Bring it.

"Bring it" greets me every time I pop in a P90X DVD (along with the sometimes annoying but usually not that bad Tony Horton). I've now officially completed two weeks of P90X, the extreme home fitness program developed by Tony Horton. My fitness inspiration (my dad, who's in his 60s) bought it for me for Christmas and so far, I totally love it.

P90X is broken into three phases involving three weeks of intense training and one week "off" (but still looks tough!). Every workout is at least an hour long, and even on days when it's just legs or just arms, I still find myself sweating (even on days when the heat is off in my apartment).

My first two weeks have looked like this:

• Monday: Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X - This involves a ton of pushups and pull ups. It's challenging for me, and I'm not even doing "real" pushups or pull ups. I'm doing most of the pushups on my knees and I simulate pull ups with a resistance band. Ab Ripper X is a 17-minute ab workout that makes you want to die
• Tuesday: Plyometrics - Plyometrics is a lot of jumping around, getting the heart rate up. Admittedly, it's probably not the best for my injured leg, but it's only once a week so I think it's OK
• Wednesday: Shoulders & Arms, Ab Ripper X - Shoulders and arms is different types of bicep curls, shoulder presses and tricep workouts. I use resistance bands for this one too, since I only own 5 lbs dumbbells and I don't think that's heavy enough!
• Thursday: Yoga X - 90 minutes of yoga! 45 minutes of flow, and 45 minutes of yoga stretches. It's really tough, but I always enjoy it
• Friday: Legs & Back, Ab Ripper X - Squats, lunges and pull ups galore! I don't find this day to be all that tough, but my legs are pretty strong after running so much and amping up my strength workouts before starting P90X
• Saturday: Kenpo X - This is basically kick boxing. It's a nice change from all the strength, and I definitely work up a sweat doing this workout. It's not my favorite, but I don't mind it
• Sunday: X Stretch - An hour of stretching. Much needed after a week of kicking my own ass!

Since there's no trainer to kick your butt, it's really up to you to make the most of it - up the reps, up the weight, push yourself. I can't run for another two weeks, so this has been an awesome way for me to feel like I'm staying in shape. My dad really benefited from it and improved over the 90 days, and I hope I can do the same!

I like it because it makes me do strength training, and at an hour at a time (and honestly, the workouts fly by)! Before starting this, my strength workouts were either done during Total Body Conditioning (which I stopped doing during marathon training...not smart!) or in a 20- to 30-minute workout I did on my own. One thing I don't like is that on the straight-up strength days, I don't get much cardio. Yes, I'm working hard, but I like to SWEAT.

I <3 Sweat!

So we'll see how it goes. I hope these next 76 days go by just as quickly!

Other than P90X, some other fun has been had this week. First, I received 96 ounces of Chobani in the mail, a giveaway I won from Megan at Runner's Kitchen!

Massive box with a massive styrofoam cooler and cold packs!

CHOBANI FOR LIFE!

I've entered plenty of giveaways in my time as a blog reader, but this was the first time I won anything! Greek yogurt is a pretty darn good thing to win if you ask me. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do with all this Chobani, but I know some will be used for baking, and some will make a regular appearance in my day as a snack!

Friday night I went out to dinner with four college friends. We wanted to go to Tertulia, but the wait was two hours so we went to Extra Virgin instead. It. Was. Delicious. I have no pictures, but we had some pinot grigio and a delicious bread basket. For dinner, I had the pistachio crusted goat cheese salad with roasted beets, endives, water cress and a Granny Smith vinaigrette, along with a side of Brussels sprouts. YUM. I hope I can get back there again to try brunch!

Yesterday was pretty great, too:

59 degrees and sunny?! Amazing. I may have slept till 12:30pm (P90X really wears me out!), but I got up and walked across the (very crowded) park to get to Trader Joe's to pick up the fixings for curried cauliflower soup (which I made today - delicious!). 

And today? Today I went to Madison Square Garden for the Professional Bull Riders season opener. My friend Jessica has a discount for it, and since another goal I have for this year is to say yes more, I decided to give it a shot. 

Jessica and me - flannel shirts for PBR!

I'd heard of a few other friends going to it and heard that it was really fun, so I figured, why not? Jessica managed to convince her sister and our friend Allison to come along too, so we had a good little group.

Bucking bull

It was SO much fun!!! I never expected to have so much fun at a BULL RIDING event, but this was really something else, and not something I would have EVER done otherwise. 

It was a great week overall, and I'm also looking forward to another week - my friend is coming to visit and it's a long weekend! 

Have you ever done P90X or other "extreme home fitness" workouts? What did you think of them?