Introducing...No Jiggle July!

I've decided that it's time to kick it up a notch here at Maintaining Merth. I've been floating around in the post-race slump for the past few weeks, and I'm ready to get back to some more focused, regular training. There are two events coming up this fall (Zombie Escape and the Color Run) that I really want to be prepared for, so I don't want to lose the progress I made this spring. Oh yeah...there's also a trip to the beach coming up in August that, well, I want to be prepared for too!

SO...I'm declaring next month to be "No Jiggle July" -- a month-long quest to get back on track and really work on strength training and toning. Thankfully, today's only June 29, so I still have a couple of days to decide exactly what that's going to look like. Some of my ideas I'm thinking about are below:

1. Incorporate at least 15 minutes of exercise into my day EVERY day in July. (Yikes!)
2. Work my way through the gobs of fitness pins that I have saved on Pinterest.
3. Find the most creative ways I can to fit fitness in to my regular routine.

I suspect that No Jiggle July will contain a combination of all of the above, but I'm also open to suggestions. What do you think I should do?

I am Ninja!

On Saturday, I ran the Ninja Challenge with a group of my friends. 5K. 15 obstacles. NC heat.


My teammate Diana and I started the day early with a little ninja prepping. Who says ninjas can't look good while they're stealthily moving from one challenge to the next?

Finally, it was time to leave for the race. I think we were both nervous, but with a few deep breaths of assurance, we decided we were ready to tackle whatever lay ahead of us. Following the trail from the parking lot to the check-in area, we passed by a hay bale obstacle. Whew. The hay bale seemed manageable. Maybe we CAN do this!

With the sun blazing down, we found the rest of our team and began preparing for our start time. Water? Check. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Check. Pre-race pit stop? Check. 

And so it began. Our team opted to bring up the rear of our starting heat so as to be able to take our time and not hold anyone else up. We ran. We jumped over log hurdles. We crossed ponds. We leaped into ice cold water. We climbed cargo nets. We skipped. We finished. We had a blast.

And so, we survived the Ninja Challenge. I went into the race anticipating that it would be one of those things that I did to do and that would be it. But in truth, although it was challenging, it was also a lot of fun. So much fun that I think we're trying again -- the Zombie Escape mud (!) run in September. After several months of "training," I felt reasonably prepared for some elements of the course, but not as prepared as I should have been for others. While I'm not sure how I feel about the mud aspect of the next race, I'm thankful to have something to work toward for the next several months. Here we go again!

In 24 hours...

5 kilometers. 15+ obstacles. It's Ninja time!