I'm easing in to the training program for the next two weeks. I'm trying to get my body used to the work outs before the shock of the new diet really hits me....
Day 1- December 20, 2010
Ok so the competition is about 12 weeks away. Today I start my “two-a-day” training. That means the alarm is set for 5:45am. Seriously? What am I getting myself in to…. This can’t be my brightest idea ever. I’m so worried that I’m going to oversleep I end up not sleeping much at all. So I think I woke up to check the clock every 20 minutes from 3:00 to 5:45am. So my cute little alarm gently wakes me up. On a side note, I am deathly afraid of the traditional alarm clocks. Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but I refuse to have my first emotion of everyday be that eerie freaked out cringe, panic in the pit of my stomach. I prefer something on the softer side. It is currently set on BB_Groves Smooth Latin. So my smooth latin wakes me up at 5:45… I was so tired Sunday night that I didn’t pack anything for the morning. Now I’m scrambling to get everything together… shower stuff, work clothes, and my exercise clothes. As an added bonus, it’s about 30 degrees so I layer up on the outerwear also. So I get to the gym and jump on a treadmill…. Woo-hoo! Training has finally started. I’ve been anticipating this for so many months. I start with a brisk warm-up jog ready to really rock it in a solid 45 minute run. Johnny told me to keep my heart rate under 125 so after a five minute warm up I check my heart rate. Don’t remember what it was but it was way too high. So I slow down a little keep checking my heart rate every two minutes…. Still too high. Eventually I ended up in a slightly increased walk around 3.9 mph on the treadmill. Holy cow this is awful! Soooo boring. I was all hyped up for a good burn and this is what I get? But, I have to say, I was fairly warned of this. So I try not to be too bored and power through my 45 minutes of cardio to get this party started.
I go through a normal day at work and then head back to my home away from home, Midtown Athletic Club. I start my work out with 30 minutes of spin class. After that I go to the Group Power class. This is one of my absolute favorite classes. It’s an hour long choreographed weight training class and takes you through ten work songs, each one targeting a different muscle group. Its up to you how much weight you want on your bar for each exercise. I need to start writing down my normal weights so I can see when I need to increase weight and attempt to monitor my progress….. note to self for next time.
I think the main thing to thing about today and this first week is learning what to expect in the work outs and getting used to the new routine.
Day 2- December 21, 2010
My sweet smooth latin alarm gets me again around 5:40am this morning. I decide to wake up five minutes earlier to ensure that I get there by 6:15 because I’m doing another Group Power class. I know I shouldn’t go weight lifting so close together but I had to rearrange my schedule due to some work stuff. So I go through another full body weight routine in the morning before work.
To round out the day I go back to the gym for 60 minutes of cardio. Again, the focus is keeping my heart rate at 125. I think this is going to be the hardest part of all the training. I really feel like such a slacker when everyone else is huffing and puffing through they’re intense work outs and I’m barely sweating, or glistening, as a polite young lady like myself should say. So just to keep from getting too bored, I do 30 minutes on the elliptical and then switch to the treadmill for my last half of the cardio work out.
By the way… I’m not dieting yet. I’m nowhere near where I should be on the diet. That part will start January 2. I had to wait until after Christmas and New Year’s before I could commit to something like that. I know it’s gonna be super duper hard!
Two days down, only a bajillion more to go.
Day 3- December 22, 2010
Once again the cute little latin alarm wakes me up at 5:45…. Yippee! Here we go again. I head to the gym and try to decide which cardio machine to do today. I ended up picking the Espresso bike machine. This simulates, so I assume, a real bike ride on hundreds of different trail options. I’ve never really ridden a real bike on a real trail, so I’m only guessing that this is what it would be like. So I randomly pick a trail and start riding. The handlebars are really sensitive so my biggest struggle the first five minutes was just staying on the course. One thing that I really liked about this bike was that the heart rate sensors were right there on the handlebars and easy to use. So I was able to monitor my heart rate the entire time. Again, it was very difficult to keep my heart rate exactly at 125. On the hills it would go up, and on the down hills or flats it would go down. Not to mention every time I glanced to check my heart rate, the sensitive handlebars would drift and I would steer off course… geesh. So difficult, I just want to sit still and move my legs in little circles. Is that too much to ask? So I kept trekking along for 45 minutes and managed to average a 126 bpm heart rate. Getting closer, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades…. Gotta get better next time.
So today was a little difficult for me on the personal side. I ended up taking the afternoon off work and coming home to sulk in my sadness. I ate fast food crap for lunch and grazed on some delicious Christmas cookies as an afternoon snack. It took a lot of self-control not to pour a large glass of vino!
After beginning to get bored at home I decide to head back to the gym. I was a little early for class so I walked on the treadmill for an additional 30 minutes of cardio. This wasn’t part of my plan so I don’t know if this is good or bad for my training. Six o’clock rolls around and I venture in to the Sports Circuit/Boot Camp class. This class is all about, well… everything. We did some jumping over steps, suicide sprints, running mans, step taps, push ups, bungee runs, planks, laps around the track, several rounds of stair runs… and probably a lot more than I can remember right now.
