The beginning of my digital accountability...and re-starting my crazy challenge AKA Week 1, Day 1.1

Here is the deal...my name is Carla and I am doing this blog to keep me accountable in my fitness endeavors. Maybe if I put it out there in the cyber-world I will be more apt to actually DO what I say I am going to do! My friend and I started doing what I called my "Crazy Challenge" back in June. We blogged our progress, but once we both fell off the wagon (and stopped going to the gym at the same time) the challenge fell by the wayside. However I decided to get started again (about 4 months later!) and thought I would create my own accountability blog to track my progress.

So here it is...my Crunch/Dip/Push up Challenge – Attempt 2!

I started my challenge today. My plan for this challenge to get up in the morning to complete whatever was on tap (either crunches and dips or push ups). I WILL WORK VERY HARD TO GET UP EVERY MORNING TO COMPLETE MY CIRCUIT…regardless of how much I want to stay in bed! (This morning was a fail...but there's always tomorrow, right?) I feel bad that I gave up on this challenge the first time and would like a chance to redeem myself by trying again! Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be my dip and crunch days. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday will be my push up days. I will do my dip and crunch exhaustion tests on Sunday and my push up exhaustion test on Monday. I have a plan…now I need to put it into action!

Here are the results of my initial tests on 10/21/11:

Crunches	48	Week 3, Column 3
Dips	35	Week 3, Column 3
Push ups	21	Week 3, Column 2

Comparing my result to the initial test I did back in the middle of June, I have definitely made an improvement in all areas – push ups went from 7 to 21, crunches went from 35 to 48, and dips went from 19 to 35! (I probably could have done more than 48 crunches, but I was afraid someone was going to walk in on me!)

Here was today's action:

Dips: 18, 23, 18, 18, Max

Crunches: 21, 27, 21, 21, Max

My max sets were as follows: Dips – 30 and Crunches – 40

It felt good to get back on the challenge tonight. I didn’t get up this morning (somehow alarms either didn’t get set or got turned off) so I had to complete my crunch and dip sets tonight. Since I’m able to start on Week 3 for all three areas, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to complete the challenge in 5-6 weeks total, which would be great! Also, I only have 4 weeks before my next half marathon and I’ve basically taken the last three weeks off…not boding well for a decent time. This week I will also start doing better with my running. I spent some time last night researching runs to do next year…my “wish list” is getting longer and longer. If it were up to me I’d be doing about 9 halfs next year – wouldn’t that be cool?