Day Seventy-Six – The Turtle Jog

Monday’s Workouts:
• Stretching (1/2 hr)
• 1-on-1 Session with my personal Sadist (1 hr)
• Spinning (1 hr)
• Santa Monica Stairs (1 hr, 6 ascents), this time with Shella!
• Walked 10 minutes, jogged 39 ½ minutes without stopping, nearly 2 ½ miles total

Last night I still didn’t get a solid night of sleep, but I think I did get at least 5 hours straight, so I felt OK this morning. Before my first workout I had a meeting with Claire the counselor. These are always helpful. I’m pretty happy with myself as a person and I know what my characters flaws are, but there’s always something new to be learned about oneself, don’t you think? Following this we had a stretching session with Schuyler. We were meant to have (according to the schedule) a “tennis ball class with Schuyler” but there were no tennis balls in the gym. I think the original plan was to teach us some stretching/contouring with a tennis ball; sorry, Schuyler, I didn’t really understand the explanation! Will look forward to the class later this week. I was happy to do stretching anyway; I always love to stretch! Stretching, or flexibility, rather, helps prevent injuries and releases lactic acid from the muscles. I think you should stretch after EVERY exercise, actually, even if it’s only for 10 minutes. At least get the major muscles stretched out. As this class was shorter than planned, I had some extra time to warm up for my Masochism Session with my own personal Sadist, Mistress Nicola. I was glad that I wasn’t so tired as I was on Friday. As usual, Mistress Nicola had some new form of torture for me today. We warmed up with the kettlebell swing (i.e., feet spread apart, hands holding 15-lb kettlebell, swing the weight between the legs, then swing up to eye-level while squeezing butt and thigh muscles). Then Mistress Nicola wanted to put my core to the test by making me balance on one foot, bend over with the free leg slightly raised and bent behind me, and then do back-row lifts with 10-lb weights. FAILURE! Geez, at least she didn’t pull out her leather whip and beat me! I just couldn’t hold myself still enough to do the exercise, so she gave me an alternative. After three rounds of those, I did some chest-presses on an inclined bench. I like these and I hope that these will keep “the girls” perky. After three rounds of that, we moved to the mat and used a yoga ball. OK, listen to this…Mistress Nicola gets me on my stomach on the ball and I have to roll forward enough that the ball is approximately under my hips while my hands are forward on the mat, sort of like in push-up position. THEN she has me roll the ball towards my hands so that my ass is WAY UP IN THE AIR and my knees are tight against my chest. Holy crap! I had to do that ten times. I really hoped that the people and Marco who had gone cycling didn’t walk in on me while my butt was way up there. It was so high it was blocking the sunlight from the window! THEN, she tells me to do it sideways, where I’m rolling the ball up again but I have to twist my knees towards my right elbow. SHE’S INSANE! And I’m just as insane for agreeing to do this. It was a struggle, but I did it five times on each side. Next (oh yeah, it keeps getting better) I’m still on the ball on my stomach with my hands forward on the mat, and she wants me to squeeze my butt muscles, point my toes, and lift my legs straight and as high above my head behind me as possible. Do you know what this looks like? It looks like I’m humping the ball! That’s OK, ‘cause I good get my legs way up there, y’know. Hah. I was so good at it she made me do that twenty times. Hmmph. Then I had to do 50 crunches on the ball. That was actually a relief. I had to do all that (the butt-up-in-the-air rolls and the ball-humping and crunches) three times. And to finish up, I was on my back on the mat (barely alive at this point), hands under my butt, legs straight ahead but slightly off the ground, with a stretchy band around my ankles. I had to push outward on the band with my ankles as far as possible twenty times. Times three! This is where I’m at my weakest. My abs still need so much work. Marco and Schuyler have us do a similar exercise in their Abs/Core workouts, and I always always have trouble with it. Oy vey! I was whipped! (Hah hah…I didn’t even mean for that to be a pun related to the Sadist Mistress Nicola when I wrote it, but I guess it works). And still had a spinning class to do.

