Week one redone.

No, you weren't the only one sick of the tubby talk. I can't promise it's over. I can believe the worst has passed. (Knock on wood.)

And now for something mildly different.

It had been 10 days since I ran when I hit the road on Saturday. A couple weeks ago I felt a sharp pain in my shin during some cardio. And, well, I hate crutches, so i dropped the impact and took to the bike.

I also took to fitness boot camp.

If you dropped by my tweets last week, you caught that boot camp day one didn't blow mind as imagined. Sure, I had some slight soreness two days later, but I was looking for a royal butt whooping. On the plus side, I discovered that I wasn't remotely as out of shape as I feared. Four months off wasn't a strike out.

Day two was a little more intense, and I can still feel the soreness in my inner arms. It starts with 30 minutes of an intense circuit/interval model, followed by 30 minutes of plyometrics and ab work. Yoga, it turns out, does make you a fitness all-star. I'm grateful, though, for the extra work on my back muscles, which I've neglected since spring.

While it's only been two days, I feel more in touch with my muscular structure. My larger muscle groups definitely feel worked and some of the middle groups have burned as well.

I've tried to maintain a miniature version of Tracy Anderson mat work going at home to continue toning and getting in touch with my smaller muscle groups. I really dig Tracy Anderson and think this break for boot camp will make my heart (and butt) grow fonder.

Saturday, however, was the first time I had run since the sharp shin pain and since the start of boot camp. Would I have lost too much fitness? Would the pain return?

No and no.

I ran a warm up mile straight (sans walk breaks) around 9:30/mile and didn't want to die. Not even a little bit. Then I turned up the heat.

After 1:30 walk break, I continued with 2:10 run, 1:30 walk for about 4.5 miles. My muscles were happily loose and warmed up, so the 7:33-7:58 pace for those 2:10 segments felt just right. Typically I wouldn't have pushed that tempo, but I was so deadset on not checking pace (and getting discouraged) that I just ran with it. And run I did.

I followed up with stretching and light massage. The only quirk was tight hamstrings when I cooled down—probably a product of last-man-standing split lunges last Wednesday.

We didn't push it so hard today when NB and I ran 3.25 in 2:20/1:30 intervals around 8:30-9:00 pace. It was my first two-in-a-row since spring. We'll see on Monday—during boot camp, probably—how my body reacts.

I also biked intervals today for 30 minutes and will try to catch some pedaling in the morning before work.

It's like my own little last-G-standing sequence. And I'll be standing on the scale Monday morning for the Week one's results.

UPDATE: Monday weigh-in read 128.6, which is a little lower than expected. Was I chock full of water last week? Did I lose too much water this weekend? Three pounds in one week seems a bit much (well, I'll still take it). This is where the late-week weigh-in comes in handy. But I have to manage my expectations. See, I'm wary of accepting lower-than-expected weigh-ins because they jerk my expectations... and set me up for a setback weigh-in later, which will lead to a "screw it" moment. Perhaps I can find a way to be banned from the train.