Remember the 100 push ups challenge?

Well… this week I started it again. Just for kicks!

It started like this: on Monday when the sistertraveller flew to Toronto (for good!) to do her Masters program, I got to thinking. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m “own my own” this week. The boyfriend and the mother dear left the city last week and a number of my close friends have also jetted out of the province for good. On Monday I realized that I now had a week stretching out ahead of me, and I didn’t have work plans for the evenings and weekends. The past few weeks I’ve found myself very busy with work functions in the evenings and on weekends, so whenever I had a spare minute to myself I was always too exhausted to do very much, or else I was at going away parties or being a comfy couch potato.

But here we have a whole week, and I actually have some free time. It was then that I asked myself, okay, what should I do with this free time?

The truth is that I’ve been spending so much of my time filling up my time that I rather forgot about what I enjoy doing on my own time. I mean, I can’t spend every minute of my day working, cleaning, and reading books, can I? There must be some other things that I enjoy doing.

I was feeling a little stressed and anxious on Monday evening, particularly because I had planned on going to a Step class at the gym only to discover that a new schedule has been put in place since the summer is over, and I had missed the first half hour of the class. I guess I’ll just get back to work, I thought to myself glumly.

But then I figured that wasn’t really fair at all. So I went for a walk. A nice, 90-minute walk. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone for a walk for pleasure rather than transportation. It wasn’t until I’d been walking for about an hour that I really began to relax and properly enjoy myself, which was a good reminder to myself that I need to exercise. When I returned home from my walk I felt really great. I ended up doing strength training with jumping jacks in between for the next 15 minutes because that’s what I like to do. Somehow I forgot, with all the busy-ness of work, that I really love exercising and it’s a major hobby of mine.* How did I forget about that?

I don’t want to forget that again. Which brings me back to the 100 push ups challenge.

I’m starting it again this week, and I’m going to continue working at it until I can once again do 100 consecutive push ups. I’ve only ever done it once, so I think it’s about time I re-learn how to do it! If you go back to read my 100 push up victory post, I mention in it that I was rewarding myself by purchasing a “hundred push ups” mouse pad. Well, I did do that, and every day I get to look at my mouse pad and remember how fantastic it felt to do 100 push ups.

Cutest mouse pad ever!

While I’m at it, I’m also aiming to do another 6-minute plank hold. Again, I only did that once, so I really ought to do it again. Also Josie and her plankathon are way too awesome not to revisit.

I feel more relaxed than I have in a long time with these fitness goals to work toward!

What do you like to do in your free time? What are your fitness goals? Have you done the 100 push ups challenge before? Share in the comments section below!

*There are other things I like doing besides exercising too, of course. I think? Ha.