Insanity- Days 1-6

It's been over a year since I've updated this blog! Too long. But I've accomplished a lot in the time that's passed! March 2010 I did the Princess Half Marathon at Walt Disney World and this past January I did the full Disney World Marathon. Both were incredible- and very different- experiences, and both were accomplishments far beyond my wildest dreams. I never imagined that I'd ever be able to do something like that in my whole life. And now I'm signed up to do the Disneyland Half Marathon in September and I'm planning on either doing the full or half marathon at next year's Disney World Marathon Weekend. I haven't decided which yet, though! While the feeling of accomplishment you get when finishing a full marathon, but the half marathon distance is just so much more... friendly. I'll probably end up doing the full because I can never settle for anything less than the best. A gift and a curse.

In other news... I am now through my first week of Insanity! Which is, for a lack of a better word, insane. Truly. It takes all the hardest parts of P90X and combines them all and then makes you do them every day. It's crazy intense and SUPER hard. I'm pretty sure this is even harder than marathon training. But I truly feel great, which is the weird thing. And I'm proud to report that in just six days, I've improved! The day 2 and day 6 workouts for this week were the same (Plyometric Cardio Circuit), and while I still had to pause it twice today, I was able to get totally through the warm up and the first three circuits without having to cheat or stop to take a breath, and I was unable to do this the first time around. So basically, within the space of five days, I was able to improve significantly. This gave me a lot of hope, I have to say! Even after the fit test (day 1), I thought I was going to die. I got to the end of the work out and half of me was thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?!" Luckily, I stuck with it, and I can already feel the difference in my body. (My calves are perpetually on fire.)

Now, as I've been doing this, I've been comparing both Insanity and P90X in my head. I haven't come to a conclusion about which one is my favorite or if one is better than the other (I'm only a week in), but there are a few things I'd like to note:

-Cardio Recovery (Insanity) has definitely become one of my favorite workouts. It gave me a great break in the middle of a hard week and helped my body to recover enough so that I could knock out the last two difficult days. Shawn T also talks in "dancer lingo," which proved to be really helpful for me given my 17 years of dance lessons. He combined yoga with some regular stretching and some light strengthening exercises. It proved to be a very helpful and enjoyable workout- I think I liked it better than Yoga X (P90X). It feels like sacrilege, but now that I've done Cardio Recovery I really wish P90X had a workout like this, and Yoga X is the closest thing to it.

-More break times in Insanity. While Insanity proves to be a lot like doing Plyometrics (P90X) every single day, I felt like Insanity was more reasonable with breaks. I didn't feel like there were too many or too little, and they provided just enough time to recover.

-Way too many plyometric push-up moves in Insanity. This is one of the real downsides for me. Push-ups have never been my strong suit, and Insanity just takes that to another level. I know it's good for me to do hard things, but oh man. So hard.

- Long and difficult warm ups in Insanity. Now that I'm six days in I can't say that I hate them, but they do run a bit long and can get slightly boring, and the warm ups in the different workouts are VERY similar. I wish there was a little more variety, but they are effective and get you going RIGHT AWAY... if you can make it through.

Well, those are my notes for now. I'll continue updating as I continue with Insanity and all my other physical activities. Keep bringing it!