Creating a runner

Pin-up Party

2012-02-13T09:12:00.001-08:00

My friend and coworker Megan sent me an email a couple of weeks ago inviting me to go with her to Bettina May's Pinup Class. I was apprehensive at first, because Megan is what is commonly referred to as "DROP DEAD FREAKING GORGEOUS," and I don't really quite measure up to her. But she is also fun, smart, funny, and awesome, so I figured it will be a great time, and I don't have to show anyone the photos when we're done, so why not have a fun girls' day out?

My greatest concern, of course, was my body. Also of concern, and almost as grave, was my hair. My hair is not long; it does not fall in beautiful waves; it is not even symmetrical. Pinup hair looks like this:

My hair looks more like this:
So naturally I was curious as to how they were going to style it.

But I went. Ted and I went shopping and he picked out a lovely dress for me; I bought body-shaping pantyhose and high heels with a bow on the toe, and waited for the big day.

It was awesome. Bettina told us some about pinup style and history, and taught us how to do makeup and hair. She and her assistant set our hair in hot rollers (though the preferred pinup method, if you have time, is to do an overnight wet-to-dry set), and we did our own makeup and put on our outfits. Then they styled our hair (they did an amazing job with mine!), and we did the photoshoots. They really did make us feel beautiful. And every woman there was beautiful. And it was an awesome experience that we all deserved. We were all in front of the camera feeling like this:

Then when all the excitement began to settle down, and Bettina handed me the cd with my photos on it, I began to fear that I had actually looked like this:

I was afraid that I would get home, look at the photos, and sob uncontrollably for the rest of the evening.

But what I actually wound up looking like was this:

So not so bad. I'm glad I went.

Dinner

2012-01-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

So today I was kind of snacky all day. I didn't have a lot of calories left for dinner. I wanted something tasty, so I took Ted's recipe for Jamaican escovitch and trimmed calories, fat, and carbs from it. I also stole his photo.

Slimmed-down Jamaican Escovitch

4 Servings

per serving:

Calories: 157

Fat: 2g

Carbs: 7g

Protein: 28g

4 Flounder filets

1 Large onion

1 Medium carrot

1 Habanero pepper (or Scotch Bonnet, if you can find one), seeds removed and sliced into thin strips

1 tsp minced garlic

1 Bay leaf

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp Allspice berries

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

2 tsp salt

2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup malt vinegar

1/8 cup water

1 lime, cut into wedges

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Heat a stainless steel saucepan over medium low heat. Briefly remove from heat and spray with cooking spray (I used the olive oil kind). Add onion, carrot, habanero, and garlic; heat for about a minute, then add the bay leaf, thyme, allspice, crushed pepper, salt, and pepper.
Sweat for about 5 minutes, stirring, or until the onion is soft and translucent. You may need to spray with additional cooking spray to keep moist.

Add the vinegar, water and lemon juice, stirring well. Bring to a gentle boil. Boil briefly to let the sauce reduce a little. Cover the pan and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the vegetables are tender.

Wash fish thoroughly in water with lime or lemon juice added. Dry thoroughly.

Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray. Place the fish on the foil and salt and pepper to taste. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 18 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with fork.

Spoon the hot vegetables and sauce over the fish and serve right away with lime wedges. This is also good the next day as a cold lunch (and if you leave it cold, your coworkers won't kill you for making the office smell like fish).

Stepping Forward, Stumbling Back

2012-01-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

It's hard to gauge how well I'm doing.

On the one hand, I'm staying within my calorie range most days. I'm also working out regularly, and additionally doing little fun things that are active (I went to a line-dancing class this evening; it was fun!). Everything about my lifestyle has improved. I'm eating fewer calories; the calories I do consume are mostly healthy, nutritious calories; I'm becoming more active; I'm drinking far less alcohol; I've almost completely cut out diet sodas; I've started drinking green tea. Heck, it doesn't have anything to do with fitness or weight loss, but I've even stopped biting my nails.

On the other hand, I still have days and short strings of days where I completely lose my give-a-damn, and fall right back into my old habits. Weekends are the worst; I think it is because I don't have a weekend routine. I've fit my healthy eating and exercise into my work days, and I have figured out how to maintain that. But on weekends, where things are happening spontaneously and I'm doing something different all the time and I'm unprepared for half of what happens, I wind up eating fast food. Or going to a nice sit-down dinner out. Or drinking too much scotch and cider (Scotch with a cider chaser; not mixed together. I do have standards.). And these days are affecting my progress. That is frustrating.

I truly want to focus on what I'm doing right. I want to love myself for all the hard work and sacrifice I have done lately. I want to be proud of myself. But my setbacks keep me from feeling that way. Instead of feeling like a success for the five days I was strictly on-plan, I feel like a failure for the long weekend where I completely blew it. I just can't seem to cut myself a break.

Part of this whole ordeal is learning to give a damn about myself. I'm learning more about what that means every day. I'm not there yet; but it's getting closer. I have proud moments and little glimpses of progress I have made. The good is beginning to outweigh the bad, and if that trend continues, I may actually make it this time.

I want to thank all of you. Julia and Ted have been absolutely wonderful and so incredibly supportive through all my ups and downs. SGT Ken and Amber and all the instructors at START Fitness have done so much to help me learn how to push my body and become stronger. My precious friends, Suzan, Gayle, Adam, all my FB Fit Before the World Ends friends, and many others have been there for me and I couldn't have come this far without you. Thank you so much for listening, laughing, encouraging, mocking, and pushing me. We still have a long way to go.

Warning: You Don't Want to Read This Post

2012-01-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

You've been warned.

First, I'd like to say that I am grateful to live in the modern world, where I have options for when it is my "ladies time," and I don't have to go shear a sheep or just sit in my room in a puddle of my own uterus until it is over. Seriously, I'm happy for that.

But honestly. Feminine products manufacturers, I'm talking to you. I mean, seriously? Your target consumer group consists of women who are bloated, hormonal, and bleeding out of parts of their body that usually make them very happy. Do you really have to add so much additional complication?

I don't need wings. Not on the front, the middle, or the back of my feminine products. I'm not taking flying lessons; I just need a barrier between my unstable uterus and my underwear. The last thing I want to worry about is getting the little sticky sides wrapped around the crotch of my panties while keeping them from sticking to themselves when I'm trying to discreetly change the sheets in the women's bathroom of a fancy restaurant. Just please give me a strip of absorbent fabric to lay across the crotch of my panties. That doesn't seem like too much to ask.

You cannot say you were not warned.

It Has to Work for Me

2012-01-12T08:03:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm going to put this out there and I'd like to know what y'all think.

If you've been following the blog lately, you'll know I've had a few off days because of Christmas and New Year, and I've jumped right back on plan after both those events. Even with the lapses, I've lost weight since I started really counting calories in December. I'll post my official weigh-in tomorrow.

Anyway, I expect to have a lot of weeks where I have one day where I go over - not really a "free day" where I pay no attention whatsoever, but a day where I may have a heavy dinner or a few more drinks than the plan allows. For example, this Saturday night is Whiskey Club. My plan is to eat a light, sensible, healthy breakfast and lunch, and enjoy the food and drink at the gathering. Sampling whiskey and eating snacks will probably take me over on calories for the day. Could I make a sacrifice and not participate in the tasting? Sure. Am I willing to make that sacrifice? I'm not sure; I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. I am making conscious sacrifices every day. I am learning from them and growing from them. But that doesn't mean I have to sacrifice every single pleasure in my life that involves calories. If this is going to be long-term, then there will have to be exceptions. There will have to be variety, joy, and fun.

My thoughts are that this keeps me from quitting altogether, and it's still a lot better than I was doing before. I expect this to continue to result in a downward trend on the scale, though it might not be the two pounds a week that my actual to-the-letter-plan is geared for.

I'm actually making it to the gym a lot more, and mostly doing pretty intense workouts. Zombiefit and Crossfit are really tough, almost as tough as boot camp (though the workouts are shorter, so still not as intense). The Zumba classes aren't all that hard, but it's an extra hour of moderate cardio, and that should be at least a booster.

Thoughts?

The Worst is Behind Me (I Hope)

2012-01-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

"Remember the race is not always won by the swift nor the conflict by the strong ... but if you have money to wager put it on the fast strong guy." -Zacharia TeKawaare

I haven't been the fast strong guy lately. But I have been determined.

Christmas and New Year's were a couple of tough obstacles in my nutrition revamp, but I pushed through and did not let them derail me. I had two out-of-range days for Christmas, and three for New Year's. After each, I jumped right back on and stayed on track. I have had three successful days in a row. I'm learning every day about what foods are wasted calories, and what foods contribute to long-term satisfaction and good nutrition. I'm also learning what I am willing to sacrifice, and what I am not willing to sacrifice. For those things that I am not willing to give up, I plan. If my plan does not allow for those things, I either rework it or I forego that particular vice for the day, with the knowledge that I can start again tomorrow, and make sure it fits within my plan.

Nothing is forbidden; nothing is required. This is not about anyone else's idea of what I should or should not be eating or drinking. It is about me learning what works for me.

I am going to give myself another week on my plan before I report any weigh-ins. As I said, Christmas and New Year's threw me off, so I'm going to give myself a chance to even out before I start reporting progress. I also need a new scale, as my current one seems to be behaving oddly.

I haven't been very funny lately. For that I apologize. I've been pretty focused on getting my act together, and it really hasn't lent itself to comedy. I will figure out a remedy to that soon.

On a Roll

2011-12-29T12:51:00.000-08:00

And I don't mean a cinnamon roll.

I have remained steadfast with staying within my calorie range. I have had two more successful days since my last post, and I'm on track for another successful day today. This is a good trend.

Now, just because I have been able to maintain this does not mean it has been easy. Yesterday after work I wanted nothing more than to dive face-first into a vat of dry martini. I did have a couple of martinis; but I had the calories planned for them and I did not overindulge. I'm finding that with a little creativity, I'm able to eat really great stuff and still stay in my range. Last night Ted and I made escovitch, which is a wonderful jamaican spicy fish dish, and it was amazing.

We also did the Zombie Fit workout of the day, which was kind of brutal. It consisted of some cardio to warm up, repetitions of circuits for time, and cardio to finish off. When all was said and done, we wound up doing:

5 min run/bike
30 squats
30 push-ups
30 sit-ups
30 pull-ups
30 8-count bodybuilders (which include a push-up, bringing that total to 60)
75 lunges each leg
25 burpees
300m jogging

My thighs caught fire at one point.

It's Not the Same Thing

2011-12-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

There is a difference between being "in control" and being "perfect."

Since my last blog post, I have been in control. I have not been perfect; but that is okay.

I have stayed within my calorie range all but two days since my last blog post. Those two days were Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On those days, I made a conscious decision to enjoy food and drink with my family. I do not regret it.

I didn't pig out as heavily as I normally do during the holidays, but there's only so much you can manage with portion control when your meal consists of country ham, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, big fluffy biscuits, and sausage gravy. Oh, and orange juice to drink. Even with small portions, which I did observe, that was a lot of calories. And worth every bite.

Christmas day was not quite as bad, but we did go have Asian food, and I had wine that evening. It was a nice, relaxing holiday, and I feel good about jumping right back on track Monday morning. On Monday I ate right in the middle of my calorie range. So, like I said, I'm in control.

The Christmas holiday did mess up my workout schedule, but Ted and I plan on going to the gym in the morning and doing a good workout. I'm going to try to fit in some extra cardio this week to compensate for my two high calorie days.

It feels so good to be in charge of my body for a change.

Coming Together - Maybe

2011-12-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

It feels like everything is starting to come together.

I know; you have all read this from me before. I'm working out hard, I'm getting my eating under control, blah blah blah, then bam, I'm back on here whining about eating too many damn cheeseburgers. Why should you think it's going to be any different this time?

Well, the truth is, you shouldn't. But I'm hoping to surprise you.

So what is different this time? Well, I had what alcoholics refer to as a "moment of clarity."

It came when I was browsing some friends' photos on the internet. There was a photo of a very fit, healthy, toned woman in one of the photos. In the comments, someone complimented her on what a lovely, lean, strong body she had (it wasn't as weird as it sounds here). The lady commented back that it wasn't easy; she had worked hard and made a lot of sacrifices for that body.

For some reason, that statement made something click. Sacrifices.

All this time, I've been thinking in terms of what I can and can't have. I can't have more calories than my calorie range allows. I can't have all those carbs. I can't have so much fat. Well, a bull-headed woman like me does not like to be told that she can't have or do anything. So something makes me rebel and say LIKE HELL I CAN'T JUST WATCH ME.

But I'll tell you what I can do. I can make conscious decisions to make a sacrifice to further my goal. I can choose to forego something I want. I can take a look at those fried pickles, or that piece of cake, or that pizza, and I can say to myself "If I want to eat that, I can eat it." And then I can remind myself that if I choose to skip it, that is X-number of calories that I do not have to burn off. And I can walk away.

I have gone back to tracking my calories on SparkPeople. Yesterday I stayed within my calorie range, even though I attended an awesome Winter Solstice Bonfire Party at the home of my good friend Gayle. I chose low calorie foods all day, had a piece of tilapia before I left so I wouldn't be starving, and while at the party I drank limited amounts of beer and wine. When I got home and logged the drinks from the party, I saw that I had succeeded. It was awesome.

I am well on the way toward having another successful day. I prepared a healthy breakfast and lunch, and have a light snack ready for when I need it. Dinner will be tilapia again, probably, this time with a side dish of a vegetable or some salad.

As for working out, Ted and I are still doing workouts at the gym. On some days we're doing the Workout of the Day (WoD) from zombiefit.org, and on other days we're doing the WoD from crossfit.com. They are great workouts, and really tough. I'm still having to modify for my knees and my foot, but I'm able to get a really good burn every time.

More soon.

Honesty

2011-11-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Time for some honesty.

I've been lying to myself and others for years now. I have consistently asserted that I want to lose weight "to be healthy," or "so I won't die at 48 like my dad did." I've been saying that for so long, that it's just my automatic canned response now.

But you know what? It's a lie.

The truth is that at my current weight, my life expectancy is reduced by about three years. When I'm faced with the choice between eating a baked chicken breast with steamed green beans for dinner and ordering a pizza, those three years don't seem very important. Honestly, I'll probably be suffering from dementia long before I approach those years (family history, both maternal and paternal), so truly, dying three years sooner would be a gift to those who are stuck taking care of me.

Depressing? Yes. But hey, the truth is the truth. You should know that with a title like "Honesty," anything I write will be dreadful.

So you want to know, honestly, why I want to lose weight?

I want to be pretty. Pretty all over, not just that girl who has a pretty face, too bad she's so fat. I want to look sexy in cute clothes. I want to be attractive in a bikini. I want to be that lady you stare at while she's working out, thinking "damn, look at those muscles!"

I want my daughter to be proud of me when we go places. I want her to be proud of the progress I've made.

I have the most wonderful, kind, loving, precious partner in the world. He deserves a sexy girlfriend. He loves his dumpy girlfriend; but he deserves to have a girlfriend who makes him proud. I want to be her.

It is all superficial. Every bit of it.

So there. That's the truth. I don't really care all that much about my long-term health. I really just want to be attractive. If that makes my weight loss goals less valid, then so be it.

So Close to Quitting

2011-10-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

I am so thankful to have a supportive partner.

Today I had a blog post all cooked up in my head about how I was going to just give up. Quit. Throw in the towel. Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

I was going to say that I've been at this since February, and not just half-assed at it, but really working myself to death at boot camp, and all I have to show for it are knees that hurt worse than ever and newly-developed plantar fasciitis. I have lost no weight; I have lost only one clothing size, and that was in the very beginning. I look exactly how I looked when I started, and I am tired, worn down, and just sick to fucking death of killing myself for no results. I can't get my eating under control because I'm like that old drunk who just keeps drinking until he dies. Why doesn't he stop? Because he will never love himself more than he loves alcohol. And that is my relationship with food. Sorry, folks, but I am always going to be fat. I am probably going to die young of a preventable disease because I refuse to change my habits. So I quit. I just fucking goddamn quit.

Then Ted said that he could see a difference. He could feel a difference. I am making progress. And he gave me a kiss and a hug that told me that he means it. And I took the top piece of bread off my Egg McMuffin to cut the carb count in half, and everything was better again.

I'm still very, very frustrated that the weather is cooling down and I can't run. I want to get back out there and do at least some short runs; some drills; something. But I really can't. My foot is a genuine showstopper. I'm still very, very frustrated that I can't do so many exercises properly because of my knee pain. And I'm still very, very frustrated that I can't get my eating right. But I'm no longer ready to give up. I'm going to keep trying, and probably keep failing. But hopefully my failures will become less severe over time. Hopefully I'll get stronger and more resolved. Hopefully, everything will eventually come together.

I'm not going to be in a size 8 by my birthday. But I am going to be healthier by my birthday, and I will be closer to having my shit together.

I'm hoping to be funny again one day, too. Sorry my posts have been so heavy lately. This too shall pass.

Small Town Awesomeness

2011-10-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last night Ted and I spent the day visiting my family in smalltown Kentucky. We ended the evening with a date to the Wingfield Volunteer Fire Department's Hayride and Haunted House. We've been to a few of the haunted venues around here in Nashville, but this one has quite a reputation in my hometown, so we decided to give it a shot, and support the VFD in the process.

Well, let me tell you, they did not disappoint. Let me preface my review with the explanation that I won't call any haunted house attractions "scary," because to me there is a big difference between being scared and being startled and entertained. But having lots of good startles and entertainment is what makes a good haunted house, in my opinion.

There were not only lots of awesome startles in Wingfield VFD's haunted house, they were also beautifully executed! Their haunted house is considerably lower budget than the big Nashville attractions (it's small town, and a fundraiser, so yeah; they need to be frugal), but what they lacked in special effects and construction, they made up for in enthusiasm and strategy. For example, in one room there were several mannequin heads, made up to look like severed people-heads, but they were obviously plastic. So, no real scare there, right? Just a cheap setup. Until the one on the end, that TOTALLY LOOKED LIKE A MANNEQUIN HEAD, jumps out and screams at you. Dude, that was the coolest lull-you-into-a-false-comfort startle EVER. The live girl's makeup was flawless, and unless you were expecting her, you honestly would have overlooked her as another plastic head. It was a thing of beauty.

There were a lot of other great misdirection startles as well. You walk into a room, see an obvious person ready to jump out to scare you, and POW! Someone comes from a completely different area and startles the living bejesus out of you. I can't say enough about how strategic and well executed this haunted house is.

And even with the limited budget, the special effects were awesome. There was a spinning vortex room that was every bit as dizzying as the one at the high-budget Devil's Dungeon in Nashville. There were lots of loud power tools and sparkly things and unexpected booms; it really was a fun time!

And all this is on top of a fun and whimsical old-fashioned tractor pulled hayride to and from the site. The hayride itself isn't spooked; it's just an opportunity to chat with your fellow haunted house fans as you get to and from the attraction. I haven't been to anything like this in Nashville. It's truly a smalltown charm that is worth the 1 1/2 hour drive to experience.

The Wingfield VFD's Hayride and Haunted House is only $10 for adults, and $5 for kids 12 and under. There is food available for purchase at the firehouse, so get there early and have a chili dog with homemade chili and home-canned hot relish. You should also bring extra cash for tee shirts. I didn't, but I wish I had.

It's a good cause to support and a great attraction. Make the trip and see it. Just be sure to pee before you climb onto the hay. You don't want to pee yourself the first time a misdirection takes you by surprise.

Haunted House Review: Devil's Dungeon

2011-10-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Me: I'm going to write a review for Devil's Dungeon on my blog.

Julia: Be sure to talk about the poop.

So Ted, Julia, Julia's friends Brandon and Dan, and I all went to the Devil's Dungeon haunted house on Friday night. It was a blast.

Devil's Dungeon advertises as "The most controversial haunted house in Nashville!" I suppose it is controversial, if you don't understand what a haunted house is.

As far as entertainment haunts go, though, DD is a very good one. The scenes are creative, the actors are enthusiastic and seem to be having a lot of fun, and there are enough good startles to keep your heartrate up and have you nervous about going around the next corner. There are several startling loud noises, which certainly achieve the objective, but a couple of them lasted a bit long for my taste. I'm not a big fan of deafening noises that will not end.

I'm not going to describe the scenes inside, because I don't want to ruin any surprises for anyone who might want to go, but I will tell you that there are a couple of scenarios that are not for the squeamish. If you are easily offended or unable to understand that it's all pretend and not to be taken seriously, you probably shouldn't go.

I will say that one of the last parts of the house is the maze. The maze seems extremely frustrating at first, but I'll give you a hint. Look at Gumby's shoes. You'll see that it might not be as bad as it seems...

Are you still wondering about the poop comment?

One of the scenes includes a girl locked in a cage, begging you to let her out. She will talk to you (presumably because she is starved for human interaction, being a prisoner in a dungeon and all). Julia was talking to her, and ended the conversation with (paraphrased) "Well, I'd like to stay and try to get you free, but I need to go. I really have to poop."

I'm Angry

2011-10-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

So tell me, if you knew that someone had just started Alcoholics Anonymous and was in the very difficult first stage of detox, would you crack open a beer in front of them and make a huge deal about how delicious and refreshing it was? Would you hold it under their nose and say things like "Wouldn't you like to have a sip? HAHA! Too bad you can't, because you have lack of control and can't drink in moderation! Loser!"

If you said that yes, you would do that, then you are an incredible asshole and you do not deserve to take up space on this earth with decent human beings. Please go find the other assholes and play a game of hide-and-go-fuckyourself.

I'm guessing that few, if any, of you said that you would behave in that manner. So why is it that people think it is cute and funny to behave that way toward someone who has issues with food?

I am trying very, very hard to improve my eating habits. I make bad decisions with food; I eat things that I know are counter to my goals. I even eat things that I know are going to cause me pain. I don't do these things because I'm stupid (I'm not), or even because I lack self-control (I don't). I do these things because I have an addiction, and it is as real and as severe an addiction as one to alcohol or drugs.

