2nd 5K!

The first time I did a 5K, I woke up early on a nippy December morning, amped and ready to go.  The morning of my second 5K, Saturday morning, was the complete opposite.  I was sore all over from a hard workout week and dragging from the lack of sleep I'd gotten in the previous days of my being the night owl that I am.  Before I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but this time around I was already anticipating each step of the three mile journey ahead of me.

But, it was the first 5K held by my town's Strawberry Festival and my husband had agreed to do his first 5K by my side.  Yawning but resolved, I pinned on my number and gathered with my husband, several cousins, friends, church members, and neighbors to await the start of the race.

Once again, everyone struck out ahead of me and once again I asked myself, "what the heck am I doing out here?"  I can pretty much do anything I want these days in the gym and have tested my endurance successfully in several two-hour Zumba marathons....no easy task.  But a race like this always tends to put me in my place so to speak.  Resolving to put one foot in front of the other and concentrate on doing my own race and not worrying about the pace of those around me, I drew from the positive energy of my husband beside me and got on down the road.   I will say that when my grandparents pulled up next to us near the halfway point on their way to their usual breakfast spot, I thought a couple of times about jumping in with them.

Doing a 5K for me is very similar to the weight loss journey: when you start out you wonder what you're doing and why you're doing it; sometimes you see other people shoot out ahead of you but you can't worry about their pace, only your own; sometimes your feet hurt and it's hot and you grow weary and want to quit; sometimes there are twists and turns in the course you aren't suspecting; sometimes you lag behind but then sometimes you get your second wind and surprise yourself; you can grow the most weary when the finish line is in sight; but, crossing that finish line brings with it accomplishment, a feeling of power and joy and you're never sorry that you did it.

Crossing the finish line.

Me and the hubs at the finish.

Workout Example

By request here is one of the workout poker routines we did.  All you need is a set of free weights (medium weight) and a deck of cards:

• Hearts: Push-up rotations (example)
• Spades: Curl/press (with heavy weights)
• Clubs: V-shaped crunches (example)
• Diamonds: Squat kicks (example)
• Jacks: Plank for 45 seconds
• Queens: High knees for 45 seconds
• Kings: Burpees for 45 seconds
• Jokers: 5 body blasters  (can leave out or modify if needed; this is a hard one: example)

Whatever number comes up on the card that is dealt, you do that many of the exercise of the corresponding suit.  We counted aces as eleven.  The face cards are not rotations but rather the exercise indicated for the time indicated.  The object is to go through the entire deck.  You can swap out any of the exercises for others that hit the same muscle group. This gives a total body workout with cardio and strength included.

**Again, disclaimer:  I'm not a doctor, nutritionist, trainer, or expert. Everything I write about is simply based upon my experiences. Please talk to your doctor before you start any diet or exercise plan.

The Wal-Mart Workout

Inadvertently I got a great workout at Wal-Mart today.  Let me back up.  It's been a sweaty week between the increasing temperature outside and the increasing intensity of our workouts.  I sweated through Scuplt class, Step class, karate class, and three days of workout poker with my friends.  This, combined with the usual business of work and home, found me dragging myself into Wal-Mart tonight with my husband and our friends, dreading the task as any person in their right mind ought to.

Every muscle in my body hurt, but the cat was expecting to eat when we got home and Minters don't get rolling in the morning without at least two cups of coffee in our systems, and of course it's nice to have light bulbs so off to Wal-Mart we went. 

First off: light bulbs and groceries are in polar opposite corners of your average Super Wal-Mart so of course you're going to get your walking in.  Secondly, fill your cart up with enough groceries and you get a bit of resistance going on as you push it along your shopping adventure.  And we all know that the item you need is at the top of the shelf where you'd have to have NBA skills to reach normally, so there's your stretching.

Once you've gotten your heart rate up from the cart pushing and hike from groceries to garden center and you're all limbered up from reaching for the last case of Aquafina on the shelf, you can cruise on over to the sports aisle where more available free weights and kettle bells await you than at your average gym.  No need to wait for the pair of tens - Wal-Mart's got at least five pairs right there on the shelf for your bicep curling pleasure.   No, I'm not sneaking a workout Mr. Wal-Mart greater.  I'm just testing this kettle bell here to see how it handles on the squat swings. 

Then if you're feeling real squirrelly as we were tonight, you can swing by the toy section and try your skills on the hula hoop.  We spent at least 15 minutes hulaing on the toy aisle, and believe me: you will work up a sweat.

So, no gym membership, no problem.  Super Wal-Mart's open 24 hours.  You can check off that chore list and get a good calorie burn.  And hey, don't worry about showing up in your workout clothes. Track suits are all the rage at the local Wal-Mart.

