Day Fourteen – What Are These BUMPS On My Arms?

Today’s workouts:
• Interval Cardio (1 hr)
• MASSAGE! (yes!!!)
• Abs/Core workout (1/2 hour)
• Swimming (1 ¼ hrs)
• 1-on-1 Training (arms) (1 hr)
• Nutrition
• Boot Camp (1 ½ hrs)

Woke up earlier than usual and feeling pretty good today. My knees weren’t hurting, thankfully. Knowing that swimming was on the schedule I was glad to be able to give my knees a break, especially with biking back on the menu for tomorrow. Before going on though, let’s do a St. Paddy’s Day check…yup, lots of green at the gym. None of my workout stuff has green in it, but I did have some green underwear, and I was happy to show them to anyone who asked ;-) Instead of doing the beach walk I was scheduled for Cardio with Schuyler. I’m guessing since I struggled at the beach this past Saturday they wanted to give me a break from it and keep an eye on me, which I appreciate. This was no ordinary 60-minute Cardio walk, though. Nooooo. Schuyler had us on either the treadmills or the ellipticals. I prefer the treadmill because I can monitor my heart rate more carefully; it zooms to past maximum on the ellipticals too quickly. Schuyler had us warm up for a few minutes, then we “sprinted” for two minutes….meaning going a lot faster. After the two minutes we cooled down for one minute. Then Schuyler had us increase the incline or our equipment – I think I started at 5. That lasted for 2 minutes, then we cooled down for another minute. We sprinted again, but a little faster than the first time, cooled down, then increased the incline some more. Each sprint and each incline was greater than the previous. This went on for 50 minutes. The highest incline was 15! The fastest speed that I could walk before I became too tired was 3.5 mph. Note that when I was in the higher inclines, my speed was slower. Dang, I was sooo sweaty after this. And I had a massage immediately afterwards. I feel sorry for Nina, but I guess I’m not the only sweaty camper with whom she’s had to contend.

On to the swimming pool. It’s a standard pool with swimming lanes, thus Marco says that 64 lengths is 1-mile. I did 56 lengths the last time, most with fins. This time I wanted to do 64 and get that mile. Using the exercise fins helps get the laps done in the time that we have (about 75 minutes) and it creates more resistance. I mix it up with the kickboard each time to get different stretches and muscle workouts. I love the swimming, too, because it’s low impact but I can stay in the fat-burning heart rate zone the entire time (except when I do freestyle). When I had about 8 lengths to go, I wanted to start doing freestyle. I guess I was still winded from the cardio workout with Schuyler ‘cause this time I couldn’t do each freestyle lap as easily as I had the last time. It’s OK…it just makes me more aware of how the workouts affect each other. E.g., yesterday my knees were worn out, so I didn’t want to do any leg work that exerted pressure on the kneecaps. And doing that strong cardio workout this morning affected my ability to do as much freestyle as I would have liked. It makes me wonder how athletes build up their endurance and what wears them out. While the cardio makes me so tired and gets my heart rate up there, I do like how my lungs feel expansive afterwards. Anyway, with 5-10 minutes to spare, I did complete 64 lengths….one mile!

Back at the gym and after lunch, it was time for my first 1-on-1 training session with Arleigh. Since I wanted to give my knees a break for the day, Arleigh had me work on chest and arms. I had to do bench presses! The last time I did that was in 1993! The bar by itself is quite heavy, so no extra weights were added. I’m looking forward to when I can bench press a lot more than that. I also did chest flies (50 lbs!), dips (from hell), tricep pull downs, and several other exercises. After each round there was always a minute or two of cardio on the treadmill to give my arms a chance to rest. I was pressing or pushing or lifting weights that were higher than I had before (nothing like you Seaview (Bermuda gym) people can lift, of course, but I’ll get there!). Nothing hurt, but it sure did wear them out (I bet I’m gonna feel it tomorrow!). By the time I had to do dips near the end of the hour, my arms were like jello. Three hours later when I had my 5pm meal, it was still a workout just to lift the fork to my mouth…and that was a good meal, too (rotisserie chicken with mash potatoes & vegetables). Normally I would want to get that fork in my mouth quickly, but my forearms, triceps, biceps, whateverceps were dead, baby. But guess what…..there are hard bumps where I think the biceps should be….especially the right arm. I mean…I actually have a little bit of a bulge on my right arm. Wow! Still have the “flags waving” below (i.e. the flab which covers the triceps), but there is definitely a new bump on each of my arms.

At some point during the day, Nicola came to me to let me know that a TV crew was going to come to the gym on Thursday to do some filming and interviewing, and she asked if I would be one of the interviewees! How cool is that? I’m very excited about it. I DID ask if it would be during or after a workout, ‘cause I don’t want to have my baboon-ass face on. The baboon-ass face is when I am red red red after a hard workout and I swear it is the color of a baboon’s ass! I’ll put some makeup on that day. I haven’t worn makeup since I’ve been here! I’m going to have to look through all my workout gear to see what’s the cutest! I’m thinking either my purple LSU t-shirt or my white “I Love NOLA” tshirt. I don’t think the one that I wore today will be appropriate….it says “Shameless Hussy” (I bought it two years ago for a naughty t-shirt party that I attended). Now I REALLY have to set up my TIVO to record it! Actually, you know what? I don’t even know from where the TV crew is coming. I’m assuming it’s a local news station, but I’ll ask tomorrow.

The last workout of the day was another Boot Camp with Marco. This time there were 12 or 13 of us so he had us in teams rotating between legs, chest, and biceps. The Evil Twin came out when he had us do that pyramid workout in between the legs, chest, and biceps sets (each of those sets had 4 or 5 exercises). Jeni the Rockstar did 25 bicep curls with 25lb dumbbells in each hand. HELLO! (Jeni, correct me if I’m wrong…I think that’s what you told me!). Geez, my arms are burning just thinking about that. I can’t even remember with which weight I started but it was killing me to do 25 reps with those damn things. We each moved down the row with a lower weight and fewer reps, then moved to another set of higher to lower weights to do shoulder presses. OK, after my workout with Arleigh which had ended nearly three hours earlier, my arms were already feeling like pudding, but I managed to do all the required sets. I could not get to the end of that pyramid soon enough! It was a “late” day, too…we finished at 7pm. I was very happy to head home, and actually anxious to get started on today’s journal.

Had another yummy meal at the end of the day…beer-braised pork tenderloin with roasted acorn squash and rice pilaf. You can be sure that when I saw something braised in beer in the menu choices I was going to choose that! The squash had cinnamon sprinkled on it. I am full and satisfied. I really cannot wait to get these recipes.

Hope you all had a good St. Paddy’s Day and that you have a great day planned for tomorrow. On the schedule for me…bike ride, group circuit (yaaaay, Amber has returned!), 1-on-1 with Amber, and cardio. And another massage. Wooohooo! I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it. Oh what the hell…I ALWAYS need a massage…don’t you?

Have a great Wednesday, y’all!