Days Eighty-One and Eighty-Two (Sat & Sun) – The Final Weekend

Saturday:
• Group Circuit & Interval Training (2 hrs)

Sunday:
• 3-mile jog on the beach (50 minutes) immediately followed by
• 15-mile bike ride on a new (to me) bike path (1 ¾ hrs)

We had to start earlier than usual on Saturday because the flag football workout was scheduled early due to the field not being available at the normal time. The ones who don’t participate in flag football (me!) get to do a circuit training workout in the gym. I was actually glad for this because I’d rather finish earlier on a Saturday then at 3pm as we usually do. I think there were 6 of us ladies with Arleigh. Arleigh chose 13 stations which were a variety of weight machines and “body-weight” exercises. As usual in group circuit workouts, we were at each station for 2 minutes and then moved to the next with a 30-second break. I quite liked this workout; it worked upper and lower body and had a mix of cardio in there. We even had to jumprope. Now….I canNOT remember the last time I used a jumprope. I’m sure I was in grammar school, so we’re talking around 35 years ago! I tried as best I could, only managing about three jumps before I’d trip up on the rope. I was spastic! And it was amusing. But, it’s a good cardio workout. The other exercise with which I had trouble was the crabwalk. Now…I had not done the crabwalk in a good 5 or 6 weeks because I wasn’t able to do it with my left shoulder problems that I had been having. For the uninformed, a crabwalk is when you’re on the ground facing upwards with your feet in front of you and hands in back, and your butt is off the ground. Then you walk forward with your hands and feet. Hah hah…I’m glad no one was filming this ‘cause I was also very spastic at this. While the other ladies could walk across a couple of times in the 2-minute period, I couldn’t even finish one crossing! It does show that one of my weak areas, besides my abs, which I mentioned yesterday, is my upper body strength. With all the biking and jogging my legs are pretty darn strong, and I hope the swimming has been helping my shoulder and back strength, so I will concentrate on upper body and abs on my own.

This circuit workout lasted about an hour, so Arleigh put us through some cardio interval training next. I like this, too, because while it is exhausting, you’re changing what you’re doing every 30 or 40 seconds and the time passes very quickly. We each started on a cardio machine – I stick with the elliptical whenever I can because it has less impact on my knees and ankles but I can keep my heart rate up in the right zones. We either go very fast or use a lot of resistance, depending on what Arleigh calls out to us. After the first 40 seconds you jump off your machine and do squats for 40 seconds, then we did pushups for 40 seconds. This whole process what repeated three times before Arleigh changed it up a bit for a second round, and then again for a third round. I sweat A LOT during these interval workouts. I like it!

Following this was lunch but we had to wait for the flag football people to return, and after lunch would be the beach boot camp which is usually first on Saturdays. I stopped doing the beach boot camps a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve been cycling instead. My INTENTION was to go home, have lunch, change clothes, and then go for at least 25-30 miles on the bike. However, my left knee was very sore for some reason. I don’t remember doing anything to it, but I wrapped it up in my ice pack wraps, and CRASHED. My body said, “no, un unh, you’re not going anywhere.” I did some housework instead and committed myself to a bike ride on Sunday.

I haven’t mentioned it in a few days, but I’m still having trouble STAYING asleep. I think I actually did get about 5 straight hours of sleep. I awoke, and before I looked at the clock I was SURE that it was at least 6am. BUT NOOOOOOO, it was 4:19am. Gee whiz! Aw, man, what is it going to take to get a good 7 hours of sleep?! Grrrrrr! Anyway, I had breakfast and my vitamins and prepared my gear for the workout. My plan was to bike to the beach (3 miles), jog the entire round-trip (2.7 miles), and then hop on my bike right away and go for a long bike ride. And that’s what I did! I managed to jog the entire length of the beach both ways without stopping -- woohoo. Back to my bike where I quickly had a protein shake and hopped on to get on my way. I decided to go the southbound route again, so I was about 4 miles from where I was to the entrance of the bike path. However, this bike path does split to another route that runs along a creek or a canal (which looks like the one used for the drag race in “Grease”). As I had never biked down this path, I decided to give it a shot. It passed under the main road a few times, so there were several steep drops which led up to steep inclines. Yikes, it was a little scary going so fast while riding down the drop but that helped me UP the inclines. There were fewer cyclists on this route; it’s not scenic at all, really, and hidden from most public view, so I admit I was a little apprehensive during some parts of it when there was no one ahead of me nor within my sights behind me. The path only went for about 5 miles before ending, so I turned around. All in all I did just over 15 miles. Too bad there wasn’t a swimming pool nearby else I would have jumped in and swam a mile, too. Ah well…we’ll see on Thursday; I’ll try for the swim/bike/run on my last day in Marina Del Rey.

Most of my family are all together in New Orleans (specifically, Mandeville) to celebrate my aunt’s retirement. They were eating crawfish all day!! I swear I could smell it all the way in California. And my evil cousins were posting photos of the crawfish and all the family. Torture!! Oh how I wished I could be with them today. I can never eat enough crawfish! Anyway, Mom called while they were all together and I just missed it, so I called back and she asked how I was doing. I said, “I just ran for nearly 3 miles and cycled for 15 miles without stopping.” She said, “We’re eating crawfish!” Cruelty, I swear! It’s late in crawfish season so it’s unlikely I’ll even get any when I’m there in a few weeks. Waaaaaah!! I can’t even get raw oysters! I’ll just have to have fried oysters, but I’ll have to control myself and only have, like, THREE (maybe FIVE, heh heh). Oysters are my all-time favorite food. There is no way that I won’t eat oysters. Raw, fried, poached, roasted, baked, grilled, steamed, yum yum yum!!! Damn, as I’m writing this I’m craving all that right now. NEXT year I’m going to be in New Orleans DURING crawfish season, I mean it!!!

I’m packing now. I really brought too much stuff with me. A lot of it was never used! I’m going to have to figure out how to pack lightly for my Bermuda/New Orleans/San Antonio trip. Tomorrow is my last official day at fitness camp, but I’m still going to workout on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I can pack lightly enough for those days, but I have done a little bit of shopping while here. Hah..I’ll probably need to go buy another piece of luggage. I could probably open my own luggage store with all the extra pieces of luggage I’ve bought over the years. The luggage shipping service is collecting my luggage to be shipped early on Tuesday evening, so I still have Monday and Tuesday afternoons to get it done. I really want to minimalize all my belongings but the stuff just keeps reproducing ;-)

In the US, have a Happy Memorial Day and please don’t forget the reason for the holiday…to remember our fallen military. In Bermuda, Happy Bermuda Day (well, that was TODAY) and enjoy the half-marathon if you’re watching, and if you’re running, I hope you do as well or better than you hoped. Be sure to post photos! Have a great Monday everyone!