So why is it funny to taunt me when someone brings donuts to the office? Why is it funny to rave about how "I think I'd eat a piece of this cake even if I were on a diet, because it's soooo delicious"? Why is it such a hoot to see me struggle to stay at my desk and not get up and slice off a piece of that cake? Why don't you just shut the fuck up and eat your goddamn cake?

I haven't made any progress with the Christmas Dress Challenge. I finally got the motivation to make a plan, and stick to it. I have my day all planned out, and a donut or a piece of pound cake doesn't fit into that plan. So stop trying to get me to eat a piece. I already want to eat a piece. I would step on your face to get to that cake. But I cannot have a piece. My health is more important than that delicious cake. So back the fuck off.

And thus endeth the rant against mine enemy.

Once I make some progress on the challenge, I'll post again. Progress is going to be made soon. Because I am awesome and I am going to beat this thing.

Another Lots-of-Stuff Post

2011-09-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

So, yeah. Not a lot of happy to report lately.

It appears that I have plantar fasciitis. It hurts like a motherfucker. It hurts to walk; it hurts to sit with my foot on the floor; it is impossible to run. There are stretches I can do to lessen the pain, but it is becoming apparent that I'm not going to be able to run or do boot camp for a while (standard moves like high-step, sprints, and speed-skater drills are impossible). I'm going to talk to SGT Ken and let him know that I need to suspend my membership until I get the pain under control and am cleared to run again; it could be nine months or more. For now, I'm glad that I haven't sent in the paper to cancel my gym membership, because I don't plan to stop exercising. I can do cardio on spin bikes to replace the running, and I can do strength exercises that I've practiced at boot camp (the ones that don't hurt my foot). If I find that there are strength exercises that hurt my foot, I can substitute freeweights or machines for that muscle group. I've learned a lot since February, and I can read articles SGT Ken has written for workouts and instructions; I think I'll be able to motivate myself to do what needs to be done until I can get back to class.

The foot pain also kept me from running the Warrior Dash last weekend. I was able to give my chip and number to a friend of a friend who had missed registration, and he was really happy to have the chance to run it, so at least something good came of it. But I was so, so sad to be on the sidelines. When I got on site and saw the muddy people who had run in the early waves, I just broke down. It's my favorite race ever, and I had to just limp around and watch. But Ted, Gayle, and Gayle's friend (I'm so sorry, I can't remember his name I am a horrible person!) all did a fantastic job and finished strong. I hope so much that I'm running again by the time the next Mountain City race rolls around.

Okay, on to something that does not involve my foot pain. I have my eating under pretty good control right now, and I'm going to join an online Christmas Dress challenge. I'm joining a few days late; but if the blog author will still let me, I'm going to jump in. It's being run by Fat So Sarah and it runs from September 18 through December 11 (my birthday!). Here are the rules and my goals:

Rules:

Buy or find a picture of a dress in a smaller size (the size you're aiming to reach by the end of the challenge) The idea is to buy the dress to use as motivation, but it's not required. I'm just going to post a photo of the dress I want; I'll buy it if I reach the goal.

On or before Sunday, Sept. 18th, make your first post with a picture of your dress, your starting size & weight and your goal size & weight. (I will link my post to yours, so let me know once you make your first post) Photo of dress below; starting size 12 or 14, depending on brand and cut; starting weight 187; goal weight 167; I think I might be in an 8 or 10, depending on brand and cut, at that weight.

Aim for a healthy caloric intake each day Goal is between 1200 and 1500 per day (per Sparkpeople website)

Exercise a minimum 3x a week gym until foot heals; back to boot camp as soon as possible

Drink water(not soda, not diet soda, not energy drinks...etc...) okay.

So here's my dress:

My goal is to be able to buy it in a size 8 for my birthday. It's on JC Penney dot com in case anyone gets any ideas. ;)

Much Ado

2011-09-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'm a terrible blogger.

I was doing so well for so long, but then I just got busy and put blogging on the back burner and let my readers down. Both of you. I'm so sorry and I promise I'll try to do better.

First of all, like my blogging, my boot camp attendance has been spotty lately. I made it to class one day last week, and one day this week. Some of the absences have been unavoidable, and some have been laziness. Some have been due to "other." We won't discuss "other." It's mostly me being a petty child and I'll get over it.

On a more positive note about boot camp, today was awesome. Jackie put together an incredibly fun running workout and even though it was really tough and pushed me hard, I actually truly enjoyed it. If you've read my blog at all, you know how I hate running. I really hate it. Sometimes I can briefly trick myself into thinking that I don't hate it so much, but it always comes back around to me hating it. I would normally prefer to have a hot iron held to my face rather than go for a run. But today, Jackie incorporated games, levity, and a little friendly competition, and not only did I enjoy it, but I also felt really, really good about my performance today. I didn't run the fastest or the hardest (we have some crazy fit runners in our class; I'll never be in the top ten!), but I felt like I kept a good pace and pushed hard, and set a good example for our new recruits. I wasn't at the front of the pack, but I wasn't pulling up the rear, either. I showed that the fat girl can run, too.

On a different note, my body is revolting. And I'm not just talking about how it looks. It seems that my body has finally decided that it's sick and tired of me not taking my nutrition seriously enough. I've been having severe gallbladder pain (and if you've never had a gallbladder attack, consider yourself very fortunate; they are so painful, it's impossible to describe), and I've been having more frequent heartburn and acid reflux. Both of these issues can be avoided, or at least lessened, by improving what I put in my body. Mainly, I need to cut way back on fats. I need to increase my fiber intake with fruits and vegetables. I need to reduce my intake of heavy meats and replace them with fish and beans. In other words, I know exactly what I need to do. The trick is actually doing it.

I'm not sure what it's going to take to get me to follow through on this. One thing I'm considering is getting a juicer and committing myself to replacing one meal a day with a big glass of fresh vegetable or fruit juice. Unfortunately, doing that at this time of year can get pretty expensive; but I may try that for a while, just to get some good, concentrated micronutrients into my body every day. The sad fact is, I'm not going to eat all that many more fruits and vegetables. I do well to get in one or two servings; forget about the five or six that are recommended. One glass of juice can cover a lot of that daily requirement. We'll see how it goes; I'll keep you posted. You know how well I follow through with anything pertaining to food, so don't be surprised if little or nothing comes of this.

A little later I'm going to write a post about going to Dragon*Con over the Labor Day weekend. It was great; but for now, lunch break is over and I need to get back to work. More soon!

So Many Things

2011-08-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

I hate it that my blogging has become so sporadic lately. There has just been so much going on, it's hard to find time to sit still and write.

I'm still going strong with START Fitness. The push-up challenge is over, with SGT Ken taking first place, with Jimmy O not far behind. I finished in the top 20 (17th overall), but most importantly, Nashville beat San Francisco. I'm very proud of my rockin' platoon for winning!

Today we had a lot of rookies in the class, because SGT Ken ran a Groupon. I love seeing new faces and a full studio. It's motivating and energizing. Hopefully several of them will stick around for the long haul.

On the nutrition front, I'm happy to report that I went to the Wilson County Fair yesterday, and did not eat one single deep-fried thing. My fair food consisted of a barbecue sandwich and half a serving of baked beans. I can't really give myself credit for having a strong will, though. I had a gallbladder attack a few nights before, and so I'm currently terrified of high fat content foods. Intense pain is a great motivator. So until I am able to get the offending organ yanked out, I'll be on a low-fat diet and will probably make a little progress.

That's really all I've got today. I'm taking my daughter for her learner's permit test this afternoon, so my focus is on that for the time being. Wish her (me) luck!

This Post May Be Incoherent Because I’m Drunk I Was Hit by a Truck SGT Ken is Trying to Kill Me

2011-08-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

This morning was the hardest boot camp yet. I think SGT Ken must have been angry with someone when he wrote it. I’ll probably swear some writing about it. Fair warning.

It started with a run up and down the alley behind the studio. I thought I had gotten out of running this week by skipping yesterday, but NOOO… we had heat and humidity torture today as well. The alley is a long steady uphill, with a short steeper decline at the far end. Which means you only get to catch your breath a little before turning around and going right back uphill agan. At least it ends with a long downhill. That’s something.

After the alley we did 5 sets of stair-climbing. Oh, and I might mention that the stairs we use ARE OUTSIDE THE FUCKING BUILDING. So yeah. More smothering. Awesome.

Then we got to go inside, which seemed like a relief, except that the first station we did inside was Step 360 jump-ups with a push-up at the bottom. My legs were exhausted and on fire from the running and steps, and then he expects me to jump. I started to cry a little at this point and muttered a different swear word under my breath for each repetition. Who knew I could come up with 30?

The next station was uneven push-ups with a medicine ball. I did a few from my toes, but dropped to my knees pretty quickly. Girls had to do 10 reps each arm; guys did 20. I made it through this station without too much suffering, and it gave my heart rate a chance to get back down a bit.

Next were Russian twists with a medicine ball. This is an abs exercise, and not too incredibly horrible. After the first half I had to drop my feet to the ground, though.

The final station was resistance-band jumping jacks. These suck. They suck balls. I hate them with the fires of a thousand hells. Hate. Them.

AND THEN WE GOT THE PRIVELIDGE OF STARTING ALL OVER!!! Yay.

I made it through three rounds, all the way through. I was never so happy for a workout to be over in my life. I’ll bet I burned well over 1000 calories this morning.

Oh, and on most days my eating has improved greatly. Last night I made Pasta con Sarde, which is an Italian dish that contains pasta (I used whole-grain),olive oil, garlic, hot pepper flakes, raisins, pine nuts (but I didn’t have any so I had to leave those out), and sardines. Yes, sardines. And it is delicious. A lot of people dismiss sardines as a “trash fish,” but they are actually quite good for you and tasty if you like stronger seafood tastes.

After dinner I wanted something sweet, so I had watermelon. Much better decision than a peanut butter sandwich or some kind of dessert.

Plus at gaming tonight, our host is planning to cook some real food instead of ordering pizza or wings. It’s good to have supportive friends!

Update: I changed my mini-goals a little bit. I'm doing the Monroe piercing first instead of the industrial. I want it more. They're my goals, I can move them around as I please! :)

Explanation

2011-07-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

So, some of you may be wondering where the hell I’ve been.

It has been over a week since I’ve been at boot camp; I have a combination of excuses and reasons as to why. I’m just going to list everything here, and you can decide which days are valid and which days I was just lazy.

Monday, July 18: Was sick; couldn’t breathe at all through my nose, had a sore throat, and had a cough that burned my chest like it was on fire.

Tuesday, July 19: Still sick. Throat no longer sore, but the nose and cough were still intense and painful. I just didn’t feel like I could breathe well enough to endure what I knew a running day would consist of.

Wednesday, July 20: Feeling better, but really weak from not being able to sleep due to runny nose and cough. At least my chest was no longer on fire.

Thursday, July 21: Just lazy, really.

Monday, July 25: Central air unit out at my house. My home is a billion degrees. I don’t have the money to get it fixed until Friday; so I’m staying at Ted’s until then. It takes over twice as long to get to boot camp from Ted’s as it does from my house. It also takes over twice as long to get to my work from his house; so it is highly impractical for me to go to boot camp when staying there.

Tuesday, July 26: See above; but I did go on a run this morning. Also, I think I may have a solution to the not being able to get to work on time after driving back to Ted’s from boot camp to get ready thing. I may be able to just drive to the gym that I belong to near my house, and get ready there. Hopefully, that will work out and I can go to boot camp Wednesday and Thursday this week.

So, I’ll be honest. Even though I had some pretty valid sounding reasons up there, the truth is I’m beginning to feel burned out. I’m falling behind on the push-up challenge and I just don’t feel motivated to get to class. I hope that all it is going to take is just getting up and going a couple of times, and I will get the inspiration back. I hope that I’m just in a funk from being sick last week. I hope that I don’t give up.

Push-up Challenge

2011-07-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned in Monday's post about the push-up challenge SGT Ken is running on dailyburn.com. Everyone has been killing it; and nothing motivates me more than good competition. Except for maybe shame. This challenge is a little of both.

When the challenge started, I set a goal for myself to do 100 push-ups per day. When I saw everyone smoking me like I was sitting still at that rate, I increased the goal to 200. That's still not good enough.

I want to try to get into the top 10 and stay there. In order to do that, I'll probably have to do between 300 and 600 push-ups per day (obviously, this is over the course of a day; not all at once). Today I've done 600 so far. I'm going to try to make it to 1000 to get securely in the top 10. Then hopefully I can go back to a maintenance level.

Most importantly, my push-ups are counting toward the Nashville Platoon in the competition with San Francisco. We're determined to beat them, even though they outnumber us by a lot...I think we can do it, too.

My friend Jimmy O and I wrote a cadence for the Nashville Platoon to get us fired up. Jimmy wrote the second verse, and all other verses were penned by Yours Truly.

Hey have you heard the word on the street?
They say San Francisco can't be beat
So Nashville, get down on your toes and hands -
COME HELL OR HIGH WATER WE'LL BEAT SAN FRAN

Pecs and tris burn, they're on fire
Take 'em deep and push 'em higher
No we don't stop we don't rest
We're Nashville's best at START Fitness

Hey, San Francisco, strong and proud
You think you're the number one platoon around
You're gonna get a surprise real soon
'Cause you haven't met THE NASHVILLE PLATOON

We are Nashville, we're mighty and mean
And we're an unbeatable push-up machine
Don't be fooled by our difference in size
WE'RE STILL GOING HOME WITH THE PUSH-UP PRIZE

HOOAH!

Monday BFT

2011-07-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

I know; I’m behind. I’m going to post about Monday and Tuesday in two separate posts, so I don’t have one long blog that no one will read to the end (I know what the internet has done to people’s attention spans; in fact, if you’re still reading this, you’re probably well above the average).

On Monday we had our Basic Fitness Test (BFT) for July. I felt good; I felt fresh; I was ready for it.

My results:
Push-ups, two minute drill: 70 reps (last BFT: 51)
Crunches, two minute drill: 170 reps (last BFT: 149)
1 Mile Run: 8:48 (last BFT: 8:50)

So I improved on everything, which means I scored 300 again. I’m pretty proud; I’ve come a really long way. My competitive nature keeps me pushing, and having the BFTs every so often are a great way to see my progress.

On a different note, Sergeant Ken has started a push-up challenge on dailyburn.com. It’s both an individual challenge and a group challenge. There will be one male and one female overall winner for the participants who do the most push-ups, and START Fitness Nashville is competing against START Fitness San Francisco for which group can do the most push-ups as a whole. This should be a lot of fun!

I set my goal for at least 100 per day. Yesterday I did 100; today I’ve done 120 so far. I’m going to do 30 more to make it a solid 150.

I thought that was great until I saw Sergeant Ken’s posting of 990 and Jimmy Olander’s posting of 1010 for the first day. Now I feel like a weakling.

But seriously, a thousand push-ups in a day? That’s borderline mental illness, I’m thinking.

But team Nashville is going to win.

300

2011-07-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

No, not the movie. Guess again.

If you guessed that this was my current weight, then you are no longer my friend.

If you guessed that this was my score on May’s Basic Fitness Test (BFT), then you’re right! I scored 300 out of a possible 300. I am very proud of myself.

We are doing the BFT for July on Monday. I’m not sure what to expect from myself, but I hope to improve on everything. I’m not going to set myself up for disappointment by putting specific numbers on my goals, because I just don’t know how much I’ve improved since last time. I’ve missed a lot of classes, so I don’t know what to expect. I’m hoping to at least score 300 again, though.

It’s getting difficult to blog about boot camp, because I feel like I’m saying the same things over and over. It’s tough; it hurts; it’s awesome; it’s working; it’s worth it. All these things are true, every time. I need to think of new and creative ways of expressing these sentiments.

Currently, my big challenge is nutrition, but I am finally taking serious steps toward correcting it. I’m using SGT Ken’s Savory Survival Guide as a guideline. I’m not following it to the letter; I’m making substitutions here and there. For instance, last night instead of having baked chicken and brown rice with steamed vegetables, I had baked fish and brown rice with a tomato, herb, and olive reduction. So, the substitutions aren’t cheating; they’re just changes based on what I have in my kitchen and what sounds tastier. I have been doing a great job staying away from the chips in the break room at work (bringing a healthy snack with me helps a lot). I am keeping a food journal, so in case I don’t see any progress in a week, I can show SGT Ken what I have been eating, and he can hopefully tell me what I’ve been doing wrong.

Tonight is trivia at the wingery. I’m trying to plan what I am going to do; I do enjoy my wings and beer, but I can abstain in order to meet my goals. I normally have a couple of good beers, a side salad, and eat about half a medium wings plate (splitting it with Ted). Sometimes we start with an appetizer of fried pickles. It’s a lot of food. A lot more food than I should eat. So tonight, I’m thinking I’ll make my dinner at home as prescribed by the SSG, and have one beer (I dismissed the quit-drinking-for-good idea and switched to really-watching-out-for-overdrinking) at trivia. If I find that I don't have time to cook before time to leave, I will have a side salad and something that looks relatively harmless on the menu. Regardless of what I wind up doing, I will write everything down. That is my challenge for this week.

To the Newbies

2011-07-01T20:21:00.001-07:00

We have a lot of new folks joining us at START Fitness in Nashville. This post is to answer the many questions I know you all have.

Yes, it's supposed to hurt there.
Yeah, there too, probably.
Whoa, dude...I'm not sure it's supposed to hurt there. You might want to get that looked at.
No, it doesn't ever get easier to get here by 5:30 in the fucking morning.
Yes, I know it sucks.
No, it doesn't stop hurting.
Yes, it does get better.
Yes, you still have to pay attention to what you eat. I'm not doing so hot with that part yet; but I'm getting the hang of it now.
No, it never gets easy.
Yes, you will see a change if you stick with it.

But the most important answer of all, in my opinion:

Yes. Yes, it is worth it.

Seriously, Y’all. I Am Pee-My-Pants Excited

2011-06-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

I am also super motivated, like I mean SUPER DUPER motivated to start seriously adhering to SGT. Ken’s Savory Survival Guide and start dropping this fat.

Why? I’m so glad you asked.

When I hit 28% body fat, I am going to take the START Fitness Instructor Certification Course. I’m going to be a boot camp instructor!

My ultimate body fat percentage goal is 24% or lower, but when I hit 28, I feel like I’ll be squarely enough in the “normal” range that I’ll have the confidence to take the course.

So today I’m having a salad with greens, strawberries, blueberries, almonds, chicken breast, and a little asiago cheese with fat free raspberry vinaigrette dressing (from Wendy’s; 270 calories). It’s tasty, and I’m getting full.

Tomorrow is pay day, and therefore grocery day; I’m going to take the Savory Survival Guide with me and make sure my kitchen has the supplies to help me stick with it. Nutrition is the key; but there’s going to be more to feeling ready to take the course than just losing the fat. In addition to hitting my body fat percentage goal, I need to improve my running speed and endurance, work on my form on various exercises such as the various types of push-ups, and start having the joint fluid injections in my knees so I can perform my lower body exercises properly. There’s lots of work to be done.

I know that I’m going to enjoy being an instructor. Because of having to miss some boot camp classes in the mornings, I’ve been going with Ted to the gym, and he’s been humoring me by doing START Fitness style workouts with me. It is a lot of fun being the “leader.” It motivates me to push myself harder (read: try to be a hot shot).

I really think this is the motivational boost I needed. HOOAH!

First of All I’m Going to Be a Dick and Get That Part Out of the Way

2011-06-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

Muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same. The proper way to say what everyone means by this is “Muscle is denser than fat.” A pound of muscle takes up less space than a pound of fat. I’m a word person; this kind of distinction is important to me.

Also? “Wherefore” doesn’t mean where. It means why. Juliet wasn’t asking where Romeo was; she was asking Why do you have to be Romeo Montague, whom I can never have? This has nothing to do with boot camp or fitness or weight loss; it just bugs me.

The muscle-and-fat thing is on my mind because although I have not lost a significant amount of weight since beginning START Fitness in February, it is becoming apparent that I have indeed lost a significant amount of fat, and have increased my muscle mass. When I started boot camp, I was pushing a size 16 pants. I could wear 14s, but they were tight and uncomfortable. I bought a pair of size 12 jeans in late March, and I was able to wear them by that time. They were a brand that runs a little big, and they were tight, but I could wear them. Lately they have been loose and comfortable; I presumed that I had stretched them out.

Last weekend, the mother of my sister-in-law gave me some size 12 capris that she could not wear. I figured it would be a while before I could wear them, because these were actual size 12s, not these-run-big size 12s. I tried them on when I got home. They fit comfortably.

That is pretty much two pant sizes I have lost. That is a considerable difference. People have been telling me that they can see a difference, particularly in my face. So although I’m not seeing the results on the bathroom scale, I am seeing tangible results. All this hard work has not been in vain.

I’m still not cut; I still have plenty of fat to lose. I have enough fat still to lose that I will eventually start losing weight (the muscle mass isn’t going to continue to increase at the rate it has been, I’m sure). I’ve been doing better with my eating lately, and that is helping. Fitting into the smaller pants has motivated me to continue to eat better, so hopefully it will snowball.

My attendance at boot camp has been spotty lately. Doctor appointments, overnight stays away from home, and being tired from entertaining late have messed up my schedule. I was at class Monday; I haven’t been since then. I will be at class tomorrow, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Profanity

2011-06-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

I figured that I should warn you up front, because it’s going to start immediately. This week was fucking brutal.

I have been insanely busy this week, so this will be a long post; it’s a three-in-one, because I’m covering three different workouts in one post.

I missed Monday because I had an appointment with the doc that afternoon, so I had to get my early morning hours in at work; but I attended class on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I’m considering finding a doctor who will put me into a chemically induced coma for a while so I can recover.

Tuesday is always running day, weather permitting. Weather was permitting this week, and the cicadas are finally gone, and my calves had mostly recovered from the knots I had in them the week before, so I had no excuse to skip. I dragged my lazy ass out of my cozy bed and did my morning get-out-the-door ritual.