Beating The Workout Boredom

Why do most people quit things?  Either one: it gets too hard, or two (and most likely): they get bored.  I was talking to my cousin tonight about how she hates the time she puts in on her elliptical machine at home and it got me thinking...I rarely go down to the gym, get on the elliptical or treadmill, and slave my time away. Why?  Because I think that's boring.  It might not be to some people, but it sure is to me.  That's why I rarely do it.   One thing I learned early on in this journey is that if something was boring or seemed like drudgery, the less I liked it, the less I would push myself, and the more I would dread it.  Dread something often enough and you'll stop doing it, that's why it became pretty clear to me that I was going to have to get creative with my workouts and also constantly switch them up.

One easy way to do that is by taking classes. This week we started Monday off with a challenging Sculpt class that left every major muscle group shaking with exhaustion.  Wednesday was our usual Step class that has been getting increasingly harder as the class's experience grows.  Marisa, our teacher, is throwing more complicated choreography at us and at one point I was convinced she was preparing us to become a touring dance troupe.  It was challenging but, because 99% of us have been doing that class for quite some time, we're ready to step it up.  Sure we were shaking our heads, going in the wrong direction at some point, and even running into each other, but by the time Marisa had said, "Let's take it from the top in one, two, three.." for what seemed like the fiftieth time, we had gotten the routine and everyone's faces, though red and sweaty, had the expression kids get when they finally get Algebra for the first time.

Tuesday found us in the group exercise room looking around at each other with blank faces and no plan of what we wanted to do.   Luckily, Amy had "Insanity" in her bag and thus became my first experience with that hard series of workouts.   It made me think back to when I first started working out and would observe the girls, who would eventually become my friends and workout buddies, head into the room to do "Insanity".  I would shake my head, convinced that I'd never be capable of doing it.  My how times have changed!

Today I had something new for my girls...a plan that later became known as Workout Poker.  What it consists of is this: you utilize a pack of playing cards and each suit represents a different body weight exercise and the number on the card reflects how many times you have to do it.  Then, each face card represents a different cardio exercise that you do for thirty seconds at a time.  To the jokers you assign a really hard exercise that engages the whole body and you do it for five repetitions.   Once you have the exercises assigned (and you want to make sure to hit the arms, legs and core) you simply deal the cards one at a time and work your way through the entire deck as fast as you can, taking as few breaks as possible.  It ends up being close to six hundred reps not counting the cardio portions.  All in all, one heck of a workout that feels like a game.  Even if you don't change the exercises each time you do it, you never have the same workout.

It's all about keeping things varied, fun (my girls all shudder when I say something is "fun" these days), and challenging.  You can use google and your creativity to make this happen for yourself or attend a class and let the pros do the thinking for you.  Or, like us, you can do a little bit of both.  Keeping things different every day ensures that you have fun, get seriously cross-trained, and achieve muscle confusion so that your body doesn't get used to what you're doing.  Save the same boring treadmill workout for hamsters on their wheels and think outside the box!

No More Salty Treats!

A couple of weeks ago my friend and workout buddy Millie was regretting eating some veggie chips and made a resolution to cut back on her carbs.  She looked at me and said, "No more salty treats!" I agreed.  We are both guilty of loving salty treats way too much.  We can pass over any amount of tempting desserts, but wave a basket of chips from our favorite Mexican place in front of us and we are in trouble.

Well they say you are what you eat and little did we know, we were about to become the salty treat today.  Looking out the window at the sunny day and sparkling water going on six floors below me, I quickly emailed the girls right before our workout time, telling them to bring their shades and water bottles with them to the gym. 

Heading out into the sunshine the weather felt amazing and the six of us left the emails, phone calls and meetings behind us as we headed for the river walk just two blocks down from the office and started in on one of our workouts that utilizes the benches and pilings of the boardwalk that runs along the Cape Fear River. 

We were into the second of a three circuit workout when the sun, that had become increasingly hotter and hotter with every rep, became only a secondary annoyance.   I was probably sixty in to the 100 bench dip circuit when I heard Becca beside me start to swat at something.  She'd do a few dips then have to stop every so often to shoo something away. 

Wondering what was up with that, I continued on with my dips only to be shortly overtaken by what felt like a zillion tiny bites.  Looking down at my arms, they seemed to be suddenly covered with tiny gray specks of biting annoyance.  Yep, as soon as we had broken a sweat we had attracted the attention of the barely visible flying terror known around here as the "no-see-em".  We had become the salty treats!

Now, we're no wimps.  We're out to get our workouts done every day and genuinely push ourselves to our limits, but those bugs combined with the heat pushed us to the brink. We scurried back to the climate controlled loveliness of the gym and finished out with some weights and abs.

So it seems that Millie's advice of "no more salty treats" is practical in two ways:  both eating them and becoming them.   It's awesome to work up a good sweat, but when no-see-ems are around, a change of location is definitely in order.   

