bed. But it’s on the list for as soon as I get home. I kinda liked the shoulders and arms workout. I’m not sure I used the right amount of weight though. I started with the lightest weights I own (3lbs), and if that was too easy, I switched to the heavier weights (5lbs). Right now, I’m focusing on learning the forms, not on how much weight I can lift. So, the default is to start with little or no weight.

I also might need to consider buying heavier weights. The heaviest weight I have is 10lbs, which will probably keep me for a while, but I suspect that my legs will soon need heavier weights.

The ab ripper is not really going to work for me I can do almost all of the exercises – except the ones that make me completely lift my back off the mat by rolling (ie. full situps). My spine’s not quite aligned right, and it’s painful to my spine to do that particular kind of move. Any suggestions for alternatives? I just kept doing crunches while he was lifting his spine, but I’m sure that I’m not working the proper muscle groups by doing that.

I started P90X on Sunday. It’s kicking my ass. I’ve heard good things about it through youtube and the Intarwebs. The before and after pictures are amazing, and some are from people I know, so I tend to trust them a bit more.

The concept is scientifically sound – “muscle confusion” to keep your body from adapting – and it’s a nice packaged system. I’m *not* following the eating plan though, nor the supplements. I am going to try to get a bit more protein in my system on a regular basis, but other than that, I’m not altering my diet. It’s already fairly good, but a bit on the carb heavy side. If I find that I’m simply starving, I’ll eat a few hundred more calories than I normally would, but no other concessions to my current Weight Watchers like eating plan. According to the P90X nutrition guide, I should be burning about 600 extra calories per day while doing P90X. So far, the heart rate monitor has only estimated in the 350-400 range. I realize that the calorie burning continues past active exercise, but I don’t think it’d 200+ calories. I also don’t like supplements. For one, I just won’t eat them because they taste disgusting (I don’t like nuts or granola which most protein bars have, and I don’t like shakes, which is what the powders usually end up as). And two, I’m not paying for stuff I won’t eat anyway.

The first day was the core synergistics, which left everything from my shoulders to my knees (except my quads) in pain. I now realize that I really do have stomach muscles… And I’m also learning to cope with my body’s reaction to abdominal exercises. I normally prefer to exercise on a fairly empty stomach. Sunday morning, I had my morning vitamin and pills before starting – bad idea. This morning, I waited until afterwards, and while it wasn’t as bad as yesterday, my stomach was not a happy camper. I’m afraid that exercising on anything more than water will be a *really* bad idea.

Today was cardio, which was a mix of stretching, yoga, kenpo, pylometrics, and core muscle work. Once I was warmed up, moving my muscles wasn’t so bad. I do however need to stretch a lot more than the videos call for, so I just paused it during the after workout stretch and did my own stretching. One of my goals is to be as flexible or almost as flexible as I was when I was dancing – right now, the tests will be whether I can do the splits (on both legs) without thinking about it. I never could do the “chinese” splits (center drop), but if I could get to that point, it’d be great

Now that my body’s had time to cool down, I’m a walking ball of pain. I guess my body will start to adjust a little bit so that the muscle pain doesn’t interfere with my normal daily activities.