Wednesday, August 13, 2008

I Conquered the Wall Sit!

Since my first morning in Boot Camp back in June (wow - it seems so long ago!), my nemesis has been the wall sit. Every morning of bc, we have to do the wall sit. It's a 3 minute thing. While I was doing personal training with Denise in July, I had to do the wall sit. I started calling it the evil wall sit.



When you're watching someone else do it, it looks easy. Until it's your back against the wall and your thighs are burning....



My first try at this torture at my first Boot Camp was short. The most I could hold the sit was about 30 seconds. I would have to stand so often during the 3-minutes that I felt like I was closer to doing squats than the wall sit. It became a personal challenge to me to get as close to the 3-minute mark as possible. Each workout, I'd try for just 5 more seconds when the burning got to be too much. And there were the nights at home when I'd "practice" my wall sit so that I'd get stronger and maybe could hold it longer next time.



I was pretty pleased with myself when, near the end of personal training, I could hold the sit for over 2 minutes at a time. Sometimes it was just 2 minutes, but I think I had a couple of days that I went a little longer than just 2 minutes.

Then, Monday morning, it happened. I found my place on the wall, got my feet set, and slid into that sitting position. I put my head back and closed my eyes and just listened to the beat of the music. "One minute!" Denise announced. I could hear a couple of the girls talking and laughing, but I was concentrating on one thing: getting to the 2 minute mark. Suddenly, I hear "Two minutes - one more to go!" I opened my eyes and looked around and looked down at my own legs in surprise - they weren't burning!! Could I actually make it to the 3 minute mark? I watched intently as some of the other girls had to stand up. I was still holding it. "Thirty more seconds!" By now, I'm in shock, but the legs are ready to give out.

Being the little competitive person that I am, there was no way I was going to stand up before that last 30 seconds elapsed. I didn't care if my legs fell off at that point - I needed to make that 3 minute mark.

AND I DID!!! WOO-HOO for me!! I conquered the wall sit! I conquered the wall sit!! If my legs hadn't been hurting so much by then, I think I would have done the happy dance.

Of course, the rest of the day, I kept thinking that it was just luck and a fluke that I made the 3 minute mark. Surely Wednesday's session would prove that I still couldn't do it...

HA! 3 minutes today, too!!

Take that, evil wall sit.

Until next time,
Kel

Friday, August 8, 2008

I Want To Quit...No I Don't...Yes I Do...No I Dont.....

I've had a really great argument going since Wednesday. It's been with myself and has been quite intense. And it's still raging on in my head. Well, mosty in my head - sometimes I catch myself actually talking out loud and answering back. But that's a whole 'nother problem.

It all started early Wendsday morning, when it was still dark outside and Aero was peacefully snoozing on his pillow. As I was getting dressed for boot camp, the feeling of dread and the echo of 'why am I doing this' kept running through my mind. But, I made myself get out of the house and over to the gym for the class; when I got there, that voice in my head was trying to convince me not to get out of the car and to turn around and go back home and crawl under the covers.

Still, I got out of the car and went inside and did my usual pre-class routine, then plopped myself down on my mat to start the warmups. There. I did it. I'm here and starting to work out. See, it isn't so bad. I'm getting healthier. This is good for me.

Yeah, that was great, until the rest of the group left the building for their jaunt around the block while I trudged over to my new not-so-best-friend, the elliptical. That's when the self-doubt talk and the argument really kicked in. The argument kept up, no matter what kind of exercise we were doing. And because I was concentrating so hard on arguing with myself, I didn't pay much attention to what I was doing or to my breathing. Which got me in trouble - it brought on another lung spasm. Luckily it was toward the end of class when it started, and I was able to head into the locker room, grab a seat and suck down some Albuterol. Of course, while I was gasping for air, the argument to quit boot camp just got more intense, with my argument being the lung spasm.

Once I recovered, I did my normal after boot camp routine, drove to the office, and continued the argument in my head off and on all day. And it continued through the evening.

This morning I had to be in the office for 5:00 a.m. to cover a video call with our East Coast offices. Last week, when the meeting was first scheduled, I told my boss that I was unavailable today, knowing it was a boot camp morning. So, I arranged to have a co-worker cover the meeting for me starting at 5:30. Of course, the "quit" half of the argument started with the alarm at 4:00 a.m., trying to convince me to hop in the shower and put on work clothes and just stay at the office and blow off boot camp today. After all, it was really hard on Wednesday. And, I really don't belong in this round - everybody else is so much more fit than me and I look ridiculous trying to keep up and the weight isn't budging and I'm still sore from Monday..... You get the picture. But I knew if I gave in and didn't go to boot camp, it would be over.

And I would have let boot camp beat me.

So, I put on my grubby workout gear and headed to the office to launch the call. Promptly at 5:40, I got in my car and headed to the gym. I walked in at 6:02, just as the initial warmup was wrapping up. I started with the elliptical for 3 minutes, then fell right in line with everything else.

And it didn't seem so hard.

And the negative self-doubting wanting-to-quit voice stopped trying to convince me to quit. I refuse let boot camp beat me!

After class was over, I talked with Denise about the self-doubt and wanting to quit. She assured me that it's ok to have days like that - even she gets up some mornings and feels the same way. But, she told me that the most important thing was that I fought it and showed up this morning - otherwise, it would have been too easy to not come back on Monday. She said she was glad that I made it this morning and quite honestly, so was I.

So today, the "No I Don't" want to quit voice is shouting at me. I just hope my co-workers aren't disturbed by it....

Until next time,
Kel

Monday, August 4, 2008

Boot Camp Round 2

This morning was the first session of a new Boot Camp with Denise. Last night as I was packing my bag with toiletries, work clothes, curling iron and various other getting ready for work items, I was dreading getting up at 5:00 a.m. today.

Surprisingly, my eyes popped open at about 4:50 - a full 10 minutes before the first alarm went off! Hmmm, could it be that I was looking forward to the 45 minutes of exercise torture? Aero just looked at me with very sleepy eyes, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

I managed to arrive at 5:50 a.m., my usual time. I was surprised that there were already 2 people waiting at the front door - they beat me there?!!! C'mon, I'm usually the first one in the parking lot. Note to self: leave 5 minutes earlier on Wednesday. As I approached the front door, they asked if I was there for boot camp, and both were very chatty so early in the morning. We were joined by another boot camper, and all introduced ourselves. It was quite a different group from the first round with all the skinny girls.

Just before 6, Denise arrived and exchanged introductions with everyone. When she got to me, she just waved me off and said "hey, I know you!" I grinned inwardly as I felt like the boot camp veteran.

This time it's a small group, only 5 participants. They seem to be more friendly than the first group ever was. Of course, once again, I'm the biggest participant but I held the dreaded wall sit longer than most of them. Hah. Take that, rookies.

When they went on their round-the-block-in-three-minutes jaunt, I climbed on the elliptical. As I huffed and puffed trying to make it through the three minutes on that bad boy, I could only look longingly at my old friend the treadmill as it sat there idle, wishing I hadn't been grounded from it. But, that elliptical is my new challenge for this session, or at least until the podiatrist ungrounds me.

So, tomorrow I'll "sleep in" until 6:15 and enjoy it. Because Wednesday morning will get here pretty fast.

Until next time,
Kel