Channelling My Inner Daniel-San

When I was around eight years old I got my butt kicked by a boy we'll call Billy Stark.  Billy Stark was a scary kid who was extremely tall and muscular, had been held back a grade at least twice, and had a five o'clock shadow in the third grade.  For all intents and purposes, one scary kid compared to me, a short little blonde girl, trembling in her karate gi in the first sparring match of her life while about thirty kids surrounded us in a circle waiting eagerly to see someone, anyone go down.  I remember seeing Billy Stark advancing on me like some sort of predatory animal and thinking to myself that my desire to experience my favorite movie, The Karate Kid, was about to be way more Daniel-gets-creamed-on-Halloween-by-the-Cobra-Kais and way less Daniel-cranes-his-way-to-victory-in-the-all-valley-karate-tournament.  No Mr. Miagi came to my rescue and needless to say I went home with my tail between my legs and never returned to karate again.

Being unhappy in my body and feeling overwhelmed as to what to do about it was a lot like the feeling I had when I got worked over by Billy Stark. 100 pounds ago I felt embarrassed, hampered, held back, unsuccessful and beaten down by the worst opponent I could face: myself. But, as I started to lose weight I started to feel the inner fighter, the one who motivated that eight year old to try karate in the first place, start to emerge.  I spent hours punching the heavy bag in the gym,  taking kick boxing classes, and doing P90X Kenpo DVDs.  I'll do just about any exercise and I like to keep things varied, but combat-related workouts always give me the most reward and get my blood flowing just a little bit more.  My sister loves to run, my friend Lakshmi loves Zumba the most, but fighting is evidently my thing.

One night last week I was leaving the grocery store and out of the corner of my eye I saw that a new dojo had moved into the shopping center closest to my house. Being too chicken to actually go inside, I called them from my car and talked to a very friendly girl who welcomed me to come try out a free class.

Nervously a few days later I stepped into class, looking around at all the other students for potential Billy Starks and finding none.   I didn't know anyone there and, like the first day I started this journey in the gym, I felt out of place and self conscious, but that inner fighter wouldn't let me hang back.  And I must say, it was awesome and I made some discoveries:

1. A year and a half of strength, cardio and cross training has given me strong muscles, endurance, flexibility and balance.  I could hang in karate!
2. All those hateful squats have created powerful legs that can kick.
3. Working on the heavy bag and lifting weights have created strong arms that don't hit like a girl.
4. Zumba and Step have given me coordination and more mobility in my waist and hips; better to land those out and in kicks.
5. I should listen to my inner fighter more often.

We all have our Billy Stark moments that hold us back.  Look how many times Daniel got beat down in The Karate Kid but he was victorious in the end because he channeled his fear and fought back. For me, the journey to fight back has added karate to my exercise regime, but your fight doesn't have to be that literal.  You fight back every time you step in the gym, no matter what form your workout takes.  You fight back when you make healthy choices with food, no matter how bummed or grouchy it makes you.  You fight back even in the times that you feel scared or intimidated or embarrassed but you keep moving anyway.  Amazing things can happen when you channel your inner Daniel-san.  

 

Crows, Ants, and One Mother of a Hill

I swore I wasn't running that hill again this week.  I vowed that I would plow through it again next week but I wanted to put some distance between me and it for a bit.  Bring on anything else, anything at all, and I was prepared to do it, but the thought of that hill again this week wigged me out.   Well, watch out for what you ask for because when I asked my trainer for a workout for me and the group, where do you think he sent us?  That's right, back out to that mother of a hill.

Here's the insanity that the girls and I did:

• Five times up and five times down the steep, long, mother of a hill.
• 50 jump squat rotations
• 100 push ups
• 150 mountain climbers
• 200 high knee sprints
• 25 burpees
• Five more times up and five times down the steep, long, mother of a hill.

Eight of us went out to the hill.  Seven of us ran up the hill and one of us (yours truly) had to grit her teeth and briskly walk up the hill, channeling her inner mountain goat.  Gravity was my friend on the decent though and I was able to get a little jog going.

The first round of hill runs down and it was time to tackle the daunting next set of exercises.  Gone were our cushy mats from the gym; I must commend all of us girls for toughing it out with push-ups on the pavement.  Intelligent person that I am, I decided after the first twenty push-ups to put my hands in the grass and was quickly rewarded with being bit by fire ants.  I shot up from the ground, said some choice words about this workout feeling like a turn in the arena of the Hunger Games as the venom burned (like um fire) through my hand, then sucked it up and finished my set any way.

Then it was time to face that blankety blank hill again.   At this point we were all struggling to one degree or another and like an omen, a group of crows decided to gather on the power lines overlooking the hill and commenced to honk loudly at us as we ran by.  "Shut up crows!" we yelled but they cawed even louder.  Our muscles were screaming, the sun beat down, and the cacaphony of crow music was non-stop but somehow we managed to finish and stagger back to the gym.

Later, when asked by my trainer how I liked the workout I said, "I hated it. But because I hated it that must mean I need to do it."  That being said, the hill and I are done for this week.