We started with lunges up and down the parking lot to warm up. That wasn’t so bad; a nice burn in the thighs feels good before a run. Then we did a gentle shuffle-run in single file down to the road where we would begin the drill. The drill was something called "Last Man Up.” It is otherwise known as “punishment.” Runners jog in a single file line, and the person in the back sprints up to the front and continues the jog; lather, rinse, repeat. The first couple of sprints to the front weren’t so bad, then some of my sprints wound up being on a slight incline, then I started wishing for death. I honestly did not think I was going to be able to finish the class. We did the LMU drill for thirty minutes, and then did some stair running. We finished with repeats up and down Bernard Hill before jogging to cadence back to home base. My calves were knotted up again. Awesome.

Wednesday was no better. On Wednesday we did six stations, and each one sucked. The first one was bear crawl/crab walk up and down the mats in the studio. Second was suicides and squats out in the parking lot. Third was up and down the stairs. Fourth was abs (that one wasn’t so bad). Fifth was uneven push-ups with the medicine ball. And finally, sixth was resistance-band jumping jacks. We did the entire circuit twice. I thought I was going to die.

But if a workout this week was going to kill me, it would have been Thursday’s.
On Thursday, we did partner work, and one partner would run around the (hilly) block while the other partner did some sort of calisthenic exercise in the studio, switching when the running partner returned. The kicker was that at all times, one partner had to be carrying the "baby" (a medicine ball). It was up to the teams to decide which partner would have the baby. There were a couple of rounds where it made the most sense for the runner to have the baby, and running with a med ball is crazy tough. I very nearly gave up before the end of class. I made it through, though. I sure was happy to have Friday off!

So Very Busy!

2011-06-16T14:43:00.002-07:00

Sorry I haven't been posting! It's been crazy!

I have a draft of a big blog post in the works. I'll be posting it soon!

The Line Has Been Blurred Between Awesome and Unreasonable

2011-06-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for no post yesterday; I did go to boot camp. It was hard as fuck. There's Monday's post.

Now on to today.

If you’ve read my blog from the beginning of my START Fitness journey in February, you have read about Bernard Hill. If not, let me give you a quick description. Bernard Hill is a hill in Nashville, near the START Fitness facility. It’s a pretty long hill, which starts out ridiculously steep, and about halfway up gets steeper. It is grueling, relentless, and a true challenge to climb.

When we run to the field for drills on running days, we have to run up Bernard Hill in order to get to the field. Running up it once nearly kills me. I can do it now; which is way more than I could do in February. But once is enough. Once, and I’m spent.

Today I went up and down Bernard Hill nine times.

Nine.

There were people who made more than nine trips. There were people who made fewer than nine trips. But all that I can dwell on is that I did that godforsaken stretch of land that was formed by Lucifer and his angels nine times today.

On my first trip, I kept a nice jog almost all the way up. And I nearly died. Subsequent trips were not all straight running; we had to go backwards, side-shuffle (one trip for each leg), and duck-walk as well. The last trip of the set was sprint halfway up, stop and do twenty burpees, and then jog on to the top. Then we ran down, did 50 squats, 15 push-ups, and started the round all over from the beginning. I honestly thought I was going to die. I was never so happy to gather up into formation for the jog back to the studio in my life.

Today I had the stress sobs more than once; they never dissolved into outright crying, but boy, did it come close. My body was very angry at me for making it do today’s workout.

I’m not sure whether I’ll make it to class in the morning or not; I’ll actually be sleeping away from my house tonight, and the drive to boot camp would be about an hour from where I’ll be. We’ll see.

Insanity

2011-06-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

This morning was interesting. And by interesting, I mean insane.

Today we did three Crossfit Challenges. Three. People who do Crossfit (which is a tough and really effective program, from what I’ve heard) do ONE Crossfit Challenge and consider that a workout.

Three, y’all.

We divided into two groups; group one started outside and group two started inside. I was in group 2.

The first challenge was jump rope/sit-ups sets, in reps of 50-40-30-20-10 (50 jumps, 50 crunches, then 40 jumps, 40 crunches, etc.). From 50 down to 10 was one round. We were to do as many rounds as possible in ten minutes. I completed three rounds, and was 13 (I think) crunches into my fourth round when time was called.

The second challenge was lunges/burpees sets. We did walking lunges across the room, then 21 burpees, then lunged back across the room, then 21 more burpees, etc. for five minutes (I’m thinking that surely a complete Crossfit workout would be longer than five minutes; this one must have been abbreviated). I completed three sets of lunges, and was into my third set of burpees when time was called. Can’t remember how many of those last burpees I completed.

Then group two went outside for the twenty minute drill. It consisted of running 100 meters, then doing sets of 50 of a different exercise after each lap: push-ups, crunches, back raises, and squats. This challenge was a tough one; it was made even tougher by the fact that there was something dead and rotting in the bushes beside where the mats were, so while we were on the ground gasping for air, we were in fact taking in deep breaths of rank, rancid stench. I had to get up and vomit during my first set of crunches. Fortunately I made it to a nearby bush so I didn’t start a chain reaction. My guess is that Sgt. Ken brags about having “pukers” in his classes, so Debbie and Candace decided that they were going to get a puker, one way or another. In all fairness, making people do ground exercises next to a hidden decaying animal corpse is pretty hardcore. I’m thinking Sgt. Ken has nothing on them in the cruelty department.

I was pretty proud of my performance today; it was a tough workout, and about halfway through my first set of burpees I was swearing pretty intensely, but after it was all said and done, I drove away with a really awesome sense of accomplishment. This just keeps getting better and better.

Back in Action

2011-06-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

I was back at boot camp this morning. And let me tell you, this morning was tough.

First thing today was heading upstairs for warm-up and calisthenics. We did a large amount of high-steps, sprinting, jump-rope drill, push-ups, squats, lunges, mountain climbers, burpees…more push-ups…I’m tired just remembering it. You could have choreographed a Gene Kelley musical number with the sweat that dripped off me. I had to warn people walking out behind me so they wouldn’t slip.

That was the first half of class. Then we headed downstairs for Amber’s skillfully crafted circuit. Four-minute stations consisting of planks with cone taps, bear crawl/crab walk laps, push-the-wheel, tire quick-steps, and partner squats with a gurney. If you don’t know what any of those are, you are a fortunate person indeed.

Today I kept Sgt. Ken amused with the pitiful noises I wound up making near the end of the upstairs portion of class. I felt like I was close to full-body muscle failure. It was painful and difficult and grueling, but now that it’s over, it feels great.

I love boot camp. I really do. I love the sweat, the pain, the exhaustion, the camaraderie, the structure, the frivolity, the health and strength benefits. But I have to tell you, getting up at 4:30 in the morning is not getting any easier. I don’t envision myself giving up on boot camp, but if anything ever makes me snap and quit, it will be the early mornings. I really, really have a hard time with it. I’ve tried going to bed earlier; it doesn’t help. There was one evening that I was really tired and went to bed at 6:00, and I still didn’t want to get up at 4:30 (even though that was ten and a half hours of sleep!). It’s not the amount of sleep, apparently; it’s the early hour of the morning. My body just isn’t wired for it. I’m able to push through and make myself do it, most of the time. I wonder if it’s ever going to get better? Probably not.

Decisions

2011-05-31T11:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, this post may be a little heavy for the normal tastes of my readership. Hopefully we’ll be back to fun tomorrow.

I didn’t go to boot camp this morning. The primary reason? I had too much to drink at the Renaissance Festival yesterday, and couldn’t make myself get out of bed at 4:30.

This tells me that I need to stop drinking alcohol. Not cut back; not stop for a little while. Stop completely. Today I took the MAST test, and it indicated that I show early signs of problem drinking. So I’m going to stop before I’m showing full-blown signs.

Some of the benefits I expect to see from cutting out alcohol:

I’ll sleep better
I’ll wake up better
I’ll have clearer memories of celebrations/date nights/general fun stuff
Trivia nights and pub nights will be a lot cheaper (the pub has awesome live Irish music; I’ll continue to go but from now on I’ll be the designated driver)
I’ll probably start to drop weight; alcoholic beverages not only have a lot of calories, but they also dull your “I’m full” trigger
I will be able to point and laugh at my coworkers when they get stupid drunk at the Christmas party

Just to be clear, this isn’t a big huge life-saving decision or anything. I’m not an alcoholic; I haven’t hit rock bottom; I’m just taking a proactive step to do something to improve my life. I’m also not going to be one of those non-drinkers who lectures people around them for enjoying a drink. This is my deal, not anyone else’s.

Oh, and a secondary reason I skipped boot camp this morning? Today was running, and the thought of running outside with the swarms of godforsaken cicadas dive-bombing me absolutely made me shudder. They should be gone in a week or two, thankfully.

It’s Official. Sgt. Ken is a Madman.

2011-05-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

This morning was another two-fer. This time, half was upstairs with Sgt. Ken trying to kill us, and half was downstairs with Debbie trying to do the same.

Upstairs was an obstacle course/circuit, similar to those we’ve done in the past. The whole course was very, very tough, but a lot of fun. Well, the last station wasn't fun. It was resistance-band jumping jacks. Fifty of them. This occurred right after the crab-crawl. My shoulders and I are no longer on speaking terms.

Downstairs was a timed circuit. It was a challenge all its own; not as intensely aerobic, but still high cardio, and very fatiguing. I was very happy when it was time for cool down.

I’m going tonight to the boot camp at the gym; we’ll see if I survive a double-up day.

My food journal for yesterday wound up looking pretty good, and I expect today to be good as well. The real test will be tomorrow. Thursdays are trivia, beer, and wings night. It is possible to enjoy TB&W while staying within acceptable parameters; but I don't know whether I'm up to the challenge yet.

Don't Challenge Me to a Buttkicking Contest

2011-05-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

This morning’s boot camp kicked my butt; but I kicked its butt right back, so it’s all good.

We did a two-fer workout today; half of the workout was accumulators with Candace, and half was plyometrics with Sgt. Ken. “Plyometrics” is a fancy word for set of exercises that makes you want to fall down and die right there on the workout floor. My arms felt like they were made of warm gelatin for hours after we were finished; which was weird, because it seemed like I was working my lower body and cardio for most of the time. I guess it was just that the upper body work we did do really smoked me.

It’s really nice how much I actually enjoy boot camp now. Even when we do a super hard, high-cardio workout like today that keeps me exhausted to the point of pain, I’m actually enjoying it while I’m there. Up until recently, I was not enjoying the workouts themselves at all; I only enjoyed how great I felt afterwards. I’m really not sure how or when the change happened. Perhaps it’s like when hostages just give up fighting and being scared and instead start to identify with their captors. I’ve developed the fitness equivalent of Stockholm syndrome.

On a related note, I started keeping my food journal yesterday. For most of the day, I did really well; I overate in the evening, but it was real food with nutritional value, so it was still better than the mindless junk eating I’ve been prone to do in the past. Keeping the journal isn’t going to be an instant fix, but it will help me see patterns and problems, and hopefully I’ll figure out ways to fix them. I’ve already screwed up this morning; I had two McDonalds sausage burritos for breakfast. They’re small, but they’re loaded with calories from fat and simple carbs. I do have a healthy lunch and snack prepared, and Ted and I are going shopping for something healthy to make for dinner after we go to the gym. I’m going to do spinning for about an hour while he works with his trainer. I figure the extra hour of cardio will help offset the bad breakfast.

Super Badass

2011-05-19T20:28:00.001-07:00

Warning: This post will contain profanity, both in attempts to be humorous and to illustrate frustration. If you are offended by the F-word, you probably shouldn't read this. Or you can pretend I'm saying "fluffy."

Today I had a choice. Bad-ass accumulator workout, or Super Bad-ass accumulator workout.

I chose Super Bad-ass. And I fucking rocked it. I had to do alternate exercises for the shoulder push-ups because of my shoulder injury, but other than that I KICKED ITS FUCKING ASS. I'm telling you, I was awesome today. I shocked myself. I felt great. I felt strong. I felt like I was indeed a SUPER BAD-ASS.

(here's where the profanity gets bad. If you were offended in the beginning, stop now. It's pretty rampant from here on; you've been warned)

So why the fuck am I still so goddamn fat?

I looked around the room today at boot camp. There are ladies in there who look a fuckzillion times better than me, who I can absolutely out-boot camp hands down. The young, thin, fit-looking rookies struggling to complete the normal bad-ass routine look great; they look healthy, trim, and adorable. And here I am, rocking the MOTHERFUCK out of the super bad-ass routine, and I look like goddamn Jaba the Hut. It isn't fair; it sucks donkey ass. I am frustrated and sick of being SO MOTHERFUCKING FAT AFTER MONTHS OF WORKING MY ASS OFF.

Here's the thing. Yeah, I haven't really done a good job of changing my eating habits. But keeping the same goddamn eating habits, and adding the un-fucking-reasonable amount of exercise I've added to my life should result in more than FOUR FUCKING POUNDS IN TWO MONTHS, SHOULDN'T IT?

I mean really. Shouldn't it?

It's not like I increased my caloric intake. If I'm burning that many more calories while eating exactly the same, how the hellfire am I not losing weight?

I know that I have to get on track with my eating. I know that's part of it. I'm anxiously awaiting the book Gayle is sending me (look in the comments and you'll know what I'm talking about there). But it just makes me want to scream that I am getting so strong, and so fit, and I still make Kirstie Alley look like Kate Moss. It is infuriating.

Second PT

2011-05-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the blogging lapses. Things have been busy both at work and at home.

At boot camp, we did a BPT on Tuesday. In case you are a new reader or for some weird reason you don't commit every detail of my blog to your long term memory, here is how I scored last month:

Push-ups (2 min): 23
Crunches (2 min): 109
1 Mile Run: 8:32
Total score (possible 300): 281

Not bad for a fat girl. Push-ups were strictly from toes, BTW. No girlie push-ups allowed.

On Tuesday, we had another BPT. I was a little nervous about this one; not because I didn't think I had gotten stronger (I knew I had gotten stronger), but because I had hurt my shoulder in the Warrior Dash. I don't know how I hurt it, but it's definitely an injury pain, not a soreness pain. So I wasn't confident about how the push-ups would go. Everything else I felt pretty good about.

After a good vigorous warm-up, we divided into squads. I was the scorekeeper in my squad (the person with the clicker-counter thingy). Push-ups were first. Everyone in my squad did awesome. We were on fire. Then it was my turn.

"All I'm hoping for is to beat last month - if I do 24, I'll be happy."

"You're going to rock this! You'll do 50!"

I thought my teammates had way too much confidence in me. Turns out? They had just about the right amount of confidence in me. I did 51.

YOU READ THAT RIGHT, Y'ALL! FIFTY-FREAKING-ONE!

For those who have just started reading, when I first started boot camp in February I was unable to do even a single push-up from my toes, and could barely complete a scant few from my knees. I was happy with my push-up score.

Next was crunches. We were pressed for time, so we all got down and did them together and counted on our own, reporting on the honor system. I did 149. Which is great; but I could have done 150 IF I HADN'T RUN OUT OF TIME! I was milliseconds from getting an even 150. While 149 is still 40 more than I did last time, it was maddening that I didn't get the nice, round number.

Then we ran the mile. It's a nice, mostly flat mile route; but for some reason I was having a bit of a tough time. I had to slow to a walk a couple of times. At the home stretch, the most awesome Jimmy Olander came to pace me in. He encouraged me to really push the last little bit, and I came in at 8:50. Slower than last month, but still under 9 minutes (thanks to Jimmy!).

I'm not sure whether I scored a perfect 300 or not; my slower run might not have scored a full 100. But I know I got 100 in crunches for sure, and I think I probably got 100 in push-ups this time. So we'll see if 8:50 is fast enough for me to get a full 300. It may not be; but that's okay. It will be better next time.

I Am a Warrior (Again)

2011-05-16T18:01:00.001-07:00

Blogger has been down for maintenance, so I didn't post an entry about Thursday's boot camp. It was awesome; but I have other stuff to blog about tonight, so that one's just going to have to be skipped.

On Sunday, Ted and I participated in the Warrior Dash in Mountain City, Georgia. It is a 5K race with an incredibly fun obstacle course. We did the race last year as well, but this year was better. This year I wore a costume.

We arrived at the race site and got all checked in, and had a little time before our wave to check out this year’s obstacles. There were several of the same from last year, but I saw one new obstacle that had me a bit terrified. Last year, the wall we had to scale was leaning over at about a 30° angle, so holding the rope and walking up it was no sweat. This year, the twelve-foot wall was standing straight up. This might present a problem.

I didn’t have time to ponder this too much because as I was standing there being nervous, a man with one arm and a prosthetic leg approached and scaled that very wall. You can see him at the top in the photo above. It was amazing. He’s my hero.

Fast forward to our starting time. We’re at the start corral, and the starting torches flame up. Ted and I start off at a nice jogging clip; fortunately for me, we were being paced somewhat by the crowds ahead of us, so Ted wasn’t able to take off and leave me right away (he can outrun me like crazy). I’m not sure how far it was to the first obstacle, I’m guessing around a mile.

The first obstacle was wading through cold, muddy, waist-to-chest-high lake water. Not terribly challenging, and I only had to pull two piranhas off me when I got out.

Next was crawling over junkyard vehicles and high-stepping through tires. This obstacle was slow and muddy, but again, not terribly physically challenging.

Next was the Barricade Breakdown. We had to alternately maneuver over walls and then under barbed wire blockades. This one was a little tougher for me. The walls were high enough that I couldn’t straddle them; there was some work involved in getting over them. Getting under the barbed wire blockades wasn’t bad as long as you weren’t afraid of getting muddy. I went under about half of them on my belly and about half on my butt.

Then was the twelve foot wall. Ted scaled it as if it were nothing; I didn’t make it. Because of a combination of my terror of heights, my lack of confidence in my upper body strength, and the pain in my knees, I couldn’t climb the wall. I walked around it. I hate that I skipped an obstacle. Before the Tennessee Warrior Dash in September, I plan to have Joint Fluid Therapy injections in my knees, so hopefully there will be nothing to stop me from scaling the wall at that one, because I can overcome fear, BITCHES.

Next there was the hill covered with tires. It was just a matter of good foot placement. Not bad, and quite fun.

After that was the cargo net wall. This year, I OWNED the cargo net wall. I climbed to the top, crossed over, and found my footing to climb right back down. Last year this one was really tough for me; but this year I did great.

Next was the cargo net crossover. Basically it was a short platform with a cargo net top, and we had to get across it on the net. Some people balanced on the ropes and walked across; I used the bear-crawl method (thanks to boot camp, those muscles were trained up!).

Next was a run through the woods. It was a hiking trail, lots of uphill and steep downhill, and it was great. We walked a lot of it, but I wound up running more than I expected. This is where Ted and I met our new friend, Krista. I love the camaraderie and mutual excitement at races like this!

Next was “Blackout,” which was a structure we had to crawl under to get out the other side. It was covered with black plastic, and it was low enough that there was no ducking-and-walking. It was belly crawl or nothing. Ted banged his head pretty badly on one of the support beams, but we all made it through.

After that was the most fun obstacle of all – the big slide! Giant sheet of plastic on a hill being sprayed with water; you get down it however you desire. I went down head first on my belly. It was a blast, until I realized how fast I was going, and I didn’t know what was at the bottom after the plastic stopped (mud would be okay; but if it were gravel or rough terrain, that would have been bad). Fortunately, they were prepared for people like me who don’t think things through, and there was a hay barricade at the bottom to stop us.

After the slide, it was straight to the mud pit. Again, there was barbed wire to get under, but this time we were in a giant mud puddle. The barbed wire was high enough that if a participant wanted to, they could walk across and just duck under them; but really, where’s the fun in that? It was belly-crawl for me!

Then we waded through another lake. This one was only about waist deep, maybe a little deeper in some places, and we had to step or roll over floating logs as we went across.

Finally, there was the Warrior Roast. Two rows of fire to bound over. After leaping the fire, Ted and I clasped hands and ran hard to the finish line (fire and finish line photos to be posted; I’ll have to purchase them from the event once they become available).
Then there was beer, turkey legs, and frivolity.

Ted and I made a nice mini-vacation out of the trip, stopping on the way to visit with his parents, then playing MagiQuest in Pigeon Forge (because we are really just large children), then doing a little winery circuit (I have a pretty bad anxiety response to driving over mountains, so Ted made sure I took advantage of the wine tastings at each winery before we hit the really scary ones), and of course, ending with the Warrior Dash. The Warrior Dash is hands-down the most fun event ever. The high from the excitement and fun sticks with you for days.

On our way home, we noticed some of the quaint touristy things we passed in the mountains, like the numerous gem mines. My favorite quote from Ted as we passed yet another gem mining establishment:

“Yeah, those might be a fun little touristy thing to do, when you’re on a vacation where you’re not too busy being AWESOME.”

Run Baby Run

2011-05-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

When I'm finished running, I always think running is fun.

While I'm actually doing the running, though, not so much. Although it helps to have an awesome platoon of fun, motivating, helpful people there with you. I just can't express how much it helps me get through every boot camp session to have such a fantastic group of people surrounding me.

As you may have guessed, today we ran. We did a formation jog to the drill field (which included hauling our butts up Bernard Hill), followed by speed-pace work and sprint drills at the field, then cadence jog with short speed surges back to base. I felt strong until the jog back; I had to do lots of walking on the way back. I was spent. I pushed a lot harder than I would have had I been out running on my own, though. Seriously, the teamwork today was amazing. I can't say enough about it.

The scale is showing a little improvement today, so that is encouraging. I haven't decided whether I want to post my weekly challenge weigh-ins here or not. We'll see how I feel about it on Friday.

On a different subject, my friend Arwen and I have our first gig tomorrow. We're working on putting together a website for our duo, the Stones River Strings. More to come on that soon!

Really, I Wish I Were Joking

2011-05-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

People seem to think I’m either kidding or exaggerating when I say we did around 500 push-ups in boot camp. I’m not kidding.

