As if he knew it was my birthday, my coach made Tuesday’s practice “on-your-own.” That translates to: SLEEP IN PAST 7am! The trails and roads are covered with a layer of ice and snow from the weekend’s storms, so my workout would be taking place in the comfort of the dry and heated gym. Because of said storm, I had already run for 60 minutes on the treadmill Saturday, and 85 minutes Sunday. So another long treadmill run didn’t interest me in the least bit.

I may have deviated from my training program for a day to mix things up a little bit and keep it interesting – girls just wanna have fun!

Our track team’s strength program has really been focusing on lower body lately, lots of overhead-weighted squats, hamstring curls and RDL’s, and hip mobility. Not to leave the upper body neglected, I decided to start out with upper body weights. I made up my workout as I went along, but it came out looking like this:

P.S. Don’t let the pink backgrounds fool you; this workout will leave you sweating and in need of some protein replenishment!

Note on the modified pull-ups: I used the machine that takes off some of your body weight so I was really lifting about 65% of my body weight. Since there are 3 sets, I did one set with parallel grip, one with chin-up grip, and one with pull-up grip.

Bursts of cardio to break a sweat! Followed by actual cardio machines, without the monotony of another treadmill day:

A workout is not complete without some CORE! These are pretty much my favorite core exercises, minus a couple. Like I said, I made it up as I went along but it looked something like:

This workout turned out WAY longer than I anticipated and I was at the gym for about 2 hours but I didn’t mind! It made a (little) dent in my birthday calories :) I definitely didn’t count calories this weekend with my parents, or on my actual birthday with some extra treats. Today it’s back on track with balanced meals and minimal desserts but it was nice to enjoy some “extras” off campus for a few days.

Apart from the exercise… I really enjoyed my birthday. I’m happy to have so many great people in my life and we had so much fun ending the birthday night getting frozen yogurt in 20 degrees. Die hard ice cream fan!

My birthday was conveniently on “Fat Tuesday.” Which epitomized my diet for the day. Red Velvet yogurt with strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries, all of which are invisible under this mound of granola & hot fudge. Going out with a bang!

Starting the day in the gym and ending it with the best group of teammates and friends. Can’t ask for much more than that!