Week 4 Day 3 and another Exhaustion Test

Hmmm...I'm behind again on my blogging. The day I was supposed to do my Week 4 Day 3 pushups, was the same day we moved out of our hotel room and into Marco's house which he shares with 4 other college age boys. Yikes! It was the day before Thanksgiving so the city was in a frenzy. Delightfully, the frenzy kind of made us feel less like tourists in a strange town and more like we were experiencing the same excitement for the the Thanksgiving feast to come. Wednesday was also the day my other son, Paolo, was flying in from Lubbock, TX. I was excited to see him and complete our little family.

When I finally got around to doing my pushups, I was quite stressed from having to clean the house we were going to be living in for the next few days. Martin was asking me all sorts of questions about how to make the bed we were going to sleep in while I worked on my pushups, 29, 33, 29, 29. I had to do the maximum set twice. The first time, I managed to complete only 40. Normally, I have a minimum number to complete in my head and I try to exceed that minimum. With all the distractions and disruptions, I thought the minimum was 37 and 40 seemed sufficient. When I re-checked the table again, I discovered that the minimum was 40!! Aaaarggh! So I had to repeat the maximum again and managed to complete 45 pushups. I know I could have completed more but there were just too many distractions at that time.  

Upon completing Week 4, the program required another exhaustion test. It was late Friday evening, and I had been packing up our stuff in preparation for our trip home the following day. I knew that I wouldn't have time for pushups in the morning so I made sure to complete the exhaustion test before going to sleep. I surprised myself when I was able to complete 60 pushups. It was the most I had been able to do so far. After 45 pushups, my body was shaking; or at least it felt that way. I kept thinking "5 more!" Somehow the increments of 5 felt quite manageable because when I got around to 60, my body was screaming "Enough!!"

I was pretty proud of myself! What a great feeling - inside and out! Thanks Jen M., for insisting we take up this challenge.