Today we did a workout called 5/10/50. We did five different kinds of pushups, ten reps each (50 push ups each round), followed by 50 reps of another exercise. I’m not sure how many rounds we did, but I think it was around ten. I can remember band-resistance squats, UFCs, dying cockroaches, bicycles, burpees (yes, 50 of them), and clappers. I know there were more; but I don’t remember what they were because I blacked out. I do remember that after about the seventh round, when it was time to get back down for push-ups AGAIN, I just lost all decorum and muttered “fuck.” I was hurting bad, y’all.

The good thing about today’s workout? I was able to actually do each type of push-up. My dive bombers are still ugly, but they at least resemble dive bombers now. My diamond-grip push-ups are still shallow, but they are diamond-grip push-ups. I couldn’t even begin to do either of those when I first began. The improvement is exciting to see. I still have a really hard time doing many from my toes; but I always try to properly do at least my first few of each class. It’s a long process, but the progress is real. It’s very exciting.

This week starts the first week of my weight loss challenge. Let’s see if my competitive nature can keep me away from that cake that’s sitting in the break room. I haven’t given in so far…

281

2011-05-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

No, that’s not my weight. But thank you for making that assumption.

That, my friends, is my Basic Fitness Test (BFT) score from March. We received our certificates and tee shirts today. The total possible score was 300. So not only did I pass, I came pretty close to maxing it out for my gender and age range. We’re doing another one soon; I probably haven’t progressed enough to score 300 this time, but I plan on at least improving my score for April.

I did go to class yesterday, but I’ve been crazy busy and just haven’t had time to sit down and blog. Today Sgt. Ken led the class, and he apparently wanted to be sure to remind us who is the Tactical Director and Master Instructor, because he tore us up. Today was killer from warm-up to final drill. But even though it was really hard, I still felt really good about my performance today. I felt ripped to shreds by the cool-down, but it was a very strong, very encouraging day. It’s very cool how my attitude and disposition is evolving throughout this process; not too long ago, today’s workout would have been one that made me feel like this was too hard and I was going to have to quit. But I think that I have not only gotten stronger physically, but I have also become much stronger mentally and emotionally. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any future breakdowns, or periods of time where I feel like giving up or become disheartened; but they aren’t being triggered by the same things (or as many things) as they used to be. And that mental and emotional strength is starting to spill over into other aspects of my life. This has really been good for me in many, many ways.

Where I’m still failing is food. I’m tired of saying here that “I’m going to get the food under control; I’ve started logging and paying attention and…” blah blah blah. I haven’t gotten it under control yet. Some things are better; I’m eating Cheerios in nonfat milk for breakfast (they’re supposed to be magically cholesterol reducing, so I’m giving them a shot); I’m bringing fruit and veggies for snacks at work to try to keep myself from the chips basket; I’m eating high-fiber, low-fat lunches. When I cook dinner, I’ve been cooking healthier foods for that, too. What happens, though, is someone will bring in cookies. Or come around sharing donuts. Or we’ll have a birthday celebration with cake. Or I won’t feel like cooking dinner so we’ll go out. None of these things are totally derailing by themselves, and if I gave in to one a week, it wouldn’t be so bad. But I give in to all of them. I actually think I have a problem and should probably go to Overeaters Anonymous. But I don’t have time for meetings, and I’m not sure I can get into all that touchy-feely-sharing stuff. It’s really not my style. So I’m not really sure what is going to have to happen for me to get my eating under control and finally start dropping this fat-weight.

I am joining a fun online challenge, though, so perhaps my competitive nature will kick in and I’ll stay a bit more focused while doing that. First weigh-in is tomorrow. My goal is to lose 2 pounds a week during the 12 weeks of the challenge. We’ll see how it goes.

What, You Didn't Know I Was Going to do a Half Marathon?

2011-05-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

Neither did I.

Amber sent me a Facebook message on Thursday and asked me if I would do the Country Music Half Marathon with her. The CMHM was on Saturday.

That's right. Two days later.

And I agreed to it. Because I am completely and totally crazy.

Now, Amber is quite pregnant; so she assured me that she would be walking almost all of it, and that if she could do it, I could do it. I hadn't been doing any distance training whatsoever, but I figured that I could walk it with a little running thrown in. Amber figured we'd be able to finish in around three hours. We finished in 3:19:09. Not bad considering Amber's knee went bad after mile four, and we had to walk pretty much the rest of the race. And that was with three pee breaks (if you do a half marathon with a pregnant woman, expect to hear the phrase "Oh, good, I see port-a-potties!!!" very often).

This was my second half marathon. The first one, I trained for, and actually ran. This one I did spontaneously and walked nearly all of. They shared some commonalities for me. Here are a few things that appear to happen to me whether I train or not, walking or running:

Around mile 6, the bottoms of my feet start to feel like they have been crushed with a sledgehammer.
When I hit mile marker double-digits, my hamstrings decide to start shredding themselves with a cheese grater.
My leg muscles swell and become hotter than a charcoal fire.
For the remainder of the day, I am useless.

When I got home, I took an ice bath. I would normally write something here about how torturous it was, but honestly, it was quite nice after the initial shock of the cold. My legs were really inflamed; the ice felt good.

After that, I put on some dry pajamas and crashed into the bed for a nap. In about an hour, Ted and Julia arrived at the house (Ted had been so kind as to take Ju to band practice for me that morning so I could do the race). They came up to my room and Ju plopped down beside me and started chatting, and Ted gave me a massage on my poor shattered feet. Later that afternoon, Julia went to hang out with some friends, and Ted used The Stick to roll out the lactic acid in my legs. The screams were epic.

Today, I was very sore and walking quite gingerly, but I feel pretty good. Much better than I did after my first half marathon. I'm thinking that the difference was having someone to give me some aftercare this time. In 2009, it was just me and a twelve year old. So when I got home, not only did I not have anyone to baby me, I had a baby of my own to take care of (not a baby, but not quite as self sufficient as she is now). This year, I had a fourteen year old who could fend for herself as I lay in bed and tried to heal, and a wonderful partner who brought me water, rubbed my feet, and rolled my legs to help me recover. I must say, I recommend it this second way. :)

One final note. If you are pregnant and you walk/run a half marathon, expect your hoochie-koo to be sore afterwards. Apparently the baby pounds your pelvis pretty hard while you're doing all that walking.

It's More Than a Regular Ton

2011-04-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

You know what would make boot camp better for me?

Well, beer, obviously. But that isn’t what I mean.

What would make boot camp better for me would be for me to finally shed this layer of fat that is hiding all the incredible muscle I’m building. Today while I was doing triceps dips in class, I looked in the mirror and the position and tension at which I was holding my shoulders actually showed some lovely definition. Seeing that in my shoulders actually pushed me to do more dips than I was really comfortable doing in between resting; it made me want to push harder. I am building strong, lean muscles and they are going to look so awesome once they are not being hidden by the massive gelatinous layer of fat that obfuscates them right now. When I can really start to see them, watch out, boot camp; I will be inspired. I am going to be an unstoppable force.

I’ve been saying for the past several posts that I am going to start focusing on the nutrition. Well, I have started today. I am logging my food in a program that tracks calories and macronutrients (fat, fiber, protein, carbs). I’m going to try to eat a good balance, focusing on fiber and good fats (my bad cholesterol is a little elevated, so the doc wants me to try to fix it with diet), and keeping the simple carbs and bad fats to a minimum. I’m going to eat lean proteins and whole grains and green leafy vegetables. I am going to do this right. Am I going to do this perfectly? Hell no. I like food way too much. I’ll screw up. Occasionally I will eat cake. I am going to make an effort, though. That visible muscle definition is calling my name.

Oh, and class today was great. I haven’t weakened nearly as much as I expected after my sickness break. We did partner/station work, and I felt pretty strong. I had a great partner (please forgive me, I can’t remember her name! I feel terrible!). We pushed each other and she was super encouraging.

I am sore today in my legs, butt, back, shoulders, and arms. We did a shitton of push-ups today, so I’m thinking I’ll be sore tomorrow in my chest. I’m learning to embrace the pain, though. It’s beginning to feel wrong to not have at least some soreness. The soreness reminds me that it’s working.

Happy to Be Back!!!

2011-04-26T09:33:00.001-07:00

It felt so good to be back at boot camp this morning!

I was surprised at how strong I felt after my long break; but I totally expect today’s strong, solid feeling workout to be followed by a rough day tomorrow. That seems to be how it goes for me; my body performs great right after a rest, but then realizes what it’s done, and suffers for a while to catch up. We’ll see if my prediction is correct in the morning.

You know what I hate? Running.

You know what I surprisingly don’t hate? Running in the rain. Apparently, I am a small child. This morning I didn’t expect us to do our running because of the rain, but we wound up running outside anyway, and it was fun. I had this weird feeling of “it’s raining, and I get to go outside anyway!” Somehow it felt like I was getting away with something, and I loved it. It must have something to do with never getting to play in the rain as a kid, because my Mom was convinced it would make me sick nigh unto death. And she probably didn’t want to have to clean up after muddy little footprints, either.

But today’s running felt good. We did a lap around the block, then went in the studio for a circuit, then did another lap around the block, then stayed in and did the circuit for the rest of the class. The lap around the block starts with a pretty daunting hill (it’s not Bernard hill, but it’s still a good one), and I had to take one short walk break on the hill on the first lap, and a few walk breaks on the hill on the second lap, but other than that, I ran at a nice pace (for me, anyway) the whole block. I even pushed myself for a little speed at the end of the second lap. It’s a small block; I’m guessing a quarter mile, maybe. But I was happy with how I felt at the end of each lap.

The circuit was tough, but it felt good. I felt strong, I felt like I was going at a good pace. I was getting really winded and worn down by the end of the second go-around, but then we were at the end, so it worked out perfectly.

Boot camp was really kickass this morning. It’s a good thing, too, because the rest of my morning pretty much sucked. I woke up at 1:30 AM, and couldn’t go back to sleep. After getting home from boot camp, I took the time to put together a well planned-out day of food, with breakfast, snack, lunch, and second snack, all healthy; then I walked out the door without it. I didn’t realize that I did not have it with me until I was pulling into the parking lot at work; 45 minutes after leaving my driveway (it’s normally a 15 minute drive). So yeah. Thank goodness for boot camp!

Let's Get (a) Physical

2011-04-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

Today I went for my physical. They asked a lot of questions, got my vitals (temp and blood pressure), listened to my heart and lungs, took a little blood, poked, prodded, and most importantly, did an EKG.

A lot of my physical indicated that I’m doing great; temperature is normal, blood pressure was very good, goop in my lungs is normal for people with allergies this time of year, blah blah.

Doc: Do you want a steroid shot to help with your inflammation and congestion?

Me: No way! I’m not about to get on the juice, man!

Doc: It’s…no, it’s an anti-inflammatory steroid.

Me: Yeah, I’ll bet that’s what they told Barry Bonds…

Doc: No, anabolic steroids are totally different –

Me: WHAT KIND OF PLACE IS THIS ANYWAY??

I actually declined the steroid shot because I’m clearing up pretty well on my own. I have taken anti-inflammatory steroids before and they are a freaking life saver. They even save you from things from other planets. You can read about it in my blog post about the time I had an alien monster flesh eating bacteria devouring the side of my head.

Back to the results of the physical.

The one thing that I expected to be normal that wasn’t normal was the EKG. I really didn’t like that the EKG wasn’t normal.

I fully expected to go in there and have the doctor tell me “You’re healthy as a horse! Keep up the hard exercise, your heart is like a machine!”

Instead he says “There are a couple of spots on this EKG that aren’t exactly as they should be. Let’s make an appointment to do a nuclear stress test. I’d also like to ask you some questions about your boot camp.”

So, he asked me about the crying episode, and he asked me about back pain (which I don’t have), and whether I ever feel sick to my stomach during the class.

Me: Well, duh. Yeah. It’s freaking boot camp. I feel sick every time. Sometimes I vomit.

Doc: That’s a common sign of heart issues in women.

Me: Oh, but everybody comes close to puking sometimes in there. It’s part of the program.

Doc: …

Me: I’ve never shit myself, though.

Doc: …

Me: One girl nearly shit herself one day. She doesn’t say shit though. She said she thought she was going to poop her pants. But she didn’t.

Doc: …

Me: Boot camp is fun.

So because I had the emotional episode (and it wasn’t anywhere near my “emotional” time [you know, Aunt Flo, red tide, menstrual cycle]), and I feel nauseous a lot during class, and I have a family history of heart disease, AND there were irregularities on my EKG, we’re doing a contrast dye test. This is where I am pumped full of radioactive material and hooked to odd looking machines and told to walk/jog on a treadmill until I am very close to dying, and they look at something through some kind of medical doohickey. That is the technical explanation.

In all seriousness, I know that this is not a terribly big deal. The doctor did not put any restrictions on my exercise (see you all Monday!); he didn’t put any restrictions on my diet; he didn’t seem terribly worried. Had I only had one or two of the items listed above, he probably would have said let’s wait a year and see if we need to do one at your next physical; but since I had all four, he figured better safe than sorry.

Hiatus

2011-04-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I must apologize for the lack of blog posts this week. I have been rather ill; nothing serious, it’s just that I never really let myself get over the crud that I had, and then I went camping over the weekend. In the springtime. In the cold. In the rain. So yeah. Stupid.

I made it to boot camp on Monday, and it was a fantastic workout led by Amber, Candace, Debbie, and Jackie. They did a great job and pushed us hard to our limits. My thighs were sore before the day was over, and I usually don’t feel soreness until at least 24 hours after a workout. It was awesome.

Then on Tuesday morning I just couldn’t make it. I was very congested and felt really puny; I made it to work, but I just would not have survived a workout. Workouts like we do in START Fitness require one to be able to breathe. With breathing itself being such a challenge what with fighting all the phlegm for the air to get into my lungs, it just didn’t seem like a wise choice. I went through nearly an entire box of tissues on Tuesday.

I was hoping that I’d feel better by Wednesday, but no. On Wednesday I was worse. I was too weak to get up and brush my teeth Wednesday morning; so I didn’t even make it in to work on that day. I stayed home, slept, drank fluids, did saline irrigations on my nose, and tried to kill whatever microbe it is in my body that is making me feel so horrible.

So here we are at Thursday. I’m better, but not well. I made it to work, but not to boot camp. I’m still coughing and nose-blowing, but it seems to be improving. I think that over the weekend I will be able to recover completely. I plan to be back on track with four boot camp days a week plus at least one weekend workout by Monday. I also intend to do a few sets of push-ups and maybe some other strength exercises before bed every night between now and then, because I’m really afraid of how much progress I’ve potentially lost. It’s so unfair that it takes so long to build strength, and so little time to lose it.

Also, you may have noticed some design changes in the blog. I decided to spruce it up a bit. I added my mini-goals and rewards to the sidebar, and I’ll update it as I reach each one. I’m three pounds from my first one. I am going to really buckle down on my nutrition, and hopefully get the fat loss really going. We’ll see.

Still on an Upswing

2011-04-14T14:02:00.001-07:00

It’s really amazing how I can go from one extreme to the other.

Today was another fantastic, butt-kicking boot camp. We did partner work today, and I got paired up with Darbi, who is one of the very fit Team Rio people. I have to say, being paired with Darbi pushed me hard, and I really feel like I got a great workout. It was really fun, too; she and I have both been with START fitness in Nashville from the first class, so we were familiar enough with each other to joke around and mess with each other a little bit.

I learned something very important today, too. When doing partner exercises where you control the level of difficulty for your partner, and you are finished with your set and in the “control” position, keep in mind that you may wind up doing a second set where they have the control again before trying to be funny and making it extra difficult for them. Payback can be a bitch…

I’ve been sore all week, but it’s been a very good, productive kind of sore. I know that I am really building muscle and starting to get strong. The next step is to really focus on my nutrition. I have not been paying attention to what I’m eating like I should, and that is what has stalled my weight loss. I’m going to make a point to get that on track, and we’ll see if that steps things up.

This is Why You Don't Quit

2011-04-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

Wow

Just wow.

Before I say anything else, I want to say that “limping dogs” or “lame dogs” or whatever they called that godforsaken exercise we did this morning suck major ass. OUCH, Y’ALL.

I can’t even explain it here. It would hurt again just thinking about them.

On a different note, this morning’s boot camp was kick ass. Three brutal circuits, each led by a different instructor (congratulations to our three newly certified instructors, by the way: Jackie, Candace, and Debbie! HOOAH!). We broke out into three squads and did the circuits in rotation. It was a high cardio day with plenty of strength training/muscle burnout thrown in. I felt shredded from head to toe, and it felt great.

That’s right. Great. After the grueling, emotional, crazy day I had yesterday, I had a fantastic boot camp day today. It beat my ass to a pulp; it had me gasping for air; I’m going to be sore. But today I’m definitely back to loving it, and being glad I’m doing it. Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah.

And this is why it is so important to NEVER quit after a bad day. Yes, yesterday was a bad day. Yesterday was a very bad day. But those days come and then they go, and you are left with everything else. And everything else is awesome.

Many thanks to everyone yesterday who listened to me, comforted me, encouraged me, bought me frozen custard (love you, Ted), and reminded me that I’m not alone. I knew that I was going to be alright, and so did you. Thanks for helping me get there.

(Oh, and FYI, I’m going to the doctor for a physical and stress test next Friday [Apr. 22]. I’ll let you guys know if I find out anything of note.)

Sometimes, it Just isn’t Funny

2011-04-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

Note: The beginning of this post was written at a time when I was experiencing great emotional distress. I could have waited until the episode had passed and written a normal, funny, this-is-so-hard-but-everything-is-peaches-and-cream blog post, but I am determined to be honest, real, and open here.

I also found out that unexplained overwhelming emotions and crying can be an early sign of heart attack in women. I think I’m fine; but I will be making an appointment for a physical just to be sure. My father was about my age when he had his first heart attack, so I will not be taking any chances. I have way too much left to accomplish to be checking out this early.

Distance runners have a phrase called “hitting the wall.” Physiologically, that occurs when your body has depleted all of its glycogen supplies and must find other energy sources within itself. Science has made this a much less frequent occurrence with the advent of quick-absorbing carbohydrate supplements that athletes can easily consume while racing.

Today, I hit a different kind of wall. I hit an emotional wall. This morning during boot camp, I snapped, and not in a funny way. If you normally read my blog for the humor and rah-rah-sis-boom-bah cheerleader encouragement, you may want to skip the rest of this one. Because today was bad. Today broke me.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what happened. Yes, the workout was hard, and it hurt, but that is expected. At some point in the workout today, though, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I wanted to give up. All I could see was a big fat beast who has been pushing herself as hard as she can for two months and it’s not good enough. I’m still weak, I’m still fat, I still quit on myself before I’ve hit my true limits. I still can’t use a full range of motion for squats, lunges, or push-ups. Nothing is good enough. I feel like giving up on myself and I feel like everyone else should just give up on me too. I lost my composure at one point; Jessica (a.k.a. “Pink”) stepped over and pushed me through. With her standing there reminding me that I can do it, that I’m almost there, that we’ve got this, I made it through that set.

But then I really lost it.

I had to run to the bathroom and let it out. I cried for at least thirty seconds, hoping that the music was loud enough that no one could hear me (funny how I’ll write all about it here, but while it’s happening I desperately don’t want anyone to know). I regained my composure and ran back out to finish the workout. I finished, struggling the whole time to keep it reigned in. Once we were dismissed, I had to bolt out of there and jump into my car. I fought to hold it together while pulling out of the parking lot, but as soon as I was on the road and away from familiar faces, I began to wail. I don’t mean stress sobs or a few tears, I mean full, power weeping. I had no idea what was wrong with me; but I could not stop. I cried hard all the way home, and through most of my shower. I was barely able to stop long enough to put my makeup on. Once I got to work, I broke down two more times before I finally felt back to normal again.

Now that I’ve pulled myself together, it seems silly that I would get so upset. I have so many loved ones encouraging me and reminding me how proud they are of me; I have so many friends and acquaintances who tell me they think I’m crazy (in a good way) and they are amazed that I am doing this; I have my new, wonderful friends at START who push me, encourage me, and will not let me quit.

I still don’t know what happened today, but I will not let it make me quit. If I quit now, I’ll never, ever have any respect for myself again. This is too big; I have to stay with it. I’ve had several people ask me how long I intend to continue doing this. I honestly don’t have an answer for that. It hadn’t occurred to me to put an end date on this. Will I stop when I reach my weight goal? No. My weight goal has become a very small part of what I want to achieve. So when do I stop? Is there a perfect fitness level where you can slack off and go to maintenance? I don’t know; if there is, I’ve never been anywhere near it. I honestly think I should just keep doing this for as long as Sgt. Ken will have me in his class.

Hooah.

Back in the Swing of Things

2011-04-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been since Tuesday that I have written a blog post.

I had to miss boot camp on both Wednesday and Thursday, because my cough and chest pain were just too much for me to deal with. Breathing was painful, so it wasn’t possible to make it through a workout such as we do at START. I hated to miss, but it was necessary. I had to get my lungs clear before I could go back.

I was able to make up one class on Sunday. Sgt. Ken’s wife, Stephanie, led a special session on Sunday with a video team present to get some promotional footage. Let me tell you, she did not cut us any slack to make it look easier for the video. It was one of the toughest circuits we’ve done so far. After we were finished, I thought “Wow, I hope I don’t ever have to do that circuit again!”

So, of course, guess what we did on Monday morning?

It was the same circuit. It was not any easier the second time. Honestly, it was crazy hard. I truly have no idea how I keep doing this. The pain is intense; the exhaustion is overwhelming; the exercises cause all kinds of havoc in my body, from making me sob to making me pee on myself a little; but I keep going back for more.

My shoulders, arms, back, butt, and legs are screaming today. I’m trying to remind myself that the worse the pain, the better the results. And the way my butt feels today, it had better look AWESOME by bathing suit season. Also, I expect to easily survive the zombie apocalypse. If I get caught and overtaken by a zombie, man am I going to be pissed.

