In which I find muscles I forgot I had.

I managed to drag my ass out of bed this morning for my walk with Lauri. But, I barely made it. I had woken to my alarm at 5:40 and somehow I didn't climb right out of bed to get dressed. Hmmm...that's odd. NOT. My guilty subconscious must have been working overtime though because the next thing I knew I opened my eyes a slit and I turned my head to look at the clock and it was 5:55. Eek. At that point I did get out of bed and stumbled down the hall to look for the "signal" - we turn on our front light if we plan to go out walking. I saw Lauri's front light on and so I turned mine on to alert her to my eventual emergence from the house this morning and ran to get dressed. She was just coming down her driveway as I exited the house so luckily I wasn't making her stand around in the chilly morning air waiting for me.

We walked our usual route through the neighborhood but I asked to cut it short by the last loop around one of the roads and Lauri agreed (she's still fighting a cold these days). So, we had walked about 3.2 miles this morning (according to the google map pedometer program).

Later in the morning, after I had dropped A off at preschool, E and I were just hanging out here at home. She started to fuss at me and was trying to drag me to the back door because she wanted desperately to go OUT! I bundled us both in warm jackets, hats and mittens and she settled happily in her red wagon while I pulled her up and down the street (another .5 mile or so of walking to add to my earlier excursion!). She loves being outside in the fresh air and I'm loving the unusually warm winter temps and lack of snow this year.

We were off at 11:30 to pick up A from preschool and then I made lunch. E went down for her nap and after a while I decided that I really should get cracking on my Jorge Cruise exercises. I've followed this program (the exercises but not the dietary recommendations, per se) in the past and it has certainly been a useful tool for my weight loss and fitness goals. The exercises are simple, they really do take very little time, and they are effective. Earlier in the week I had started doing a few of the exercises (day 1 through 3) but then I took a few days off - stupidly. So, today I decided to cover all the rest of the exercises for the week. I did the exercises that were for the following muscles: calves, butt, hamstrings, quadriceps, inner thighs, outer thighs. Essentially, all the lower body muscles. I spent about 1/2 hour doing the various exercises and I had thrown in a bit of ab work for good measure.

Ouch.

Now my legs are quite well worn out for today. I hope they recuperate enough to walk most of the route in the morning!

At least it's a good kind of ouch. The kind that feels like the muscles saying "hey! I'm here, alright? Geesh. You don't use me in forever and then you expect me to do WHAT?!" So, I know I worked out today and it's a good feeling.

Time to hobble off and play with the girls - preferable something that allows me to sit still for a while...