I’m getting better at the spinning. I’ve figured out how to pedal while keeping my butt off the seat, but I can’t go very fast. I’ve also managed to do the standing pedaling without bouncing my head up and down (i.e., using only thighs, not hips). Hmmm, I think I’ll have only one more spin class after this. Gosh…most everything I do this week will be the last time I do it (at fitness camp, anyway). I’ll have two more swims, maybe one more volleyball session, three or four more bike rides, and a few chances to jog. Wow….I’ve been saying that I can’t wait to get out of here, but as I’m WRITING this now, I’m a little bit sad! I’ll be fine though, ‘cause I know that I can push myself and I will look for creative ways to workout no matter where I am after leaving fitness camp.

Today was also the penultimate Stair-Climbing for me. After lunch a smaller group of us headed to The Santa Monica Stairs. We had just about an hour and my best effort has been only 6 ascents (I say “only” ‘cause Juggernaut Jeni can do, like, 16 of ‘em (probably more)) so I was hoping to do at least that amount. We start at the top (so if we want to get home, we have to climb one more time), so that’s easy the first time and I quickly descended. Last Monday I think I mentioned that during the 5th ascent I had started to feel weak and shaky, and so at that time I put a little powder supplement in my water so that I could do a 6th climb. Today, I didn’t want that to happen so I made sure to have a protein shake on the way, and I wasn’t feeling too tired, so I thought I might go for seven today. Hah hah! My body said NO. The bottom section of the stairs has 75 steps, I think. By the time I had climbed only 40 my heart rate was already high and I couldn’t move my legs any faster. As I continued through the next section, SHELLA appears in front of me on the descent. Cool! I had told Shella that we’d be there on Mondays. Now…how’s that for a friend, eh? She doesn’t HAVE to climb the stairs but she did them anyway. Just like Mom and Amy doing The Dunes with me when they visited. There are another set of stairs a few yards away, and Shella had actually already done those two or three times before she knew that there was the set of stairs which we were climbing, so she found me and looked fresh as a daisy, carrying a backpack, too. Geez, I need as little on me as possible! Anyway, she went down and up and I went down and up and after my second climb we went down and up together, chatting the whole time. It didn’t make the ascents any easier, but it sure did pass the time. Shella told me about the other set of stairs, so I decided to try it once. Yeah, won’t be doing THOSE again! They are concrete and narrower and there are more of them (190 as opposed to the 170 that we had been doing). Well, I can say I did them once at least. That was the fifth ascent, so we headed back to the wooden stairs for my sixth and final ascent as it was time to go. It was great to have Shella there; she’s going to help me go shopping next week (if she doesn’t have to work) after my hair makeover ;-)

We had to hurry back to the gym for the 4pm boot camp. I really didn’t want to participate in this for two reasons…(1) I don’t like the group workouts and (2) I don’t burn as many calories. As Marco was the trainer, I asked if it would be alright if I went for a jog instead. When I’m jogging I can keep my heart rate way up in the fat-burning or even cardio zone and thus burn more calories. With only 7 days left, I want to burn as many as possible! Marco acquiesced so I headed across the main road to get behind the grocery store. This is the way we start the southbound bike path. Along this path, however, going northward, is one of those jogging trails that has exercise stations every few yards. I had decided that I would stick to this because it was visible from the road (as I was jogging alone) and it wasn’t too far from the gym. Alright…I headed out and walked to the path; that took about 10 minutes ‘cause if you miss the traffic light at the main intersection you have a long wait. No matter…I arrived at the path and headed north. My intention was to go for at least 30 or 35 minutes, as I always want to do a little better than the last effort (and I had jogged 30 minutes yesterday). So there I am doing my turtle jog. This was the first time that I was jogging on a hard surface. I had good music on my iPod Nano and I just went for it. I didn’t want to stop at all, so when I came to an intersection at about 12 minutes into it (my plan was to turn around at 15 minutes), I just turned down the street instead of waiting for the light to change and cross. At 15 minutes I turned and returned along the same sidewalk/path. As I was approaching 30 minutes, I was approaching the grocery store where I started and I just decided to keep going until I felt like I couldn’t. Earlier in the van, Claire, who I’ve mentioned previously is a seasoned marathon runner, was telling another camper that the key to running, or doing any of the exercises, really, is to be relaxed. I think that’s why I’ve been doing OK with my jogging – because I stay relaxed. I keep my shoulders down and my head up, and rather than holding my fists up by my chest, I keep my forearms low (which prevents my shoulders from tightening up) and let my hands dangle, actually; I don’t hold them in a fist at all. Claire had advised me to do that with my hands about 5 weeks ago when I made my first attempts at jogging; that was a valuable piece of advice! Thanks, Claire! Anyway, I reached the main intersection and the damn light was red! Aaaargh! I was determined NOT to stop, so I just jogged back and forth on the corner until the light changed and then I jogged to the back door of the gym. When I finally stopped, I had turtle-jogged for 39 ½ minutes without stopping. I shocked myself! I can’t believe I did it. And I’ve never, ever done anything like that before! Well, waitaminute, when I was in high school I did march with the dance team in Mardi Gras parades, and in those we easily marched (in white knee-high boots and velvet shorts, boys) for three hours without stopping. Of course, I was only 16 at the time. Oh, and in grammar school (maybe 12 yrs old?), I was in the guitar club and we marched in a parade for three hours carrying and playing acoustic guitars and singing! Anyway…eleven weeks ago I had sworn that I was NOT going to do any jogging and now I have to eat my words. I don’t mind it though. I am SO PROUD to have done this. I know a lot of you reading this already do your own running or jogging and thus 40 minutes is a light workout for you, but for me, this was never going to happen. At the start of this I had absolutely no desire to do anything more than a fast walk – EVER.