Cough Cough HACK Cough Cough

2011-04-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning. Day after the tornados in Nashville. Some touched down, there was some damage done in the area, but fortunately for me the only damage done to my property consisted of a broken gutter and a tipped-over basketball goal. Oh, and my windows were open so the inside of the house looked like my daughter had blown through there.

The tornado recap really has nothing to do with boot camp this morning, except that it gave me opportunity to mention that my windows had been open on Monday; this gave all the Tennessee springtime pollen ample opportunity to fill my home, and subsequently my lungs as I was sleeping. So I awoke this morning with a raw, burning chest, a neverending flow of snot running from my nose, and lungs filled with goo.

So what did I do? Well, it’s Tuesday – I went to boot camp. I’ve missed the last two Tuesdays, so I wasn’t about to let a little fire in my chest keep me from going today.

Tuesday is usually running day, but because of the swampy conditions after all the rain yesterday, we did accumulators inside instead. I was very happy that we were going to be inside; running outside might have killed me. Maybe not killed, but breathing in all the tree copulation byproduct while running would not have been a good thing. I was willing to try, but I’m glad I didn’t have to do it.

(As I write this, it occurs to me that those with weak constitutions should probably skip the next paragraph. Particularly if you don’t have a bathroom or a bucket handy.)

The workout got off to a fantastic start when about three minutes into the warm-up I had a small coughing fit, got gagged by my own mucus, and vomited into my tissue. It wasn’t a full-on vomit; just a little string of snot. Which of course gagged me more as it exited my throat. Fortunately I did make it to the bathroom before too much action ensued. It was lovely. I sure hope no one missed it.

Accumulators were very, very difficult in my gross, allergic condition, but I made it through. Sarah the running coach was there, and she kept trying to encourage me to breathe more deeply. I didn’t want to make excuses, but the honest truth was that I just didn’t have any room in my lungs to breathe deeply. I tried to focus on breathing as far down into my lungs as possible, really using my diaphragm, but it was a rough day. I went back and forth between feeling really strong and feeling like I wasn’t going to make it. Obviously, my cardio was weak; my biceps were also weak; triceps felt strong; abs felt strong (I actually surprised myself with some fantastic V-ups today); push-ups were mostly good (my butt goes up when I drop to my knees, but my push-ups from my toes are getting great); lower body felt great.

I struggled a lot today because there was a lot of cardio and that was a killer with respiratory irritation. I couldn’t give the verbal responses we were supposed to give; I couldn’t give the encouragement to my fellow recruits that I wanted to give because I had to take all the recovery time I could to try to replenish my oxygen supply. But I had a lot of strong moments today, too. It all works together to make me stronger. This is working.

Monday is Nature's Way of Saying Screw You

2011-04-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

So, after a few weeks of workouts that had me feeling like I was actually getting into shape and turning into one of those people who enjoy exercising...

Monday happens.

Remember the choking sobs I would get with some of the strenuous exercises when I first started START Fitness? It had been three or four weeks since I had experienced that. I was feeling pretty good. Then on Monday I got them again.

Try this: do a really, really hard workout that combines muscle failure sets (real muscle failure sets; don’t phone it in) with cardio intervals. Then, about thirty minutes into it, get down into push up position, and lower yourself about halfway down; hold that for a count of about four, then lower yourself to an inch off the ground. Now use your arms to push your body side to side. See if you don’t sob after two of these. We did four or five, or eight, I don’t know; I can’t count while weeping.

Other than those, Monday felt pretty good. It wore my ass out; but I felt like I finished strong. The things I can do now that I couldn’t even begin to do when I first started are just amazing. Diamond-grip push ups and divebombers come to mind. I couldn’t even begin to do one of either of these before. Now I am able to perform a halfway decent diamond-grip push up (from my knees), and almost do an actual divebomber. Neither are perfect yet; but they sure are a lot closer.

Off-topic: Defending My Parenting Style

2011-04-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Today I took my 14 year old daughter to have her lip pierced.

I know that there are many people who will say, "How irresponsible! Why would she let her daughter do something like that? Do they think that's attractive?"

I will respond first by saying yes, I think it is very cute on her. If you don't like it, don't get one. We like it.

Second, here's how I would let my daughter do something like that. Julia is a brilliant, talented, creative, well-behaved, funny, mature teenager. She does not do drugs; she doesn't drink; she doesn't smoke; she does not engage in other risky behaviors; she makes good grades; she is well spoken, reasonable, and logical. She is what is commonly referred to as a good kid. I don't have to watch over her shoulder every second to be sure she is not getting into trouble. I consider myself a lucky parent.

The lip piercing is a style choice. She wanted some facial jewelry, and this is the one she chose. It is not illegal, dangerous, dirty, or scandalous. It's a piece of metal on her face. Not such a big deal. It's not even permanent; it will grow in if she removes the jewelry.

So I don't see what the big deal is. I know that I'm going to catch a lot of shit from people, especially people from my hometown. But you know what? I don't care. She is not your kid. She's probably a lot better behaved than your kid. I'm proud of her, and I like letting her express herself. So stick that in your juice box and suck on it.

Not Sick Anymore! And Seven Weeks

2011-04-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry I’m late with Thursday’s post; I went to lunch with coworkers so couldn’t write at lunchtime, and Thursday night is trivia, beer, and wings night at Wow Wingery (yes, I know; not the best nutrition choice, but it’s our once a week family outing), so there wasn’t a lot of writing and posting time.

But START boot camp on Thursday was AWESOME AS HECK.

(I wanted to use a stronger word than heck there. One that started with F. But I think I’m probably swearing too much for my audience, so I’m trying to back off. That isn’t to say the swearing will go away, but I’ll try to curb it and only use strong words if something is particularly emotional or if it would be really, really funny.)

I did go to the boot camp class at the gym with Ted on Wednesday night since I was feeling better and I had missed START on Wednesday morning. It was a good workout; the kind where you basically get as much as you give, so if you’re motivated to get a good workout, you will. I felt like I got quite a bit out of it.

Of course, I’m a bit biased toward START. There is just so much that I love about it. The camaraderie I’ve formed with all the “charter” Nashville members; the motivation of being led by people as awesome as Sgt. Ken, Amber, Candace, Debbie, and Jackie; the crazy energy in the studio; the encouragement we all give each other; I honestly can’t say enough good things about it. Words don’t do it justice.

So anyway, Thursday was probably my favorite day so far. Maybe it was because it felt so good to just not be sick anymore, or maybe it was because we did partner-assisted exercises and my partner, Sarah, was so great and so much fun to work with. Maybe it was because we did a lot of exercises we had done before, and I could see and feel so much improvement in myself from the last time. I don’t know; but it was a blast. Yes, it was a hard, grueling workout. Yes, many of the exercises hurt. Yes, it was exhausting. Yes, I am very very sore all over today. But somehow it was fun. And tonight I’m going to try to go to the gym to do a spin routine for about an hour, just because I want to.

Am I turning into one of those people who likes to work out? Dude. That’s weird.

One other quick subject before I sign off for this post. Thursday completed my seventh week of START Fitness. In those seven weeks, I have missed a total of four classes, which means I have done a total of 24 START boot camp sessions. That’s 24 times I’ve gotten out of bed at 4:30. 24 times I’ve driven into the city before most people’s morning alarm goes off and done an hour-long workout that is painful and draining. 24 times I have attempted to push my body to its absolute limits.

It’s also 24 times I’ve dedicated an hour to improving my health. 24 times I have built new muscle tissue. 24 times I have learned something new about what my body is capable of. 24 times I’ve had the opportunity to spend an hour with many incredible, fascinating, inspiring people.

Several weeks ago, I asked the question, “Is it worth it?”

The answer is yes.

Whew

2011-03-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I did not make it to boot camp on Tuesday, nor did I make it to work on Tuesday, because I was in the bed all day with some terrible (but thankfully short-lived) virus. I had a fever, aches, painful stabby skin, headache; the whole works. It was like a mini-flu.

I didn't make it this morning, either. In all honesty, I probably could have gone this morning; but I convinced myself that I still needed the rest after being so sick on Tuesday. I am going this evening to a boot camp class at the gym where I'm still a member. It won't be the same, but I figure I'll get out of it what I put into it, so I'll just have to push myself. If I like this class tonight, I might make Wednesday a double-up day and start going regularly. We'll see.

What I really need to do is start running regularly again. I think this weekend I will introduce Ted to Bernard Hill (since I missed the boot camp running day again). Any of my fellow boot campers who want to fill me in on what y'all did on Tuesday, feel free to tell me in the comments!

In Other News...

2011-03-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

I may seriously not be at boot camp in the morning. I am pretty sick.

Just a heads-up so you know I'm not skipping. If I feel better after a good night of sleep, I'll be there. If I'm still aching and weak, there's no way. Right now, walking from the bathroom to my bed is exhausting.

Voices in My Head

2011-03-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

This morning there were very loud, very pushy voices in my head.
You need to skip today. You're sick. You need the rest.
No, you know that getting up and going will make you feel better.
But you didn't sleep well. You won't perform at your best this morning.
You'll feel better when you get there and get your blood going. You know you will. Just go.
Your knee hurts so much this morning; you don’t want to make it worse.
No. You know that you can modify whatever you need to for your knees; strengthening your muscles is the best thing for them.
Hey, you shut up. She worked hard this weekend and she doesn’t feel good; cut her some slack.
No, you shut up. This is good for her and she needs to go do what she can do. She’s strong enough to make it through this morning.
You’re stupid.
You’re lazy.
Your mom’s lazy.
Um, we have the same mom.
Yeah, well, she likes me more.
Does not.
Does too.

I finally just got up and brushed my teeth so they would shut the hell up.

Turns out, both blue voice and red voice were a little bit right. I did wake up this morning with a scratchy throat, runny nose, and achy muscles. I can’t tell whether this is springtime allergies or a late-season cold, but I feel rough. I also have a very painful and inflamed left knee. I had all kinds of justification for skipping this morning.

Then again, once I got up and started moving, gave my nose a good saline rinse (too much information? Sorry), and hydrated a bit, I realized that I would be able to make it through the class, even if my performance suffered a bit from my puniness.

Today was total body muscle failure day. Those are always fun. And by fun, of course I mean nearly unbearable torture. I had a really rough time with the lower body work today because of my knee, but I plowed through. And the little voice in blue was right; getting my heart pumping and some sweat going did make my throat and sinuses feel better, at least for a while.

After the workout was over and my heart rate slowed, though, I started to feel really drained and weak. I may have done a bit too much for being under the weather. And my left knee felt like it had been shattered with a steel mallet. I will be icing it intensely tonight.

All in all, I’m glad I got up and went to boot camp this morning. There were lots of new faces in class, and of course the seasoned recruits were there to motivate. My intention is to take a dose of NyQuil, get to bed early, and try to be well-rested for running day tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.

700? Really?

2011-03-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

I doubt it.

But Sgt. Ken told us today that during the course of our hour workout this morning, the average recruit will have done around 700 push-ups. He said that we are now part of his "700 Club." It's a lot like the other 700 Club, except nothing at all like that.

I'm thinking that I'm significantly below the average recruit, but I did do many, many push-ups today. Some were proper military-style; some were with elevated feet; some were modified from-the-knees. But I did a bunch. And I gave it my all.

To be honest, a lot of the morning is a blur to me. I remember that we worked with partners. I remember thinking Of course we're working with partners; I haven't shaved my legs. I remember that I partnered with Madison, who just finished up her first week at START. She did awesome.

To be quite honest, keeping these blog posts humorous is becoming a challenge. All my life, I've used humor as a tool to make me feel less vulnerable. I make jokes about being the fatgirl so people think I have a good attitude about it and don't feel sorry for me. I make jokes about how painful something is because it helps take the sting off the pain. I make jokes about how terrifying something is so it seems like the fear is only superficial, and not actually eating through to my soul. I make jokes about puking and wanting to punch people because...well, okay, I make those jokes just because they are funny.

But in the five weeks I have been doing START fitness, I have lost a pants size; I've increased my endurance and strength significantly; I have developed an attitude of excitement for what challenge I get to attempt to conquer next; and I've only puked a few times, and never actually punched anyone. There really isn't a lot of humor there.

But there is a TON of awesome.

Closed Circuit

2011-03-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

I'm behind with my posting. Sorry. There will be two posts today.

I missed Tuesday's workout because my friend Arwen and I had an audition on Monday night, and I didn't get home from it until very late. I had to have the sleep, or I would not have been able to function at work at all. (We did get the gig, though, so it was worth it!)

Upon walking into the studio on Wednesday morning, I was informed that I had missed the single most grueling workout so far. I do feel a bit guilty. But only a little. Mostly I feel fortunate.

On Wednesday we did a circuit with Amber. It was a tough one, made up mostly of stations we had done in circuits before. Today's post will be a comparison of how I felt when we did these stations the first time, and how I felt on Wednesday.

Station 1: Squat Shuffle with Medicine Ball
First time: Burning legs; gasping for air; heart felt like it was out of control and couldn't go any more; moved very slowly; had to rest for extended periods between laps.

Wednesday: Burning legs; breathing hard; heart felt like it was working hard, but strong; moved at an acceptable rate; required minimal rest between laps.

Station 2: Up-down Planks
First time: Really, really hated them; could barely do any; brought sobs to my throat; actually cried; hurt so badly that I couldn't even tell where on my body the pain was; felt like a complete failure and weakling; very depressing.

Wednesday: Started strong; moved slowly but with determination; hurt in a good way; very empowering because I could really tell I had improved like crazy.

Station 3: Abdominal Bicycles
First time: Actually felt like I did okay on these, but really had to rest often and for extended periods of time; had considerable lower back pain; knees were very painful with the motion.

Wednesday: Surprised myself with how long I could go before going to the rest position; lower back became tired near the end, but not painful; knees moved fluidly and were only slightly stiff; felt very proud of my core strength improvement.

Station 4: Inchworms
First time: Did every push-up from my knees; felt very shaky, awkward, and weak throughout entire exercise; had to step outside for fear of puking after each leg; hated them.

Wednesday: Still hated them; did most of the push-ups from my toes; felt strong but still awkward throughout exercise; did not have the urge to puke, but still had the urge to punch someone.

Station 5: 2X1s (2 push-ups, 1 explosion; 4 push-ups, 2 explosions; etc. to 8X4)
First time: I don't think we've done these before...if we did, I was blacked out or in clinical shock, because I don't remember.

Wednesday: Tired, but strong; did mixture of proper and modified push-ups; explosions are still weak, only because I can't get low because of my knees, and also can't bend my knees on the jump. I'm still really hoping for knee improvement, but I don't know whether they will ever get better.

We repeated the circuit five times, with the last set being abbreviated a bit so we would finish on time. It was a great workout, and I felt fantastic. I saw so much improvement in my endurance from early in the program.

This has truly, truly been hard; but it has absolutely been worth it. I have never in my life been this strong, or felt this good about anything I've done for myself. I can honestly see myself continuing to do this for life.

Dancing Fool

2011-03-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, Ted and I went to an 80s and 90s dance club with a group of friends of ours. It was a “Generation X” meetup, so we were all 36 and up. Not exactly folks with a foot in the grave, but not exactly coeds, either. We had a blast; we had drinks and danced for hours. We stayed out until 3:00 AM. It’s been years since I’ve done that.

There is a boot camp point to my telling of my Friday night shenanigans; on Saturday morning, all our friends were posting messages about how sore they were from dancing. Sore legs, sore feet, sore upper bodies; but guess what? I wasn’t sore at all. Apparently, five hours of goofy dancing is no match for regular attendance at boot camp. How’s that for an unanticipated bonus?

(I may not have had sore muscles, but that isn’t to say I didn’t suffer. I had a headache from the deepest chasms of Hell, and bruises. Don’t ask about the bruises. There was alcohol involved.)

This morning was a definite challenge on the getting-out-of-bed front. Some last-minute rescheduling caused me to have to stay up way later than I had planned. So when my alarm went off, I had the fleeting idea that I may skip today. Then I thought about how good it felt this weekend when my daughter saw my arm and mentioned that she was starting to see some muscle definition. I thought about how good it felt to put on the jeans I wore Friday night and not have to girdle myself down to prevent a muffin-top. I thought about putting on a tank top this summer, and having the only hesitation about whether I should wear it be whether the color looked good on me, instead of whether I actually wanted my shoulders to show. So I went.

Today was one of those all-over-cardio-and-strength days. It’s difficult for me to judge how well I’ve done on these days, because it’s such a continuous flow from one exercise to the next. With accumulators, there is counting of reps, so I know whether I did every repetition of every exercise; on circuit days, I know whether I repeated each circuit the required number of times; on running days, I know whether I made the entire distance and completed all the drills, and what my time/speed was. I have a frame of reference on those days; but on days like today, I never feel sure whether I took too many rest breaks, or did enough repetitions, or worked fast enough and pushed hard enough. I know that it hurt; I know that I exhausted myself; but I don’t really know whether I could have actually pushed harder. I guess time will tell.

Better Late Than Never

2011-03-17T14:00:00.001-07:00

Sorry I missed posting on Thursday, but my arms are just now working again.

I honestly have no idea how to even begin to write about Thursday morning.

We did accumulators again. This set of exercises was by far the most difficult of any of the accumulator workouts so far. It added up to: 20 minutes speed skate drill, 100 push-ups, 180 burpees, 270 explosions, 560 bicep curls, 28 hopping lunges, 30 double-arm bent over rows, 30 bouncing planks, 28 hopping squats, 24 triceps extensions, 18 V-ups, and 20 jump ups.

Every single time we got to the burpees I thought I was going to have to quit. Every time we got to the bicep curls, I thought the pain was going to kill me. The language in my head during the workout was rated NC-17. But I made it. Again. It really does continue to surprise me when I don’t just disintegrate into a pile of dust around fifteen minutes into the workout.

I actually felt shockingly good on Friday. My biceps were already sore on Thursday when we did the unreasonably difficult accumulator set; and apparently, overworking sore muscles actually makes them feel better. Who knew?

It's All Good

2011-03-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling there isn't going to be a lot of humor in tonight's post because I'm in hyper-analyzing mode. That's not to say it isn't going to be positive; just very introspective. I'm putting an addendum at the end about something positively hilarious that happened at work today to make up for it. I'll warn you, it's a little on the salty side, but it's really, really funny.

Today we did partner work. I partnered with Missi, one of our newest recruits. She's awesome. As usual, there were some exercises that I felt like I totally rocked, and some that I failed miserably. But man, when I talk about failing today, I don't mean just not doing them with good form or not being able to do many reps; I mean not being able to even begin to do the movement. Pretty much anything where Missi had to hold up my legs and I had to support my weight on my arms was a dead fail (I was able to do one of them; I did a few of the straight push-ups with Missi holding my legs up). On the other side of the coin, Missi was rocking it.

I've thought a lot about this morning's class. I've been going to boot camp for almost five weeks now; I should have been able to be a better example to our new recruit. I should have been able to do at least a few of everything. I should have lost more weight by now. I should be watching what I eat more carefully. I should be doing runs in the evening more often. I should be progressing faster than I am...

(See how quickly I can spiral into complete self-loathing? It's amazing.)

Thankfully, my manic-analysis didn't stop there. I was able to come up with a counter for every negative point. It occurred to me that I am a good example, because even though I am fighting all these inner demons and suffering over my individual failures, I'm not quitting; I keep coming back. I may not have been able to successfully do even a single rep of some of the exercises, but I damn sure made an effort at every single one of them, even when I knew it would be humiliating. I may not have lost a huge amount of weight, but I'm down a pants-size. My eating habits aren't perfect, they may not even be great yet, but they're better. I'm not doing runs during the week on boot camp days, but I am doing at least two on the weekends. And my progress is just fine.

I do look forward to the day when I don't weigh so much, and I'm strong enough to support the weight of my own body with my arms. If I stick with this, that day will come.

Okay, now for the funny.

At work today, I was creating dummy applications for system testing, and in order to keep myself amused, I was using funny names. One of my coworkers was going through a test packet using an applicant I had created. She was having some system issues, and when our boss asked her which applicant she was working, she said without reading it first in her head...

"Hugh G. Reckshin."

Our boss burst with laughter before my coworker realized what she had said. When it dawned on her, she completely lost it, too.

So, if I get fired, will you guys help subsidize my boot camp cost so I can keep going?

Hey! Sgt. Ken and Amber! Look Over There --->

2011-03-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

...because I'm afraid of what might happen if they read what I'm about to say next.

I actually enjoyed today's class.

I know - it sounds like crazy talk. Especially if you were there; if you were there, you'd know that we did hill repeats for our running drills (not on the monster hill that makes me think I'm going to shit my pants; but a killer hill nonetheless), then we returned to the studio to do circuits. They weren't cool-down circuits, either. They were tough. But it was fun. I felt good; I didn't feel sick or get that weird spontaneous sobbing sensation one single time. I got winded and fatigued; I had pain; I was exhausted. But I didn't feel the total misery that I've grown accustomed to having during class. I'm hoping this is a sign that I'm actually getting more fit and stronger, rather than a sign that I'm in shock. Or dead. Maybe I'm dead. But I'd expect Heaven to be a lot more pleasant, and Hell to be a lot worse, so that's not it. Probably.

We did two sets of three up & down on the hill repeats. When Sarah (our incredibly awesome running coach) said that we would do that many, I was really hoping I had misunderstood her. I thought There is no flipping way I'm going to be able to run that hill six times. My legs will spontaneously combust. But, as has happened so many times in this program, I surprised myself. I ran that hill five times without stopping to walk on the way up (we were instructed that walking for a bit to cool down on the way down was acceptable), and I only stopped to walk briefly the sixth time. Now, I was doing a S-L-O-W run. But I was running. It hurt; but at the same time, it felt great. Sarah is a spectacular running coach, and she has given us tips and instruction that has improved my endurance immensely. I was relaxed and focused the entire run. I kept my arms loose, made sure to lean forward from the ankle, and when I needed an extra push, I used my arms to pump some extra momentum into each step. Most of all, I made a point to observe the tip she gave us that has helped me more than anything ever: I didn't lift my feet any higher than absolutely necessary in order to clear the ground when going uphill. That has saved me so much energy, I can't even begin to illustrate with words. Sarah is my hero. I can freaking run hillz, bitchez!

