Quality over Quantity

I have been wanting to try Crossfit for awhile now and last night I finally went. You have to go to 6 classes over a 2 week period in order to learn proper form before you can actually workout so I am going to save my opinion of the class until then. For now, all I will say is that it is not for everyone. This morning, I felt more in my element at HIIT. Some strength training followed by 12 minutes of AMRAPs (as many rounds as possible) and I felt great. After work, I am going for a run and my legs are feeling good so I am looking forward to it. I have been choosing quality over quantity when it comes to running lately and it is working miracles for my knees. I do a long run on weekends and shorter runs on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Giving myself time to fully recover in between runs is improving my running and making it more enjoyable again because I no longer have constant knee pain. I think running 3 times a week, HIIT 4 times a week, and now XFit 3 times a week is working out well. I am constantly trying to find the right balance of exercise because I have the tendency to overdo it sometimes, which usually leads to me burning out at some point. It leads to a decline in fitness and sometimes even injury and then I have to come back from that. It's time to break the cycle and time to train smarter. Focusing on the quality of my workouts instead of the quantity of them seems to be the way to go.

Need More Sleep!

I don't know what is going on this year, but my kids are sick again and it is only February.  Obviously, my first priority is getting them healthy so I have been taking care of them and doing lots of cleaning and sanitizing.  I have still been working out and running just not as much as I'd like to.  I stopped doing Monday morning HIIT class so that I could keep the kids on Sunday nights from now on.  I miss them when they are not here and having extra time with them was definitely worth it.  I still go to the class Tuesdays through Fridays and I added Monday night bootcamp and Wednesday night turbo kick so it worked out for the best.  One thing I really need to work on is getting enough sleep.  I have always had trouble finding time to sleep, but now I can't even sleep when I do have time.  I think it has something to do with the large quantities of coffee I drink during the day, but I can't function without it.  I have only been getting four or five hours of sleep a night for quite some time now and I do feel run down sometimes.  I know that once I graduate, I will be able to sleep more, but October is a long time away.  It also happens to be the month of my ultra, which I need to be in top shape for.  For now, I am taking it day by day, trying to make time for everything.