This is the first difficult work out that I’ve had in about two weeks so I was definitely feeling it after about 20 minutes in.
Good news is I’m off tomorrow… so I’ll really enjoy the time off and chance to rest up a bit.
Day4- December 23
Yay! Off day…. It felt so weird to sleep in! I slept about 2 hours later than usual and the crazy thing is, I felt like I was missing out on something.
Off to work for a few hours then I was on the road to Nashville to start my much needed Christmas break.
Day 5- December 24
I’m in Nashville today with my family for Christmas. I’m not sure what time I woke up but I got up went downstairs, and figured out we didn’t really have any plans so I decided to bundle up, get a leash and Tini and head out for a brisk morning walk. We went for about 45 minutes and it was faa-reeeeezzing cold. I think it was about 29 degrees actually. Also, I’m pretty sure Tini was mad at me because her poor little feetsies were so cold. When we came home we cuddled up on the couch with a cup of coffee and enjoyed the rest of our holiday with the family.
We went out for brunch in Nashville and I had one of the best meals of my whole life. We were at the Loveless Café and it was well worth the hour and a half wait. Thank goodness the diet hasn’t started yet. I had BBQ omelet, grits, and a mason jar bloody mary….. gotta love the south! I’ve had my fair share of omelets in my life but this was not an omlete. I’m not really sure what it was but I’m not going to question it because it was a-freakin’-mazing.
The rest of the day was filled with cookies, toffee, cookies, peanut brittle, cookies, dinner, and a few more cookies. Did I mention the diet hasn’t started yet?
We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.
Day 6- December 25
Christmas Day…. Heck no I’m not training today! Woo-hoo! Merry Christmas everyone!
Actually, I was planning to take Tini out again today but it was snowing all day so of course I decided to stay in and do what else… eat cookies!
December 7- December 26
Time to head home from Nashville. It’s still snowing so my mom wants all of us (me, my brother Steve and his fiancé Kristin) to head home pretty early before the roads get any worse. So we leave Nashville about 11am/noon eastern. I get home about 4pm. By the way, longest drive home from Nashville to Atlanta… not sure why but people were driving so slow. I’m not really one to take it slow on the highway so I was beyond frustrated. I just wanted to get out of the darn car. So I get home to Atlanta and it’s still snowing. Geeze….enough already! So I unpack my car, change clothes and head to the gym. I feel like a blob of cookie dough so I had to get moving. I did about an hour of elliptical… of course keeping my heart rate below 125. This is still not getting any easier. It’s really hard to keep this pace because I feel like in order to burn a lot of calories and get skinnier you have to be busting it with cardio and really sweating your ass off. After an hour I go back to the locker room and step on the dreaded scale. How many pounds did I gain with the thousands of cookies that I ate in the past four days? Surprisingly, the damage was less that one pound.
Day 8- December 27
I’m off work all week so here’s my challenge…. Do I keep my early morning routine, or just go to the gym whenever I wake up, 9, 10 or 11 am? I decided to keep the early routine because it will be easier once work starts back and the “real” training begins. I got up at 6am and braved the freezing cold to get to the gym. I did my 45 minutes of cardio training and rushed home to get back in bed. I spent all day on the couch dozing in and out of countless naps and mindless television entertainment. I went back to the gym in the evening and did 60 minutes of cycling, then did some weight training with Marcia. We focused on biceps and triceps. This was my first taste of what the real training was going to be like. Oh geeze! This was pretty hard-core. We did three sets of each exercise. The first set was at a medium weight and we did 12 reps, then we increased the weight and did 10 reps, the last round was the heaviest weight possible for 8 reps. It took about 45 minutes to go through these exercises.
Day 9- December 28
I slept in just a little bit later this morning. Got up at 6:45 and was in the gym by 7:15. I did my 45-minute cardio work out on the elliptical. This is still pretty boring… I’m having to keep checking my heart rate every 2-5 minutes to make sure I’m not going over 125…. Which I am, of course, so I keep slowing down. This makes it feel like the longest, slowest work out of my life.
I go about the rest of my day and meet up with Marcia again at the gym Tuesday night. We went through our legs workout and did quad work, squats, leg extensions, and leg presses. Then we did inner thigh adductors and calf raises. We finished up the training session with 45 minutes on the stair climber. I forgot my music so this really was the worst cardio exercise ever. I managed to fight through the boredom by reading some magazines.
Day 10- December 29
Ok so the early mornings are starting to get to me. I really wanted to stay in bed and enjoy my vacation this morning. But I knew my competition wasn’t sleeping in. If I was going to do this thing, I’m going to do it right! I’m not going there to lose. I’m in it to win it! Yeah, so I get myself pumped up and make my way to my new home away from home. Just a little more of the same old thing…. 45 minutes walking on the treadmill. I’m just following the directions I was given. I’m dying to run…. I just really want to let get out on the open road and forget about this heart rate restriction. But I have to keep reminding myself that this will all pay off one day…. March 19! Yay!
December 30-January 1
I took these days off to really enjoy my last few days of freedom. I enjoyed a lot of good food, plenty of adult beverages, and the company of my friends and family. I didn’t want to miss a minute of the fun.
Up next…. The serious training begins January 2, 2011.....
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