The circuit in the studio was tough, but the only station that really kind of made me want to weep was the crab-walk. I didn't want to cry because it hurt, or because it was so draining on my body; I wanted to cry a little because I was so clumsy, and looked like such a freak doing it. It felt like everyone else was so much more graceful than me...though no one can be truly graceful doing a crab-walk. Awkwardness is just the nature of the movement. Regardless, it sucked for me. That position, belly-up with my hands behind me and all my muscles focused solely on keeping my butt off the ground, left me absolutely no muscle control to suck in my big gut. I had more rolls than an O'Charley's delivery truck. It was gross. Seriously, y'all.

On a positive note, all three of our new recruits returned for their second day, and they positively KILLED IT! They were superstars. If we keep getting new people who have as much heart and determination as we've seen so far, we are going to take over the world. And how TOTALLY COOL IS THAT GOING TO BE?

So Many Ways to Help

2011-03-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, today's post is ultimately about boot camp; but I want to start with something more important.

I make a lot of jokes here about pain, sobbing, misery, and how hard this is. But in reality I am a very fortunate person who is in a safe place, with a dry home, and not under immediate threat of a nuclear power plant meltdown. The people of Japan can't say that right now. The situation far east of us is very serious, and there are many very real people in very real danger. I know that times are difficult for many of us financially right now, but if you can, please make a donation to the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, or another reputible charity that is working to help.

One of the easiest ways to donate is to text the word REDCROSS to 90999, and your $10 donation will just show up on your cell phone bill, which probably has so many mystery charges on it every month anyway that you won't even notice.

Okay, now back to boot camp.

Today we had new recruits, which is awesome and exciting! I love our team and I love seeing familiar faces every day, but I also really love seeing the team grow. This has been one of the best things I've ever done for myself; I want to see it be one of the best things lots of other people do for themselves, too!

Talking to today's first-timers, I heard many of the same fears and concerns I had. These other people look so in shape...can I do this? How sore am I going to be? Is Sgt. Ken going to be really mean?

The class vetrans were awesome about gathering around the newbies and reassuring them, motivating them, and sharing their enthusiasm about the class. I think they were relaxed and ready to go when the clock struck 5:30...

...and it ran through my head, Oh, God, somebody needs to WARN THEM!!

We started our warm-up, which is a workout in itself. I recognized the look in the eyes of the new recruits behind me. This is a warm-up??

As I walked back to get a drink of water, I assured them that every single person in the class had that exact thought on their first day. And pretty much every day after that, too.

Today's workout was fast and exhausting. It was one of those that gave me that false sense of relief as we changed exercises, only to have that relief dashed when my brain caught up with my body and realized that the next exercise was going to be just as painful...

We all made it through. Missi, one of our newbies, asked me at the end, "Did you do as badly on your first day as I did today?"

First of all, I want to say to Missi and both of our other first-timers, do not sell yourself short for what you did today. You all did awesome. This is hard; it is supposed to be hard. It is designed to push you further than you think you can go, and as you get stronger, you will be able to do more and more every time. You were rockstars today, and don't you forget that.

Second, hell yes, I did as badly on my first day as you. Worse, in fact. I know how you felt today. I was very weak, very out of shape, and not prepared for this at all. No one's first day has ever been as ugly as mine. But I did the only thing that would fix that: I came back.

And today, I am rocking a brand new pair of size 12 jeans. That's down a size from when I started. And they fit great.

Non-boot camp related: I got to play music yesterday with my friend Arwen. We have a couple of gigs coming up in the next few months so we got together to read through some stuff. It was my first time playing with a harp player, and it was so much fun!

Too Sore for a Clever Title

2011-03-09T10:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's PT was super rough on the upper body, particularly the chest, triceps, and abs. So, naturally, today we got an upper body break.

BWWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAOHMYGOSHICOULDNOTKEEPASTRAIGHTFACEHAAAHAHAAAHAAAA...*snort*

No. Today we did Accumulators again. Very upper-body heavy on the first half (which is deceptive, because the "first half" is repeated way, way more than the "second half"). It was damn near impossible. I made it through, with many rest breaks during the mountain-climbers. Other than those, though, I did every repetition of every exercise (with the exception of the UFCs, because my knees will not cooperate with those; I substituted resistance-band squats). In spite of my soreness and fatigue, I felt really strong and really good today. Sure, I was plotting my revenge against Amber throughout the entire workout; but that was just to keep my mind off the pain. Honest.

Seriously, though, here is why START Fitness works for me and other things like P90X, 30 Day Shred, and working the machines/freeweights at the gym don't. Let's take P90X as an example. That's a darn tough workout; the instructor uses the same methods and concepts as Sgt. Ken (muscle failure, working multiple muscle groups at once, super-sets, etc.). If done properly, one can get into incredible shape with that program. Why won't it work for me? Because when I get tired during a P90X workout, I stop. I have no motivation to push past my perceived limits; but every single time we have done Accumulators in boot camp, about half way through the first round, I have thought "I'm not going to be able to finish this - there is no way." And if I were at home doing the workout on my own, I wouldn't finish. I'd quit, and think "I'll do more of it next time." Then eventually, there isn't a next time and the DVDs are sitting on my entertainment center collecting dust.

But in boot camp, I'm motivated by the energy, encouragement, inspiration, and peer-pressure of the class and the instructors. That pushes me to keep going. Yes, I have to rest sometimes, but I always push through a few extra reps, or a few extra seconds, before I do. Because I want to really, really do the best my body will do. And I feel like everyone else in there wants me to as well. It is exactly what I need.

Subject change.

I had a very yummy breakfast this morning and I wanted to share. I'm calling it "Bananas Foster Oatmeal."

1 serving old-fashioned oats
Pinch salt
1 packet Splenda
1/2 banana, diced
1 Tbsp. International Delights Caramel Macchiato creamer (yes, it adds 40 empty calories; It is worth it)

Make the oatmeal according to directions, and mix everything in. It is super delish, and oatmeal and banana is a great post-workout breakfast.

One final note: I will not be at boot camp in the morning. I have to take my daughter to a doctor appointment, and I won't be able to get my 8 hours in at the office unless I get there early. Amber and Sgt. Ken, if you'll assign me a workout that I can do at the gym, I promise I will do it either tomorrow after her appointment, or Friday if it's too late tomorrow.

Non-boot camp readers: Today's Groupon is a crazy awesome deal for START Fitness. Go get it now and join me in my awesomeness.

What are you doing still reading this? GO NOW!!

PT!

2011-03-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

Today we had a surprise PT (Physical Testing). I loved PT when I took karate years ago; it's rewarding to see quantifiable improvement.

Today's PT consisted of push-ups (as many as you can in 2 minutes), crunches (as many as you can in 2 minutes), and a one mile run. I was looking forward to it.

Then Sgt. Ken explained the push-up rules. Military style. From your toes. Drop to your knees, and you are DQ'd.

And with those words, all of the confidence and pride I've been building up over the last three weeks was gone. That frightened, weak little fat girl immediately took over my head, and I was terrified. I couldn't do a single push-up from my toes; I just knew it. I had tried before, and I've never been able to lift myself at all.

So as I sat there, on my knees, waiting for Sgt. Ken to give the ready command, I choked back tears (y'all are really getting tired of what a crybaby I am, aren't you?), and told myself that I just had to do what I could; my best was all I had to offer. My teammates obviously saw my terror (I'm imagining that my face was pasty white with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes ready to go at any second), and they encouraged and reassured me that I was going to do fine. I felt like I was kneeling there waiting for a baseball bat to the back of the head. Sgt. Ken must have seen how afraid I was as well, because he came over and reassured me that I didn't have to do very many to pass. Still, I was sure it was more than none.

Time to go. I got into position, lowered my arms to 90°, and to my astonishment, pushed myself up. I did one.

Then I did another. And another...and another. Twenty-three in all. That might have been the lowest number in the class (I don't know), but it was enough for me to pass that portion of the test. And it was 23 more than I thought I could do.

Next were crunches. There's no real story there; I passed with them, but I didn't do as many as I'd like (109). I'm going to really try to focus on my ab work and improve that number next time.

Then we did a one mile run. My normal running pace is a 10:00 to 11:00 mile. I've never really tried to push myself any faster than that. Well, today we were expected to push ourselves, so I did. I told myself it's just a mile; I can walk it in at the end if I have to. So I ran beyond my comfort zone. I had to walk twice, but then I got right back into my pace. It was a tough mile. I finished in 8:32. That's the fastest mile I have ever done.

The entire class nailed it. Everyone in the class is amazing, from the most elite of the athletes to the greenest beginner. We all have heart, determination, and drive. It is an INCREDIBLE team and I am proud to be a part of it.

When Failure is a Good Thing

2011-03-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

Muscle failure, that is.

That was pretty much today's theme. Just work a muscle group until it just doesn't work anymore. Then move to another, and repeat. It was brutal. Sgt. Ken was back from his vacation, and he wanted to make sure he was just as tough as Amber had been while he was gone.

I figured out today that regular strenuous exercise doesn't actually make you live longer; it just makes it seem like you do.

I can just see me in my sixties, getting up at 4:30 to go to boot camp, thinking "Christ, this is miserable. Why can't I just DIE already? I need the rest..."

Then I'll think, "No, I don't want to die just yet; that muddy buddy race is next weekend and I think I can take my age group no sweat. Probably the next age group down, too..."

I cried during about 30% of the class this morning. Partly out of frustration (my dive-bomber push-ups don't even remotely resemble dive-bomber push-ups), but mostly it's just a weird physical reaction my body has to intense strain. It happened to me when I ran the Country Music Half Marathon, too. I don't know whether people can see that I'm crying or if it just all blends in with the pain-contorted, sweat-dripping faces of the rest of the class. I've ceased to be terribly concerned about it, except that I don't want newbies seeing me break down and be frightened off. I need a tee-shirt that says, "The tears don't matter; the results DO." I might have to make myself that shirt this weekend...

Three Weeks

2011-03-03T18:23:00.000-08:00

Today concluded my third week of boot camp. I am amazed that I have been able to do this. I'm not only sticking with it, I feel like I'm really putting in the effort, really getting the most out of it. Yes, there are still things that I have to modify or do with less-than-perfect form. Yes, I still have to take a breather several times during the hour. But I know that I'm stronger; that I've improved; that I'm going to continue to improve.

This is an amazing program. You don't have to be an elite athlete to do it; but if you are an elite athlete, you can still get a workout that will push you to your limits. Really, that is the only requirement for this program to work for you. You have to be willing to let it push you to your limits.

My official weekly weigh-in this morning was 184. I've lost six pounds in three weeks. I've also started to see a reshaping of my body. Pants are fitting me better. I'm beginning to take more pride in what I eat (I passed up cake today at work). I'm feeling very good all around.

We did circuits today in class. Circuits are always a bitch; but the way Amber had them structured today could make Superman go cry to his mama. The stations that were super-energy draining and aerobic were together, and then the stations that set your legs on fire were together. So basically they were super-sets (maybe not by the strict definition, I don't know; but that's what they seemed like to me). I had to go outside three times because I was sure I was going to be sick or start sobbing. All I can say is that I'd better look pretty fucking awesome in that Wonder Woman costume in September.

The highlight of the workout was that I had awesome teammates, and when I said that we had to make sure to be the most absurd group at the Sumo Squats station (yelling "One, Two, Three, SUMO!!), they all heartily agreed. And if I must say so myself, we were pretty awesome Sumo Squatters.

I was by far the least fit of my team; but that was okay. They were super encouraging and I'm finally starting to let go of the embarassment of being so fat and such a beginner. It's a difficult thing to get over; I've always been a bit too proud and self-conscious for my own good. I tend to gravitate away from things that are challenging for me and instead stick with things that I have a natural knack for. I'm an artsy person. I'm a musician and a writer; and I do both of those things sitting down (or standing still, at the most vigorous). I don't have a natural knack for anything athletic. So boot camp is definitely out of my comfort zone. But I'm pushing past that, and it's very rewarding so far.

I know I'm behind on my daily reasons. I'll write a daily-reasons-catch-up-post this weekend. Right now I'm going to bed, and enjoying the fact that I can sleep until 5:00 in the morning.

Here's a clip from today's workout. I'm at the far end of the Sumo line.

Accumulate This...

2011-03-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

Accumulator workout again today. I'm not sure whether it was harder than the one last week, but it sure seemed to be at the time. There were so many times in the workout where I thought I'm not going to be able to finish. I'm going to have to quit. I'm actually going to have to quit. At one point, I really thought I was going to pass out. Not a joke; it was that demanding on my body. I had to stand for a second and make sure I had my balance before going to the next thing.

I was frighteningly close to having my mind made up that I was going to skip tomorrow. I had myself convinced that my body needed a break; that I wasn't strong enough; that missing one day wouldn't hurt...

Then I got home, and a couple of things changed my mind. First, I stepped on the scale. 186. I've lost two pounds this week. I weighed twice just to be sure. That was a nice thing to see after such hard work.

Now, I know that sometimes scale-hops can be deceiving; maybe I was dehydrated. Maybe tomorrow at my official weigh-in for the week I'll be at 187, or even back to 188. Weight fluctuates and you have to pay attention to the trend, not the daily numbers.

But the second thing that happened can't be taken away from me.

I have a pair of black jeans that I have to wear a loose shirt with, because the waist is tight and I get a muffin-top with them. This morning, I put those jeans on.

No muffin top.

That's right; I officially see a change in my body. My black jeans fit me better now. It's a small step; those jeans are still three sizes bigger than I want to be wearing. But it is a visible, notable change. And boy, did it feel good. It felt really, really good.

So this made me think of other improvements I can see in myself. My running has improved; my push-ups have improved; I don't get winded going up and down stairs anymore; and, as I mentioned before, my blood pressure is back down to the low side of normal.

So, unless I wake up tomorrow morning with a fever or my eyes swollen shut or missing a limb, I'll be at boot camp in the morning.

It's worth it.

Why I Love Boot Camp

2011-03-01T15:22:00.000-08:00

Actual quotes from this morning's workout. I'm leaving names out.

"I feel like if I move, I'll poop my pants."

"I think she's just trying to make the blog."

"You should write, 'And then this one girl pooped her pants, and then yelled HOOAH!!'."

I love this group of people so much.

Today was running (so yeah, profanity ahead). It was around 35°F, so that was perfect for me. I was in a tee shirt and my compression tights. Jimmy was concerned that I would be cold. I told him that I turn into a furnace when I run. By the time we were out of the parking lot, I was wishing that I had worn something lighter. I could honestly heat a moderate sized home with what radiates from my body when I run.

So, remember that hill that made me think Shit? We ran that again today. Three fucking times. I didn't puke this time, I only retched a little. But for the love of all that is good and pure, that hill is the suck.

By the time we got to the field I was feeling better; it's generally flat and downhill from the top of hell to the field (which, of course, means that the run back is generally flat and uphill). The drills on the field were good; the sprints with squats at the end of each leg were tough, but I felt pretty strong right up to the end. The ladder drills (also known as suicides; not because they kill you, but because they make you long for the sweet release of death) turned my legs into lead. No, not lead; plutonium (it's heavier, for my non-geek friends). I honestly wasn't sure whether I was going to be able to get back to the studio. Of course, Amber knows what she's doing and I was able to make it back just fine.

As usual, I went through the whole spectrum of emotions regarding boot camp. From hating it when my alarm went off (I was dreaming about shopping, people; you just don't interrupt that), to being glad I was doing it during warm-up, to wishing I could just melt into the pavement and disappear forever during the hill, to feeling like I could conquer the world when I was through. Fortunately, the emotion that sticks is that last one.

Here's a clip of the dreaded Accumulator day. I'm the fat one. But not for long. :)

I'll Take That Genie Now, Thanks

2011-02-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

This shit is hard.

Sgt. Ken is on vacation, so we are in the capable and cruel hands of Amber this week. I say capable because she is every bit as tough and demanding as Sgt. Ken; I say cruel because it's true.

I kid, of course. If I wanted an easy workout, I'd take a water aerobics class. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Of course, what kills me makes me dead, so there's a delicate balance thing going on here.

I was happy this morning to see some new recruits, but I was even happier to see many familiar faces returning after their two week trial. There's a real team dynamic shaping up in the class, and that's one of the things I really like about it. It's motivating in the morning to know that if I stay in bed instead of going to work out, I'll have people asking me next time where I was. That means I'll have to fess up and admit that I was lazy. I don't want to have to do that.

As for today's class, it was, as usual, balls-to-the-wall from start to finish. My brain plays cruel tricks on me during workouts like this morning. When the cardio starts to feel like I can't possibly do another second, and Amber instructs us to start something different, like push-ups, I'll think "Awesome, a cardio break will feel good!" Then once my triceps start peeling off the bone and my pectorals start to revolt, I think "Why on earth did I think this would be any better?" That thought pattern continues pretty much throughout the whole hour. I'm going to wind up in a padded room.

Now for a quick subject change; I'm getting this regular exercise thing under control, so now it's time to think about my nutrition. I don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. I know this; so I'm going to try to start working on it. I'm actually very knowledgeable about nutrition, I just don't put what I know into practice.

I'm going to try to start having a good salad for lunch most days. It will need to be filling, have plenty of veggies, include a protein of some sort, and most important, it's going to have to taste good. If it doesn't taste good, I won't eat it. Greens, chicken, and some kind of dressing isn't going to cut it for me for very long. So please give me your favorite salad combinations in the comments. I'll start off with a few that I like:

Spinach with grilled chicken, sliced strawberries, blue cheese crumbles, and dressing made with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and greek seasoning.

Spring greens with grilled chicken, chopped apples, feta cheese crumbles, and dressing made with rice vinegar, canola oil, and a pinch of mild herb seasoning (Penzey's Fox Point is good)

Spinach with chopped boiled egg, one crumbled slice of bacon, and dressing made from yellow mustard, honey, and a small splash of olive oil.

You may see a pattern there; I like to use strong cheeses like blue and feta, because it takes only a very small amount to give a lot of flavor. Same with the bacon; it only takes a little to really give a lot of bacony goodness. I also am not a fan of store-bought dressings. I prefer to make my own; that way, I know what's in them. If you have a favorite ready-made dressing, though, feel free to share.

Thanks in advance for any ideas! I'm hoping to bring all you lurkers out of the woodwork. :)

My Baby Girl and Her Band

2011-02-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

Meet The Resistance. My daughter is the bass player.

They sounded so much better than this live; my Droid doesn't record audio worth a flying shitcake.

Three Miles Forward, One Mile Back...

2011-02-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

My new friend from Boot Camp, Jimmy Olander (What? Me, name drop? Noooo...) invited me to run today with his running group, Team Rio. They are training for the Country Music Marathon and raising money for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee. They were doing 8 (half-marathoners) and 14 (full-marathoners) miles, but since I'm not doing any distance training right now, Jimmy offered to put out a turn-around marker for me for whatever distance I wanted to go. I said I thought I could do four miles, so a two-mile turn-around marker was set.

Ted came with me, and it's a good thing, because I was just at the right speed that I would have been totally alone after about mile one. I'm faster than the walkers, but slower than the runners. Ted and I adjust pretty well to each other's abilities, so we stuck together. He is much stronger for the first mile and a half or so, and I tend to struggle in the beginning and get my second wind later in the run. I was having some pain in my right calf, but it was tolerable and felt like something that could be taken care of with ice and rest, so I pushed through it for a while.

We were doing really great up until about the beginning of mile four (that's my estimate, didn't have my Garmin on), when my right calf started to really hurt; by this time, it was starting to feel more like a something-is-wrong hurt rather than a push-through-it-you're-just-tired hurt. So we walked (I alternated between walking and limping) the rest of the way back.

What really sucks about it is that everything else on my body felt great; my lungs felt good, my legs weren't heavy, I felt like I could have run a lot of that last mile, if not for that damn right calf. I was wearing my fivies, and I hate to say it, but I'm afraid they are the culprit. I may not be able to wear them for running at all.

So, ice tonight, rest tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to make it through boot camp Monday.

Oh, one more thing. When we got back from the run, Ted and I used The Stick on each other to roll the lactic acid out so we won't be so sore tomorrow. I swear, I'm going to have an audio recorder on in the room next time we do that. I'm not sure whether it will sound like a sex tape or a murder scene, but either way, it should be very entertaining.

Two Weeks

2011-02-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

Today was the end of week two. I’m going to combine my two week wrap-up with my daily workout report, so this will be quite a bit longer and probably more disjointed than my previous posts.

I have just completed two of the most physically challenging weeks of my life. I haven’t lost an insane amount of weight; I haven’t dropped four dress sizes; I can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. And that’s okay; because all three of those expectations are about equally unreasonable. This is not a miracle cure. This is not a hyped-up gimmick. This is real.

So, what are the things I have done? I have increased my muscular and cardiovascular endurance; I’ve lost a couple of pounds of fat (and a pound a week is just fine with me); I’ve even toned up enough that when Ted hugged me the other evening he said that he thought I’d already started to firm up. I’m down to 188 pounds today. That puts me only eight pounds to my first reward.

How do I feel? I feel proud. I feel excited about weeks to come. I feel nervous about weeks to come. I feel fatigued and a bit like I’ve been on that machine that they hooked Westley up to in The Princess Bride. I don’t have the intense muscle soreness that I had during week one; I have more of a muscle tiredness. My right quadriceps (Yes, the singular of that word ends in s; I didn’t know that until just now.) has a little tick in it at the knee that does a little jerk every now and then. My left knee is a bit inflamed and sore. My right shoulder is a little tender at the joint (I’m guessing that is a result of bad form on my push-ups at the end of class when I’m tired; I need to pay attention to that). My lungs are a little tight at the top when I take a deep breath in. I’ve worked my body hard, and it’s giving me cues as to what needs work and what needs TLC. It’s all part of the process of redefining my body.

