Month: February 2014

One Hour Plank

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I hurt my back. Bad.  Well, maybe not so bad because 6 days later and I’m feeling 80% better.  Those first three days were intense though.  Lots of moaning, lots of crying, lots of fear that I’d never get better.  I can be a little dramatic perhaps but fo real, it was bad.  Definitely bad enough to sideline my February One Hour Plank Challenge.

In case you missed it, at the beginning of the month I announced that I was going to do an hour of plank throughout February and invited one and all to join me.  The premise was (is) simple; 3 times a week perform a 5 minute plank workout and after 4 weeks you’ve done an hour of plank!  By the way, “5 minute plank workout” means doing many sets of plank to equal an hour, I have no interest in staying up there for 5 minutes non-stop!

Today is scheduled as day 11 out of 12 but I haven’t planked since last Wednesday. Hopefully I’ll be back on the horse by Friday but in the interim I thought I’d consolidate the links for the workouts from the first 8 days of the challenge.  For each workout day I made a little video and plan that I posted on Facebook, here they are.

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five 

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Nine

Day Ten

Day Eleven

Day Twelve

I’ve loved this challenge and am really looking forward to getting back to it! Wanna help? I have a few more plank tricks up my sleeve but would love to learn some more, please let me know what your favorite plank variation is and it might just become Day Nine’s workout!

Playday

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I love a good snow day and yesterday was one of the best.  The flakes can down fast and light and my yard was quickly covered in a beautiful white blanket.  I took full advantage of the mini-holiday and stayed in bed until noon.  Eventually I made it downstairs (but not out of my pj’s) and totally just followed my cravings for cereal and wine for lunch, which is not really an awesome combo but some how it worked for me yesterday.

Just as I was ready to surrender to the idea of a very sloth-y day I came across Lauren Eckstrom’s yoga website and convinced myself to unroll my mat for one of her 10 minute Vinyasa video clips. Those first few minutes felt so great that I followed my body’s lead and need and ended up doing all 8 videos while watching the snow accumulate.

Then it was snow time!

I bundled up, stepped out the backdoor, and exclaimed “holy shit” as I my feet disappeared into the white.

That’s nearly knee deep on a Faith! (I’m barely 5 foot 3)

I had a delightful urban adventure trucking around town for an hour.  The streets were pretty quiet and the snow was still falling hard.  It was really beautiful.

I know that not everyone shares my excitement and joy around a big snow storm but you’ve got to understand the context, I live in Central Virginia.  We get maybe one snowstorm a year and it rarely lasts longer than a day or two.   When it does happen the city shuts down and it’s like an unexpected holiday.  Plus, as far as I know this storm didn’t bring many (any?) electrical outages and people were prepared for it ahead of time (the weather prediction was actually spot-on! How often does that happen?!).

Today is in the 40’s and totally bluebird.  The streets are wet and the giant piles of snow are starting to shrink. Oh well, twas fun while it lasted.

It’s day 6 of the One Hour Plank Challenge!  Also known as half way there :).   In honor of Valentine’s Day today’s Plank of the Day is all about heart opening.   Check out the Gracefulfitness Facebook page for all the details, including a video demonstration.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours!