Day 2, Week 4: 104 reps??? and Reason #2 to love the TC Marathon

Twin Cities is only FIVE days away, people, so let me tell you the second reason why I love this TC Marathon so much (you can see the first reason here if you missed it and are linear like I am):

Stayin alive!  Get it? Because it's a marathon...nevermind.

The awesome sweat pits you get by mile 14.  Especially the elbow-pits.

Just kidding.  The second reason is that even through the marathon suffering that begins for me in the first half mile, this race is freaking fun.  There is always crowd support, and they have fun signs and will scream whatever you write for them to scream on your shirt.  They give you all sorts of goodies, too-I have been the welcome recipient of pickles, salt tabs, bananas, oranges, jolly ranchers, beer, pretzels, and cookies of all kinds.  I swear one year I ate more calories than I burned during the run itself.

Twin Cities Marathon.  Come for the run.  Stay for the junk food given to you by complete strangers.

But there was no running this morning for the workout - today's workout called for a spot of strength training, but just upper body because, you know, 18 mile long run yesterday.  But I don't want to keep doing the same upper body workout from Cathe's Strong and Sweaty series (even thought I am in serious heavy like with it), so this morning I decided to switch things up and do an old favorite of mine, Cathe's Pyramid Upper Body.

I do believe this video was made in the early/mid-2000s....and the hair and set decorations show it.  In fact, one of the backup workout people has the exact same hairstyle I did when I got married in 2003 - the twisty hairdo with the itty bitty butterfly clips. 

Just goes to show how on trend that backup workout lady was.

Anyway, this workout is pretty damn solid even if the hair and set aren't. As the title implies, it's a pyramid workout, which means you do the following for each of the two exercises per each body part in the video (chest, back, shoulders, triceps, biceps):

• 12 reps at a lighter weight
• 10 reps at a heavier weight
• 8 reps at the heaviest weight
• 10 reps at the previous heavier weight that isn't as heavy as the heaviest weight
• 12 reps at the lightest weight
• Freak out when you do the math and you realize you are doing 52 reps per exercise
• Pass out when you multiply that 52 times two (104!!!) because you do two different exercises for each body part in the same pyramid scheme. (I pass out just from doing the math, not the workout.)

Let me tell you, I'm feeling that workout right now as I type this instead of being asleep as I should be.  I am especially feeling the chest work.  I recommend this workout if you're into regular upper body torture, or you just really like workout video sets that for some reason have fake vines crawling over fake stone walls.

So today's post lessons are:

1. No matter what, Cathe will cause some body part on you to be sore by the end of the day no matter what workout you do
2. I still love my wedding hairstyle but not the hubbs' cowboy hat
3. 104 reps per body part.  Just think about that for a second, will ya?
4. No matter what, race photographers always get fantastic shots of my elbow pit stains
5. I should really be in bed right now and I'm kind of tired and can't think of another lesson.

Tomorrow's workout: SPEED.  Treadmill Tuesday lurks just around the corner...