That’s enough on the two week wrap-up; now for the daily report. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Wednesday felt like one of my strongest, best endurance days. Today felt like the worst. I know that I probably did more than I was doing last week; but it felt like I just could not complete anything satisfactorily today. I couldn’t get into a good low squat on my shuffles; I couldn’t lift my body more than twice without resting on the up/downs; there was nothing correct about my inchworms; my knee started bothering me during the abdominal bicycles; and my push-up form deteriorated into oblivion as the class went on. It felt like a complete failure.

To make matters worse, Sgt. Ken made me squad leader for my group. My group consisted of Candace, Trey, and me. I’ll give you one guess who in that group is the weakest link (hint: it’s me). How was I supposed to be squad leader and motivate my group when I was the first to have to take a rest? How can I give advice to someone about their form when mine is nowhere near correct? How can I tell two strong, lean, athletic people to push harder when I’m standing there with forty-three more pounds to lose? How can I take charge and be a leader when I haven’t earned it yet?

Sgt. Ken told me that it didn’t matter that my fitness level wasn’t up to theirs yet; that it was my job to motivate the group to each individual’s best. Yes, that made sense. But I am not a natural leader. That is not me being modest or self deprecating; that is me being honest about my personality. Squad leader was a very difficult role for me today. I really think that as I get stronger and improve, that I will grow more comfortable with the idea of that responsibility. But right now, it’s terrifying.

Bonus Post

2011-02-23T13:59:00.000-08:00

I'd like to introduce you all to a couple of people who have recently sparked a big change in my life.

First, meet Amber Hunter. She is Senior Instructor at START Fitness and an awesome one at that. She is inspiring, motivating, and incredibly dedicated and hard-working. Amber has some great blogs herself; they are here and here and here.

Next, meet Sgt. Ken. He is the fitness genius behind the program. It goes without saying that he is a great motivator, unbelieveably dedicated, and a BEAST of an instructor.

He's really only about half as scary as he looks.

HOOAH!

Code Amber

2011-02-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

This morning, Sgt. Ken turned the recruits over to his Senior Instructor, Amber. I think she led the entire class time, but I can't be sure because I blacked out just a few minutes after the warm up.

(Normally I would just assume that all readers would know I'm kidding about that and move on, but since I've been told that some prospective recruits are reading this blog, I'll go ahead and clarify; I didn't really black out. I'm trying to be funny. Laughter dulls the pain.)

We did what Amber called "Accumulators" (I think that's what she called them; it's honestly a bit fuzzy, and that's actually not a joke...), which were patterns of exercises that built on each other (do set 1; do set 1 & set 2; do set 1, set 2, & set 3; etc. to 10 sets. Repeat). It was honestly tough from the very beginning, and it did not let up at all until the cool down. Every day up to today has been very tough; but I honestly think today was the most difficult so far, even though I was able to complete more of the workout than any previous days. My body very nearly stopped functioning near the end; but it actually felt really good. I felt like I accomplished an extraordinary workout; I felt like I honestly, no-fooling-myself pushed my body to its limits; I felt like it was worth it.

Why is it worth it? Why is it worth being pushed to tears one day, then pushed to puke a little the next?

Because after your body survives those two days, it responds to a killer workout like this morning with more strength and endurance than you've ever had before. And you feel REALLY DAMN GOOD.

If being pushed to tears and/or puke sounds like a bad thing to you, then you don't want the same thing I want. And that's okay; I only very recently started wanting it. Take a Jazzercise class. Start taking a 30 minute walk in the evenings. Take the stairs instead of the elevator at work. There are lots of things you can do that will improve your health, and they are all better than nothing.

I don't want better than nothing. I want the best, most efficient way to improve my health, my strength, and my body. And that's what I'm getting.

(Yesterday I forgot to post my daily reason; so today I'll post two.)

Reason #6:
I love the feeling I get when I go to the doctor, they take my blood pressure, and immediately say, "You must be a runner!"

Reason #7:
If you're in good enough shape, you are never too old for tank tops, strapless cocktail dresses, or bikinis.

Get in My Head

2011-02-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

Today's post is going to take a bit of a different approach; I'm going to take you through the workout with me, and share a little of what's in my head. Those who know me know that there will be profanity; those who don't, well, there's your warning.

(The times are guesses; I didn't have a watch on.)

4:30 AM: Alarm goes off. Damnit. That dream was just getting good... (None of your business)

5:00 AM: In car. This is too hard. Is it worth it? Seriously, I can't imagine having to do this for the rest of my life to just not be fat. 5:30 in the fucking morning? Seriously? This is what I have to do to just look like a normal human being? Other people don't have to work this hard to not be fat. It's not fair. Whaaah...

5:30 AM: Warm-up. Okay. Feeling better. I can do this today.

5:35 AM: Group jog to first checkpoint. Hey, I'm alright. This is awesome. Candace is very cool...I like this group.

5:40 AM: Look up and see the first hill. Shit. (To be clear, this is what I thought, not what I did...)

5:41 AM: Struggle up the hill. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. Everybody is encouraging me and they are awesome but they know that I'm having trouble because I'm so fat and they feel bad for me and I don't want people to feel sorry for me I can do this OKAY GET OVER YOURSELF NENA these people are on your side they want you to succeed we're all here for the same reason I'm going to die I'm going to die hey I'm at the top of the hill...

5:46 AM: Step behind parked vehicle and puke a little. ugh

5:47 AM: Run to park; do shallow lunges while everyone else does step drills on the bench. I HATE MY KNEES I HATE MY KNEES I HATE THEM WHY WON'T THEY WORK RIGHT ANYMORE DAMN IT ALL TO HELL I HATE MY KNEES

5:50 AM: Running drills up and down field. This is great...this sucks...this is great...this sucks...this REALLY sucks...this is great...

6:10 AM: Formation jog to cadence back to studio. Sgt. Ken is tough and mean...make you reach for your canteen...high-step, sprinting, mountain climb...push-ups 'till the end of time...

6:30 AM: Back at studio. I am so glad I did that. Holy shit...my heart rate is already back down! Woo-hoo, this shit WORKS...

In Case You Thought it Got Easier

2011-02-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

No. No, it doesn't get easier.

Today was even harder than last Monday. The warm-up and cardio was about the same, but the upper body strength exercises were very near unbearable. I was unable to do any of them absolutely correctly, with the exception of a couple of resistance band exercises (and only a few reps of those). We did different variations on the push-up, and I can barely even begin to do most of them from my knees. My upper body is so weak. It is very disheartening. I actually had tears fall several times during the workout this morning, both from the pain and strain on my body, and from how discouraged and inferior I was feeling. I know that the only way to improve it is to just keep going, and do the exercises the best I can, and work to my limits and try to push past them further and further as my strength increases; but it just feels like I'll always be weak. It feels like I'll never be able to lower myself all the way down on a push-up; never be able to do the lateral raises for more than five seconds without a break; never be able to do a real chin-up (we don't use a chin-up bar in class, but that's one of my personal goals).

On a positive note, I have a stronger core than I had previously thought. Sure, I have to rest during the core/ab drills, but not really much more than the average student in the class, and often it's my lower back that becomes too tired; not my abs (well, on the side-planks, it's definitely my lats that give out; they're my weakest core muscles for sure). Aside from side-planks, though, I feel really strong during core drills.

My cardio is improving at a mind-blowing speed, too. I'm able to push through the warm up now with pretty good stamina. I don't move as fast or lift my knees quite as high as some of the others, but I see improvement from my previous performance. That's the only way I can judge myself without going crazy. If I try to compare myself to others in the class, I'm going to get discouraged and quit. This is about me becoming the best me; not about me becoming as good as anyone else.

As for the weekend, on Friday I took an intentional rest day to allow my muscles and joints to recover and rebuild a bit. Saturday wound up being an unintentional rest day, because I stayed busy all day long and into the night with other things, and didn't make it to the gym to do spin like I had intended. My left knee was really giving me trouble; very inflamed, tender, and really painful with use. I iced it and took some ibuprofen before bed, and slept with a knee brace to keep it straight during the night, and it had improved enough by morning for me to do a gentle two mile run with Ted on Sunday afternoon. I wore my fivies, and I'm feeling that knot in my calf again, but it's not as bad as before, so I'm going to try to keep wearing them. Other than the issue with my right calf, they are great shoes for me.

Oh, one other thing of note: after the run, since my calves were tight, I had Ted use The Stick on my calves. Wow, talk about painful. It really rolls the lactic acid out of the muscles, and you can feel every bit of it. I had to warn him before starting that I was going to be in pain, and he would want to stop because he didn't want to hurt me, but he should keep going because it was just how it worked. The noises I made could have been used as the sound for a torture movie. But once that stuff is all rolled out, it's amazing how much better the muscles feel. So it's worth it. Ted said that since it was so painful for me, it was only fair that I do his calves, too. He realized quickly that I wasn't exaggerating about how much it hurt...

Cardio tomorrow. Let's hope my right calf allows me to complete it.

Reason #5:

Sexy butt.

Friday on Thursday

2011-02-17T19:45:00.000-08:00

So I had this feeling all day today of "Yay! It's Friday!" even though it's really Thursday, but in a way it's like Friday because I made it through all four days of Sgt. Ken's Boot Camp and tomorrow I get to rest!

I'm still pretty sore, but a lot of the deep, sharp soreness has eased up and now it's more like a regular I-had-a-good-workout sore. I'm so glad I pushed through and didn't skip any days. Today was partner-assisted exercise, and it was tough and intense. No big surprise there, huh? That's what I've come to expect. But it was good; working with a partner was a new dynamic, and I really enjoyed it.

My partner was Jackie, a young, lean, tiny thing. I learned something from her today. I told her after a set of push-ups, "That was great! One of my goals is to get lean and look more like you!"

She looked at me and said, "What are you talking about? You're way stronger than me!"

What I learned from that is that everyone sees in other people things they want for themselves. I want to be smaller and leaner; Jackie wants to be stronger. It made me feel good that at least one person in that class saw something positive when she looked at me. She saw a strong woman. That was an awesome boost for me.

Tomorrow I rest. After work, I am going to go home and geek out and play D&D with some friends. Then I'm going to bed. On Saturday, I plan to go to the gym and do a 45 minute spin bike routine, and on Sunday I'm going to go for a gentle run with Ted. I don't want to rest for three days in a row, because I don't want next week to be as tough as this week was. Monday starts my second week of boot camp, and I plan to start it strong.

Hooah!

Reason #4:

When I was little, my older brother Greg told me that a woman could never get as strong as a man. I want to be able to beat my brother Greg at an arm-wrestling challenge.

Tripping the Circuit

2011-02-16T18:16:00.000-08:00

I still hurt.

Today was a circuit drill, and boy was it intense. I was dragging ass by the end, but I was determined not to stop.

At 4:30 this morning, I began to question whether this is worth it. I have to get up thirty minutes earlier than I would if I were going straight to work, and I arrive at work an hour later than I used to (which means I have to stay an hour later in the evening). It's hard to get up in the morning; it's a painful, exhausting workout that words can't even describe; the pain doesn't stop when the workout ends; my body doesn't recover enough yet for me to have that "extra energy" you're supposed to have all day when you start with exercise, so I'm fatigued all day; I'm getting blisters on my feet; the strain is finally getting to my knees and they are very tender and a little inflamed; and I just hurt all over, every move, every breath. It's really, really hard.

Right now, the only answer I have for "Is it worth it?" is, "I sure hope so."

I want it to be worth it. I really, really do. The only way I'll find out whether it's worth it is to stick with it and see.

I didn't mean for tonight's post to be a downer. The class today was full of energy, it was motivating, it was fun, it was fast, and it was great. There are so many things that I love about it, and I do know that every minute I spend in there is a minute that is improving my body and my health. I also know that with every painful step I take, my muscles are healing and building new tissue, and the pain isn't going to last forever. I already know I'm getting the health benefits; when I went to the doctor yesterday, my blood pressure was 112/72. That's pretty damn good. I just hope to get some of the vanity benefits too. I haven't been comfortable in my body in many years. I'd like to feel that again.

Reason #3:

My father died at the age of 48 of a heart attack. I do not intend to let that happen to me.

Here's a little clip of today's workout. I'm in the back, doing abs.

Running Hot

2011-02-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I was right. I hurt today. A lot. All over. It's not injury hurt; it's definitely muscle hurt. My muscles are torn to shreds and struggling to rebuild. In other news, my knees feel surprisingly good and don't seem to be inflamed at all.

Despite the soreness and the fact that I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to do it, I went back to boot camp this morning. Today was running and leg drills outside. The temperature was good for me; it was around 35 F, and I do better in cold weather. The heat of summer smothers me. So I had that going for me.

Something cool that happened today was that people actually started introducing themselves and talking to each other. It was very encouraging to hear some of the others saying the same things I was, like the fact that the warm-up yesterday was as hard as some whole workouts we've done.

We divided into three squads today for running: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. A group of ladies I was talking to convinced me to run in the intermediate group with them, and I'm glad they did. It pushed my limits, but I was able to keep up pretty well, though at the end of the run I was in the back with the girls who were recovering from injuries. Still, the encouragement among our squad was awesome and I loved it. Today was tough, and I'm definitely walking gingerly, but I can feel myself getting tougher already. I'm looking forward to circuit training tomorrow.

HOOAH!

Update: Forgot to put my daily reason for sticking with boot camp.

Reason #2: I am going to be a MIGHTY BEAST at Warrior Dash in May.

♪♫ Fat Girl in a Little Class ♫♪

2011-02-14T18:15:00.000-08:00

If you don't know why my title cracks me up, you need to watch this.

Today was day 1 of START Fitness: Sgt. Ken's Boot Camp. It was intense. It was insane. It was painful.

It was awesome.

My first impression upon walking into the studio was "Oh shit. I'm the only fat person here." Everyone else in the class looked fit; not necessarily contenders for the cover of Muscle Magazine, but way leaner and more solid than I am. I was sure that I was going to be the only one in the class who had to take breaks; who had to stop for a drink of water; who had to gasp for air. Everyone would feel sorry for the poor fat lady who couldn't keep up.

Then I got over myself and decided that I am going to rock this workout the best I can.

So, I'm not going to write a play-by-play of the workout session; if you want to know what we do in class, come do the free two day trial Sgt. Ken offers on the website. What I'm going to write is about my personal experience in the class.

Once we got started, I knew that this was going to be different. Even the warm-up was tough. But I have to say, there was an energy in the room right from the beginning that inspired me to push hard. Sgt. Ken yelled and barked orders at us, but it was not in a negative or demeaning way like you see drill sergeants in movies; it was in a motivational and challenging way. Okay, there were some threats ("If anyone lowers their arms, I'll start ALL OVER"). They worked, too. He demanded that we work as a team; the stronger recruits were to encourage and motivate the less advanced. No one left behind.

I did not complete the workout flawlessly today. There were some exercises that I could not do with proper form because I am too weak; there was one exercise that I could not do at all because of my knees (I'm hoping that as I get stronger, the knee pain will improve); there were some times that I just had to take a break, get some water, and recover for a moment. There were almost tears at one point. Then I realized OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING PEOPLE WILL SEE ME AND FEEL SORRY FOR THE FAT GIRL WHO STARTED CRYING so I sucked it up and continued doing push-ups. Shame is a great motivator.

But I did push hard. And one day I'll be able to finish the whole hour strong, with no breaks and with good form. I know I will.

The realization that is a little terrifying is that this is never going to get easier. When it starts to get easier, that's when it's time to push harder. I used to daydream that if I had a genie in a bottle, my first wish would be for a perfect body. Well you know what? Screw that. I don't need a stupid genie for that. I can do that myself.

I'm already starting to feel sore. It will be full-on pain in the morning. So now I'm going to go take a couple of pre-emptive ibuprofen tablets and collapse into bed. I'm going to close each of these blog posts with a reason I'm going to stick with Sgt. Ken's boot camp.

Reason #1:

Because I will look awesome as Wonder Woman at Dragon*Con in September.

Update: I almost forgot to post the photos Sgt. Ken sent me. :)

Yikes.

2011-02-11T15:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, first off, I did the Nashville Zoo Run Run 5K a few weeks ago, and finished in 37:00. Not bad!

Now, the yikes part. I recently started a new job, and we work very closely with the Army National Guard. The Tactical Director and Founder of the Strategic Army Training Program, Sgt. Ken, works there too. When I was introduced to Sgt. Ken, I made the mistake of telling him that I was working on getting back into shape.

Never tell the US Military's #1 fitness guy that you are working on getting back into shape.

He has a civilian boot camp starting up Monday. He sent me a link and said I should think about doing it. I had to tell him that I didn't have the budget to do it right now, but I'd see if I could swing it next session.

He offered to let me go for two weeks on him.

How can I pass that up? So now I'm committed to it. It starts Monday at 5:30 AM. Four days a week, Monday-Thursday, for two weeks. It's not your regular joe-blow boot camp, either. This is the same stuff they put military people through to get them into fighting shape. I am going to hurt.

I'll try to post regular updates. This should be amusing.

Promises and Confessions

2011-01-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

I keep promising to update this blog more regularly. I never do. So I'm not making any promises this time. Maybe that will make me update more regularly.

Anyway, I've still been running with Ted; we're averaging 1.75 to 2.0 miles each run. Ted tends to run the whole way to his cool-down walk, while I run much slower and take a walk break in the middle. I usually catch up to him during his cool down, though, so my time winds up being similar to his.

Even though I've been running, I've still been gaining weight. It's because I really enjoy food. Also alcohol. I tend to eat a lot when I have someone to share good foodie-type food with, and I enjoy good wine, beer, and spirits when I have someone else who appreciates them; and Ted fits that bill to a tee. So I have to make some changes.

I am currently 20 pounds heavier than I was when I first started dating Ted. Yes. Twenty pounds. That has to be corrected, and then some, because I wasn't at goal when we started dating.

So, I'm going to start counting my nutrients again: calories, fat, carbs, fiber, and protein. I have a good program (Sparkpeople) that gives me healthy goals for those nutrients. I know that I will not meet my goals every day; but I will be trying and striving toward them, and that will at least be steps in the right direction.

Now for the fun part: the rewards I have promised myself for each weight loss goal reached. Here is where the confession part comes in. I am heavy. According to those who know my weight, I am heavier than I look. I am about to confess my actual weight here. But this will not be my actual weight for long.

Current: 195
My BMI is currently rated as obese. The very bottom of obese, but obese nonetheless. This cannot stand.

Goal 1: 180
This weight is no longer in the "obese" BMI category for my height. For reaching this goal, I will give myself an industrial ear piercing. See photo.

Goal 2: 170
This weight puts me at the bottom of the "overweight" BMI category. I will be close to a normal weight. For this achievement, I will give myself a tiny black heart tattoo, just below and behind my ear. It will be easily coverable with hair if I need it concealed; but as long as my job permits it, I can let it be seen with my short haircut.

Goal 3: 160
At this weight, I am one single pound from the "normal" category. I think that deserves the Monroe piercing I've wanted for so long (yes, I'm picking up on the self-mutilation theme here; these are all things I really want, though, so they do indeed qualify as rewards).

Goal 4: 150
Here, I will be right in the middle of normal weight. If this is the final goal I reach, then I will be happy. My reward for this goal will be a very nice, professional photo shoot. I haven't had my picture taken by a professional photographer in years.

Final, end-all goal: 145
If I ever reach this goal, I am going to go out with my beloved daughter and my best friend and I am going to try on wedding dresses. No, I don't expect to be engaged. But I have been married twice, and I have never worn a wedding dress. So I'm going to go put some on and see how freaking gorgeous I am in them. J and S can take photos for me, and I'll post them here.

The future will tell how many of these I reach. Stay tuned.

Oh yeah, also, comments, encouragement, jokes, and criticism are welcome here. Let me know you're reading, people!

Updated: I almost forgot. If I am at 169 (officially in the "normal" BMI weight range) by December, I will be asking my loved ones for gift certificates from Orchard Corset.

Just for the Record

2010-10-11T06:24:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some races this year, and I haven't posted about them. Right now, I'm at work, so I can't write much; but I want to get my times down so I won't forget them, and so I'll see my progress. Because I really am getting better. :)

Warrior Dash, Mountain City, GA
May 23, 2010
Just under 5K with a really fun obstacle course
40:29

Amaizing Race, Jonesborough, TN
September 6, 2010
5K - Half around a cornfield, half on pavement
39:46

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Nashville, TN
October 9, 2010
5K
37:32

Green Day Weekend

2010-08-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted here.

Well, I have a fantastic weekend to post about. My baby girl turned 14 on Saturday. For her birthday present, she and I flew up to New Jersey to see her favorite band, Green Day, in concert. At the last minute, I decided to go ahead and get tickets to see American Idiot on Broadway as well. It seemed a shame to be so close to NYC and not go up for the show.

So, on Friday we went to the airport and had an uneventful flight to New Jersey. I hate to fly, but I love to travel, so I have to fly. Anyway, any flight that lands safely is a good flight in my eyes, so we had a good flight.

We arrived in Newark and I picked up a rental car at the airport to drive to our hotel in Iselin. Note to self: next time, take New Jersey transit. Driving in NJ is a pain in the ass. More on that later.

The hotel was magnificent. I got a great deal on the room through my employer, and it was really phenomenal. Clean, spacious, comfy. If you ever need to stay in Iselin, NJ, I highly recommend the Renaissance Woodbridge Marriott.

We got information about the train to NYC, got ready for the show, and took the hotel shuttle to the tran station. I was a little panicked about whether we were going to make it in time; I had no idea how long the will-call line might be, how long it would take us to get to Broadway from Penn Station, whether the train would arrive on time...but to keep the post from rambling, let's just say that we arrived in our seats in plenty of time.

So, we had terrific seats. Center stage, about ten rows from the front. We were very excited to see the show. Julia noticed some girls in the front row looking back and kind of freaking out; so, she looks behind her, gets a glazed look in her eyes, and turns to look at me. I looked up and said, "What?"

She says, "Can you not see who that is?"

I looked more carefully. It was Billie Joe Armstrong. Holy shit.

He and his wife sat in their seats, two rows up and about five seats over from us. It was awesome. Julia wanted to go talk to him, but was nervous, and the show was close to starting. Finally, she got up and started to walk toward him, but the usher lady told her to take her seat, because the show was starting. Crap!

But it was very cool to sit that close to him at the show. The show was amazing, of course. It is a fantastic musical. So much energy, and the music is top-notch.

We stopped to have pizza on our way back to the train, and the guy behind the counter said, "You two look alike. Are you sisters?"

I don't know whether he was bullshitting me or not, but it felt good. :) Also, New York pizza...mmmmmmmmmmmm.

The next morning we went back into the city. We went to Times Square and had our makeup done at Inglot. The guy who did my face said a lot of nice things about me; that I had good skin, pretty eyes, good eyelashes...he was very obviously gay, so either he really meant it, or thought that it would make me buy more stuff. :)

Again, we were pushing it for time on the way back. We shared a cab from the station with a couple with a cute little girl who were going to the same hotel. On the way, we discovered that they were going to the Green Day concert too. Small world.

So, we get to the hotel room, get ready, get in the car and drive to Holmdel. It took me fifteen minutes to get on the road going in the right direction, because apparently, you can't make a left turn in New Jersey. Anywhere. Ever. And GPS systems do not know this. It was infuriating.

We made it to the show; we bought Zippos; we watched the concert. It was awesome. They started with the newer stuff, but then played lots of their old songs. They played lots of stuff that only the hard-core fans would even know. Billie Joe got kids and old people (my age - heh) from the audience to sing, dance, crowd surf. A lady got on stage and signed the last verse of Longview in American Sign Language. Billie Joe thought that was awesome and gave her a guitar. They played for four hours. We loved it.

My one regret is that I didn't buy tickets early enough to get us in the very front. Someday, soon I hope, I will get my baby in the front row of a Green Day concert. I want her to get a chance to be up on stage with them. I want her to be able to tell Mike Dirnt that she plays bass because of his awesomeness. I will do this for my baby girl. But for now, I hope she has a very fond memory of our Green Day birthday weekend.

Happy birthday, AwesomeChild. Your mom loves you more than you can imagine.

Autumn Running!

2009-09-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

This morning between 7:00 and 8:00 was perfect for running. It was nice and cool; it had rained hard the night before and the air was fresh and clean; there was a gentle, constant breeze. My Garmin Forerunner GPS watch that I ordered came in while I was sick (some kind of non-flu virus, but it was yuk), and I'm finally healthy enough to get out and use it. So guess what I did?

I slept in.

Yeah. Well, I blame my bunco sisters. We all got together last night and had a fantastic time, and I was out late. I am really grateful to have them. We are a group of the most awesome, intelligent, beautiful, fun women ever in the history of the world. Last night was supposed to be a bunco night, but we were missing two people, so we just ended up talking, laughing, inspiring each other (more on that in a moment), and eating good food (it was simple sandwiches last night, but it was great!).

I could do a whole blog post on girlfriends, and how very special and important they are, but I will do that another day.

About that inspiring each other thing. One of my bunco girlfriends is Aimee at La Familia Luis. She has been doing P90X and modifying her eating, and she looks really great. She was always gorgeous, but I can see a real difference since she's been doing all that hard work.

She has inspired me.

I have decided that I am going to also work hard and finally get rid of these final pounds that I've been toying with since the half marathon, and I'm going to get my muscle tone where it really needs to be.

I'm starting today. I'm going to do Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred workout, and then I'm going to the Y to spend an hour on the spin bikes. I might take my swimsuit and jump in the pool for a little cross-training; I don't know. But I'm back on the wagon as of now.

Even though I squandered a perfect running morning.

Oh, by the way, I don't get any kind of ad money for the links I put to the workout DVDs or the Forerunner up there; the links are for informational purposes only. If I could have found a site that described them without selling them, I would have used those.

Best Day Ever

2009-09-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Labor Day here in the United States. It's a day that we get to take off from work to celebrate work. Apparently. I don't know; I just know it's the holiday for all the end-of-summer barbecues and swimming parties. It's a nice little holiday to fit in there between Independence Day and Thanksgiving (wow - two other strictly American holidays).

Anyway, Julia and I were planning to grill some steaks and have a nice little just-the-two-of-us patio party. Now, we like to eat steaks for dinner, not for lunch, so we decided to grab our cameras and take a drive into town to see if we could get any cool photos. We're both trying to get better at photography, and it was a beautiful day to go out and get some practice. Neither of us have taken any lessons; we just enjoy it (we'd both like to take classes someday).

Our first stop was the farmers' market. There were so many opportunities to get really cool photos there! Here are a few of Julia's best ones:

And here are some of mine that I liked:

We were going to eat lunch at the Greek restaraunt at the farmers' market, but they were closed (Labor Day - duh), so we drove uptown to have lunch at a chain restaraunt on the main strip. Our waiter looked like Will Ferrell and juggled for us after bringing us our food. Yes, that was as odd as it sounds.

After lunch, we drove back downdown and parked by the art museum. The plan was to walk up and down the street a bit, getting some nice architectrual photos, then go to the museum for a while.

We were both kind of fixated on the old Union Station building, so we both took several photos of that. Here are some of Julia's:

And some of mine:

Then we went to the museum and stayed until it was closing time and they kicked us out.

By the time we got home, we were both way too tired to grill, so we grabbed something simple and got ready for bed. Julia thanked me several times for spending the day with her and doing such fun stuff.

I thanked her for spending the day with me and for being the greatest kid on the planet.

Best. Day. Ever.

I Do Still Work Out. I Just Don't Write About it as Much

2009-08-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

So, now I have been coerced into doing a Spring half marathon with a couple of my online friends. We will most likely do one in Florida, so at least it will be flat.

I'll probably start the serious training in October, but for now, I just have to get my body used to running again. I've been doing spinning classes and Zumba for cardio lately because it's better on my knees, and they really needed a break. But running is another animal altogether.

So, one thing I'm going to do to get a little running under my belt in the meantime is join the adult soccer league at my YMCA. Maybe. I can only join if you don't already have to know how to play soccer. If they don't teach beginners, then I'm out of luck. My only soccer experience is watching Julia play. So we'll see.

Yeah. Not much to say today. Just a little snippet to try to get back into the swing of blogging.

Faster Than the Speed of the Brain

2009-07-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

This post is going to seem pretty random. These thoughts were swirling through my head last night because my cat was particularly snuggly.

Shutty. I can be as warm and fuzzy as anyone else.

Well, with animals. With people not so much.

Anyway.

Last night, as mentioned, my cat was needy. He jumped onto my bed and snuggled up tight with his butt in the pit of my arm and his body across my chest, cheek-to-cheek with me. In my half-asleep daze, I brought up my free arm and started petting him, without thinking twice.

For some reason, this reminded me of the time there was a mouse in the house. I remember on some nights, before we were able to get the exterminators in (sorry, PETA people, I HATE MICE), I would be absolutely freaked-out paranoid that the little bugger was going to jump onto my bed at night. I don't know if mice do that; but I was scared of it anyway.

There's a point here. Be patient.

Now. Had a mouse actually jumped onto my bed as I was sleeping, I would have had an immediate response to shoot out of the covers like a rocket, catapulting the mouse across the room, screaming like a little girl, and then stroking out. No thoughts, no debate. Just reflex.

What this led my incredibly geeky brain to analyze was the amazing processing speed of our brains. When my cat jumps onto the bed and sticks his nose in my face, I immediately know that he is an animal that is safe to handle. I don't have to go through the long process of thinking "This animal is under my care, is clean, has been innoculated for disease, eats a controlled diet of non-contaminated food, and is not violent; it is safe for this animal to be on my bed."

My brain knows all those things to be true, and no doubt processes them, but all that goes through my head is "Awww! Kitty!!!"

For the mouse, all I would think is "AAAAUUUUAAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHUUUUGGGHHH!!!"

I don't know why this stuff amazes me so. It's really pretty elementary; but when you're in an exaustion-induced, perfectly relaxed, ready-to-sleep state, and then a cuddly kitty jumps up purring like mad and snuggles in cozy, relaxing you even further as well as giving you a little shot of happy, your brain thinks weird stuff.

Shutty.

Still Here, Still Running.

2009-05-12T21:07:00.001-07:00

So, after the half marathon, my first thought (after the adrenaline subsided, and then the pain started to die down) was, "What now?"

Well, I took two weeks off from running; I continued with strength training and did spinning class, but no running. By the end of the first week, I was itching to run again.

So today I did my first run after the race. It felt great; I set out to do three miles. My plan was to go to the greenway, run a mile and a half out, and a mile and a half back; but, when I got about two-tenths of a mile past the .75 mile marker, there was caution tape across the path, and when I looked past it, I saw that the remainder of the greenway was basically a lake. That is because it has rained for 31 of the last 30 days here.

Okay; my math might be a little off. But it has rained a lot. I don't remember when I moved to Seattle; but apparently, that is where I am.

(Because, you see, it rains a lot in Seattle. For those of you not familiar with US weather patterns.)

So, I ended up turning around at the trailhead and just doing the .75 mile out-and-back twice. Which, according to my calculations, is three miles (.75 X 4 = 3, right?).

It felt really good to be back out on a trail. I really enjoyed the run, and I feel really good now that I've done it.

I'm going to start training soon for my next half. I have the running bug, and I don't want the antidote...

Life Begins at 13.1

2009-04-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

Today, I ran the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville, TN, USA.

My goal time was to finish in under 3:00:00. My time according to my stopwatch was 2:43:06. Official chip time will be posted soon, and I'll post an update to include it.

I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll begin at the beginning.

[Note: There is absolutely no blood in my brain right now, and the pain in my lower extremities has caused severe loopiness. This post might be incredibly disjointed and in a stream-of-consciousness style worthy of Faulkner himself.]

[Another Note: I am so loopy, that when I first typed that, I said Steinbeck instead of Faulkner. Um, Steinbeck is, like, the total OPPOSITE of SOC writing. I need a nap.]

I had to get up this morning at 4:00 to get ready, because I needed to be in the parking lot at LP Field by 5:00. I left in plenty of time to get there on a normal day; what I did not take into consideration, though, was that there would be 30,000 other people trying to park at LP Field at the same time as me. So, yeah. Traffic sucked.

I did get parked in time to hop on one of the shuttles to the starting line (LP Field was the finish line, so our cars were there when we were done). Talked to a nice guy who sat next to me on the shuttle. He had run the CM half before, and was really cool to talk to. One of my favorite things about running is the camaraderie that almost instantly forms when two strangers find out that they are both runners. It's very inspiring to talk to a pro; it's equally inspiring to talk to someone who has trained their ass off and is running his or her very first endurance race.

So we got to Centennial Park (starting line), and I checked my gear bag, went to say hi to my TNT team leader and coach, and got in line for the Port-a-Potty. The lines were long...

So, time to get in my corral. I was in corral 26, because I put on my race registration that I expected to finish in around 3 hours (faster runners are in the front corrals; it keeps them from trampling us). The race started at 7:00; our corral started at 8:00. It was a long wait. I had to use the bathroom again by the time I got to the starting line. Damn.

So, I took off at a nice, easy pace at the starting line. I went totally according to plan; 3 minutes run, 1 minute walk. It was going well. There were bands playing every few miles, there was plenty of Cytomax sports drink and water, and it was a beautiful run. I love Nashville.

The only bad thing in the beginning was the heat. It was hot. Like, 80ºF (26.6ºC). That's not too bad for spectating, but it was hot for running.

The bands were great; the spectators were awesome. There were lots of TNT supporters shouting "Go Team!" whenever they saw a purple jersey passing. My coach from the triathlon four years ago saw me, and shouted "Go Nena!" It was so energizing, so exciting! I had lots of energy the whole time, really, but just after mile 6, around the 10K mark, the bottoms of my feet started to hurt. I mean, really started to hurt. Like they were breaking to pieces starting to hurt.

I pushed through it, maintaining 3 min run/1 min walk. Lungs felt great; heart rate was good; knees felt good; legs felt good. I'm fit enough to do this. Damnit if only the bottoms of my feet didn't hurt like the fires of hell.

Have you ever had a sudden, stabbing pain that only lasted a split second, and it hurt so much that you couldn't imagine how awful it would have been if it had lasted longer than that split second? That's how my feet felt, but not for a split second; it was enduring pain of that magnitude.

I was maintaining my intervals through mile 10; still felt good. There was a Port-a-Potty with no line right before mile 11, so I made a quick pee break, then right back on course.

At mile 12, however, I started to go downhill. The pain in the soles of my feet was almost unbearable; my legs were getting fatigued; and my general energy level had dropped drastically. I wanted to quit. I wanted to quit so badly; but there was no way in hell I was quitting. I had worked too hard for this. I did have to ditch my timed intervals and just run when I could, and walk when I had to.

Mile 12 was the longest mile ever in the history of the world. There were more TNT supporters along that mile, cheering and encouraging us to keep going. They knew that's where we would need them. It helped; but it didn't take the pain away.

Then, I saw the pedestrian bridge. The home stretch. This was it. I make it to that bridge, run across it, turn the corner, and I can see the finish line.

13 mile sign...there it is. I can do it...

Turn the last corner...

Boom.

It was the most amazing feeling ever. I did it. I finished the half marathon.

Highlights:
- The bands. They were awesome.
- The crowds. Especially the TNT supporters.
- The general excitement of all the participants. It was contagious.
- That I didn't crap myself. Seriously. That was a fear of mine.
- Knowing that I was going to finish. It hit me at mile 10, and it was an incredible feeling. I almost cried.
- Crossing the finish line.

Lowlights:
- The heat.
- The horrible pain in the bottoms of my feet.
- The weird snake-shaped blood blister thing I have on the big toe of my right foot. I just discovered it when I got home.
- The ice bath afterwards. No one was home when I took it, and it's a good thing. I screamed like a banshee. No; not like a banshee. Banshees would have wondered "what the hell kind of creature can make a noise like that? Damn!"

I am so glad I did it. I'm already thinking that I want to do another here in Tennessee in October. Then another in Florida next March.

I'm not sure whether there is an effective treatment for my particular brand of insanity.

I'm sure I'll think of more things that I want to say. I'll post updates as I think of them.

Thanks to all for your support.

UPDATE: Official chip times were published today. Mine was 2:42:42. Even better than what I clocked; and the chips are way accurate! YAY!

The Truth About Tapering

2009-04-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

Apparently, when one trains for an endurance event, one must go through a process called "tapering" during the last two weeks before the event.

Tapering consists of doing shorter, gentler workouts to allow your body time to heal from the rigorous training it has endured, and rebuild some of the strength you will need for the actual race.

It also consists of being RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY and having tiredness and soreness after even a short, easy run. Yesterday I ran four miles, which lately has been a piece of cake; today I am sore and really tired. It's strange.

As for the ravenously hungry part, I was told by a seasoned endurance athlete with whom I work that I would be hungry. She wasn't kidding. I have been eating like there's going to be seven years of famine. It's overwhelming how hungry I have been. I'm going to have to really buckle down on the food intake after Saturday. I actually gained some weight back last week, but this is not the week to worry about that. After the race is the week to start worrying about that again.

Julia-ism. Antarctica Edition.

2009-04-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

So, my husband returns from working for six months in Antarctica. You can imagine he had some very interesting things to tell. One story in particular was about when they had to spend several hours at a time out "on the ice," where there were no facilities or buildings or anything.

Husband: So, when we had to pee, we had to just go outside. There were yellow flags posted where you were supposed to go.

Julia: [pause]

Julia: Were there also brown flags?

Because I Just Now Have the Strength to Post Again

2009-04-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, April 4, 2009, I ran 12 miles. That is 19.3 kilometers. That is a lot.

Surprisingly, it was a good run. I felt good; I felt strong. I kept a very good rhythm until about mile 11, when I started to really feel the fatigue. Mile 12 consisted of a lot of walking, but I managed to trod to the end at a pretty good clip.

There are no words to describe how much my legs and abs hurt on Sunday. Honestly. No words. The bottoms of my feet felt like they had been shattered with a jackhammer, too. Lotsa pain.

What frustrates me is the fact that I can not get my eating under control enough to see any real weight loss results, even with all this exercise. I just seem to eat to make up for the extra calories burned. I'm not gaining anymore; at least I'm maintaining. But I'd like to see a loss.

Admittedly, I have not been journaling my food like I should. I guess I'm going to have to start doing that again. It's just kind of a hassle. eh.

Oh, and PSA: Race to Witch Mountain is a decent movie. It's not awesome. Don't pay more than matinee price to see it; but I think it might be worth seeing it on the big screen. Dwayne Johnson is hot.

If This Was One of You Wonderful Readers, THANK YOU!!

2009-03-31T12:26:00.001-07:00

I just got a very generous donation today on my Team in Training page, but I don't recognize the name.

If it was one of you peeps who read me here, THANK YOU!!

I'd love to know who you are. If you want to remain anonymous here, you can email me at pinkvelvetribbon@gmail.com.

I really appreciate it, whoever you are.

Oh, and if I should recognize the name, please forgive me - I'm terrible with names until they are beaten into me.

*sniffle* I needed an act of kindness today. That was a wonderful surprise. You totally, totally rock.

:-)

Julia-ism; Movie Edition

2009-03-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Julia did this movie. I thought it was hilarious.

Movie

2009-03-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to The Bloggess for the tip on this website.

Apologies

2009-03-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

I see that when I leave a comment on a post of The Bloggess, I tend to get hits from it. Sorry to disappoint; I'm not funny like her at all. I have a few humorous posts, but mostly I post about my everyday life and my efforts to become fit and hot. I mean strong. Yes, fit and strong (and by strong I mean hot).

Anyway, I ran ten miles again yesterday. I improved on my last time by seven minutes; I finished it in 1:58:17. The run was similar to my last ten miler; I felt good during the run, still had adrenaline after I finished, then had excruciating pain and fatigue for the rest of the day. I did another ice bath, and to tell you the truth, I couldn't get the water cold enough. My poor legs were on fire and crying for the coldness. It was definitely needed.

It is now Sunday night, and my right knee is just now starting to feel like I can start to use it again. These long runs are really hard on me, but I can continue them until the half marathon in April. After that, I will go back to a much lighter running schedule. I'm thinking two 3 milers during the week, and a 6 miler on Saturday (still doing spinning classes for supplemental cardio). I want to stay strong and in shape, but I don't want to tear my body apart doing it.

I'm still raising money for Team in Training. I appreciate any donations. Part of what keeps me going with this is knowing that if it gets too hard, I have the option to quit; but victims of blood cancers do not have that option. And believe me, it gets much, much harder for them than my piddly little long runs. Thanks to all who have supported me.

Because I Care

2009-02-25T20:10:00.000-08:00

I am seeing from my site meter that people are visiting my blog, only to find that I have not updated since their last visit. This post is to remedy this (for the time being).

So. Today I took Julia to have her braces put on. In order to understand the next bit of my post , you must be familiar with this:

Beyonce/Justin Timberlake SNL Skit

So. Julia is a little upset about how her speech is affected by her new braces. She had to have some barriers put on her back teeth to prevent her mouth from closing all the way, because her top teeth could knock the brackets off her bottom teeth without them.

So, she is talking with a little bit of a lisp, until she gets used to it.

On the way from the orthondontist, I asked her to say for me, "We're the dancers."

She said it.

It sounded just like Justin Timberlake in the skit.

We cracked up.

Then, while we were still laughing, I asked her to say, "Dance biscuits."

She did.

We cracked up again.

This calmed her down, and boosted her confidence to go to school with her new braces. If any stupid jerkbag made fun of her or laughed at her, at least she could say that she had laughed at it first.

Social crisis averted.

I am so fortunate to have such a cool daughter.

Really. Somebody Tell Me. Who is This Woman Doing All This Running?

2009-02-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

Because it is certainly not the woman I used to be.

I made it. Ten miles. I can't believe it.

What I can't believe even more is that I finished in 2 hours and 5 minutes. That's an average of a 12:30 mile. Almost 5 mph.

I expected to be writing a humorous blog entry about how horrible and grueling the run was; but it turns out, if you train consistently and pace yourself, you actually start to become more fit, and can do more each time. Who knew?

I felt so great during the run. I had adrenaline pumping through my body like crazy, and I felt so strong and awesome. My coach, who was having some hamstring problems, ran with me for most of the second half, but he ended up having to walk at about mile 8 because his leg was getting too tight. He was very impressed with the pace I was keeping, considering at the beginning I was worried about even finishing! When I finished and saw my time, I was so pumped. I felt like Superwoman.

Then I got home and felt like I'd been hit by a truck. No; a jet. Once that adrenaline wears off, the fatigue sets in FAST.

The trainers recommend an ice bath for your legs when you start running in the double-digit mileage. I was prepared for this to be one of the most horrible experiences of my life. It is basically this: you run a tub of lukewarm water, enough to cover your legs while sitting, bundle your upper body up so you don't lower your entire body temp, sit in it, and dump two bags of ice in the tub. You sit in this for ten minutes and it is supposed to decrease inflammation in your muscles and joints. Then you take a warm shower and the blood vessels open up and the circulation in your legs is supposed to speed up the healing process.

The ice bath was not nearly as bad as I expected. It was actually kind of nice, because my leg muscles were on fire and very inflamed. I bundled up in my warm pink New York hoodie sweatshirt, brewed a cup of hot coffee, and settled in for the soak. It was COLD, and it wasn't really pleasant, but it did make my legs feel better, so it was totally worth it. I'm glad I did it.

All in all, a successful day, and a great run.

groan

2009-02-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight, Brittnee put me through a very taxing lower-body strength and toning workout. It was a great workout; but afterwards, I had to run five miles.

Ouch.

I could not skip the run because on Saturday I have to run my longest distance ever, ten miles, and I feel like it is important that I follow the training schedule exactly this week to prepare.

My neck and back were already sore from being too tense while doing chest and triceps yesterday; now my hips, butt, thighs, knees, and calves are going to be sore and fatigued all day tomorrow.

And tomorrow is spin class.

Joy.

I am in need of one more glass of wine and a good night's sleep. I think I will make that happen right now.