Day Sixty-Four -- "It Is Not The Mountain We Conquer But Ourselves"

Wednesday’s Workouts:
• Yoga (1 hr)
• 1-on-1 session (1 hr)
• Spin class (1 hr)
• Massage
• Mountain Hike (2 ½ hrs)

Wednesday morning I woke up after a terrible night of sleep. I tried a different supplement with magnesium, and instead of helping to “calm” me (that’s the name of it, “Calm”), it kept me awake most of the night. I really don’t think I got more than three hours of sleep. This was going to make today a very difficult day. Ugh.

We started with yoga, which I enjoy. Recall that this isn’t that nice, calming, yoga. Nope. This is cardio yoga, baby. Last Wednesday I was only able to do some of it because of my shoulder but today I had no pain and only slight numbness so happily I could fully participate. Because of my big belly, big thighs, and big butt I still struggle with a lot of the poses (‘cause the belly, thighs, and butt get in the way!), but I’m working on getting them down smoothly – I really DO look like an OLD WOMAN when I’m trying to get up from the ground, hah hah. Following yoga I had my first one-on-one session with Nicola. Well, damn, I wish I had had more of these from the start! Nicola’s TOUGH but reasonable. By reasonable I mean she is aware of what my limitations are (i.e., how much weight I can or cannot lift) and adjusted accordingly. All of the other trainers usually give me 3 exercises in sets of threes, with cardio in between each set. Nicola, however, would have me do 5 sets of 1 or 2 exercises. I liked it! It was tiring, of course, but I liked it. We worked our way down from upper body to core since I was going to be doing spinning and hiking later. Again, there was no pain with my arm during the workout. The pain usually comes later, when I’m sitting still (like, NOW, while I’m typing tonight’s blog). Following Nicola’s workout was a spinning class with Eric (the owner). So far I’ve had spin class with three different instructors and each is different. Karen, who’s a theatre lover like myself, “choreographs” her spin classes to the music that she chooses. Eric puts you through the various paces just to the songs, so that some songs are for “climbing,” some are for sprinting, and some are for free weights. Schuyler is sort of a mix of the two of them. I honestly can’t say that I prefer one spinning trainer over the others because they’re all TOUGH! I’ve finally figured out how to pedal while standing, but I haven’t mastered sprinting while standing on the pedals. I’ve got less than three weeks to figure that out! I like spin class ‘cause I SWEAT a lot! I mostly kept up – not so much in speed but with keeping my butt off the seat for entire songs for the climbing portion.

After lunch, I had a massage. Our time was cut short by about 20 minutes, so I asked Nina to work on my neck, back, and shoulders. She obliged, and this time she climbed on top of the table. I THOUGHT Nina was going to walk on me! That actually would have been OK with me. She’s highly-skilled and weighs only 120-lbs (she told me) and after the Thai Stretch Massage a couple of weeks ago, I know that I can trust her. She dug her elbows into the knots in my back using more of her full weight. She said that the knots are unusually bad (at least they don’t hurt!). She carefully cracked my back in the same way that the chiropractor does when I’m lying face-down. Nina also kneeled on my glutes (i.e., my butt!). She finished the session with this Asian cream that was kind of like Tiger Balm…she rubbed it into my sore spots around my shoulders and MAN did that ointment get HOT! I looked at the jar but it had only Asian printing on it. I’ll have to ask her where to buy it ‘cause I want some o’dat! I bet it would feel good on my tired calf muscles after climbing the Stairs.

My last workout of the day was The Hike. Finally! I couldn’t get out of it this time. The first time I was meant to go I went to the acupuncturist for the first time instead, so Amy joined the group. And last week I missed it because it was the day that I took off. Today, since I was still in my massage when the others left as scheduled, Marco was assigned to go with me on my own, at my own pace. I was appreciative of this so that I could just concentrate on getting my butt up that hill. But, baby, it’s no hill. It’s the Santa Monica Mountain. I don’t know what the elevation is, but I took photos (see below) from the top and then from the bottom to show the distance we climbed. It took us about an hour-and-a-half to get to the top (well, it took ME this long; Marco was hardly breaking a sweat – although he thought it was too hot, hah hah! I loved the temperature!). I thought the ascent would never end!!! There were almost no plateaus to give your muscles a break from the incline. I stopped when necessary to catch my breath and to see the view. It’s kind of pretty, actually. From there you can see the city of Los Angeles, the ocean and beaches, and the mountains. And some pretty spectacular homes, too. The descent wasn’t as exhausting but it wasn’t easy either; it was steep in some areas of the trail and a bit precarious from the loose gravel. I can’t believe that some people actually JOG this trail. And some of our campers actually BIKE to the hike, do the hike, then bike back to the gym. And that bike includes a 2-mile hill from the end of the usual bike ride up to the start of the hike. Marco thinks I’m going to do the bike/hike/bike before I leave camp but he’s loco. I’m happy just to get through the hike or get through the bike rides by themselves. There were lots of lovely things to see – just “nature” really, but pleasant nonetheless. BUT, as I was concentrating so hard on where I was stepping while ascending or descending, sadly I missed a lot of it. It reminded me of when I was a beginner SCUBA diver. SCUBA diving is the most blissful activity that I can do because you have to forget about EVERYTHING in your life except for keeping yourself and your diving buddy safe when you’re 75 ft underwater. However, during my first several dives, since I was concentrating on all the safety procedures, I didn’t look around me all that much. So, it was like that for this hike, too. Perhaps for my last hike I’ll bring my good camera (which is heavier) to take some nice landscape shots. These photos were taken with my Blackberry Storm. All-in-all, despite some aching leg and butt muscles, I enjoyed the hike and I do look forward to doing it again – I only have to do two more of them.

I was struggling to come up with a relevant title for today's blog, but since the hike was significant to me today, I did a search for quotes about hiking. The title of today's blog was said by Sir Edmund Hilary (of Mt. Everest). I thought it was appropriate because I'm certainly trying to conquer those aspects of myself which led me to become so overweight, lethargic, depressed, unmotivated, doubtful, hard on myself, etc etc. The last few days have demonstrated that I haven't quite conquered them, but perhaps I'm on my way?

On Thursday I will get “dunked” again. There will be swimming and volleyball drills. And the cardio & a movie. Stay tuned for Critic’s Corner tomorrow, and have a great day! Thanks again for your support and encouragement!