So, what’s next? How do I top that? Well, guess what? On Tuesday, unintentionally but coincidentally, I will be doing sort of a micro-triathlon (but with breaks in between). I have the morning beach walk/run first (2.67 miles), then about 90 minutes later I have swimming (and I proved last Thursday that I can swim over a mile in an hour), and then in the afternoon I have a 2-hour bike ride in which I should be able to do between 18 and 20 miles. NO, I’m not signing up for any such thing. I’m still not in love with the jogging bit. Gosh, I did the same thing last Tuesday, but I didn’t jog as long then. Tomorrow, Tuesday, if I’m rested enough, I’m going to try the round-trip on the beach and jog all the way to the rocks and back. On Sunday it took me 30 minutes to do that one way, so I’ll need the whole hour to cover the entire 2.67 miles. Wish me luck!

Now…another thing to ponder….Survivor is having Open Auditions in Los Angeles on Wednesday. I’ve seen the commercials on TV and I need to go to the CBS website to see what the qualifications are, but I THINK I just might TRY it. Why not, eh? And enough of you have already encouraged me to do it. It’s just an audition. I was trying to think of a special talent that I have. Hmmm…I know, I’ll do a heel stretch for them (for the uninformed, that’s when you’re standing on one leg and holding the other leg straight up by your side by the heel – I can do both sides). I might be chubby and over 40, but I can still do a perfect split. I don’t know all the details of the audition yet. I have to get to bed early tonight so I might have to look at it in the morning. I really don’t know if I could be ruthless enough to be on Survivor. Honesty and respect are of utmost importance to me – in real life -- but for a million dollars, I’m not a hundred percent sure that I’d have no problem breaking promises and telling lies. Just know that that is NOT the real me. Hmmm, does anyone know how to start a fire with just wood and brush? I’ll pay you to teach me ;-P Hey, Jeni and Shella, wanna come with me?

Alright – the Dancing With The Stars finale is on now; I’ve decided that I want Shaun Johnson to win. I don’t think Melissa should have ever been in the competition ‘cause she was already a professional dancing cheerleader. Gilles is hot, but Shaun is my choice. I have to continue packing, too. Hmmm, I’m going to have to leave a bigger than usual mess for Grace, our housekeeper. I actually never leave a mess for her – all she has to do for me is wash & change the sheets and towels, wash any dirty dishes (which are usually few ‘cause I do use the dishwasher) and vacuum (which I’m happy to let her do ‘cause I hate that chore). This time, however, there are piles of folded clothes and pieces of luggage everywhere. I better sign off and get to work so that I can get to bed early! HAVE A GREAT TUESDAY, Y’ALL!