A Few Random Thoughts

I had a few thoughts swirling around in the ol' Mind Grapes after the workout this morning. They aren't really connected at all but I wanted to post them.

• Stairs give me nightmares. I hate them. A lot. Football stadiums have more stairs than basketball arenas. I hate stadiums.
   
  
• I enjoyed doing the work on the football field this morning for a couple of reasons. First, the yard lines and goal lines are great for setting miniature goals for each sprint or activity. It's hard to push myself when it feels like I have so much further without end in sight, but I can amp myself up to finish strong when a goal is in front of me. The full field suicides at the end of the morning were a perfect example. I felt as though I got stronger as I got closer to the finish because I was getting over the mental hurdle that I had built for myself. Second, I was running on the hash-marks next to the sideline. I was able to gauge my stride length and keep a consistent pace when my feet started dragging. Last, we did some agility exercises that reminded me a lot of football practice. Took me back to a positive place where I had successfully done the whole "lose a second person" act before.
   
  
• Those full field suicides? Total distance: .625 mile or 2.5 laps around the track.
   
  
• Don't ever go ice skating. My company did a team building event ("Fun Team Event") at the ice skating rink at Centennial Park last Thursday. My ankles are still sore on Tuesday. It feels as though I am running and jumping on 2 ankles recovering from a mild ankle sprain. Going to enjoy the rest day tomorrow.
  
  
• I weighed myself this morning. Down to 357 from 365, so almost 10 pounds since the January boot camp started even with the snow storm taking a week away. Awesome!
   
  
• This morning made the decision final…No "State of the Union Drinking Game" for me tonight!
  

Back to the grind on Thursday.

Snow much for last week…

Well, I was really looking forward to getting back in the groove of things for a second consecutive week. Mother Nature had different plans. The weather reports turned out to be very accurate. My prediction was that we would be snowed in for Monday and Tuesday and the roads would be in good enough condition to resume normal schedules starting Wednesday. I made it outside to exercise both Saturday, for touch football with friends, and Sunday, for one of the weekend workout routines posted online. I thought I was going to be in a good position to resume Boot Camp after sitting at home for 2 days.

As we all know, my road forecast turned out to be wildly optimistic. Step It Up followed Cobb County Schools closing policies and we were forced to cancel all classes last week. Naturally, cabin fever set in and the diet turned from grilled chicken and veggies to whatever I had in the freezer. Somehow, I actually lost a few pounds since I last weighed myself. After this morning's workout I was down to 360 even.

This morning's workout was rough. We partnered with another camper and one would do an exercise while the other ran the perimeter of the basketball gym then the partners would switch. After probably 4 exercises, I was beat. I focused my energy on the jogging portion to at least get a good cardio workout but resistance exercises were a lost cause.

What does it feel like I always say? Get back on the horse. My diet is always better on days that I exercise than off days, so I really want to get in a good groove for the next few weeks. Hopefully Mother Nature will cooperate this time around.

Holidays – 1, Paul - 0

Vacation

A lot has happened since December 17^th, post-test day for our last boot camp. Two college graduations, Christmas, New Years, Sarah's birthday – that's quite a bit of celebrating to cram into two weeks off work! It's not rocket science to guess that I fell off the wagon a bit. My mom was gracious enough to buy me the bathroom scale I wanted for Christmas, despite her embarrassment and reluctance to give a scale as a gift. The holidays did some damage, as since Christmas I fluctuated between around 365 pounds depending on food and beer intake the previous couple days. At 365 lbs., the two weeks vacation made me gain back the few pounds I lost last month! Oh well, it's time to jump back on the horse and get back into it.

I reflected a little bit and realized how important structure and a routine are to my continued success. I spent most of my two weeks vacation in the Atlanta metro either at my family's or Sarah's house, but not at home. I was home so infrequently that I don't think I went grocery shopping once! Another routine buster was Sarah being in town from grad-school in Boston. I love her to death and we had a blast this holiday season together, but having a "guest" in town means that I wasn't doing a good job keeping to my newly learned Step It Up habits. Don't confuse me, that's not her fault in the least; I need to learn how to eat well outside of my apartment or work and make time for exercising.

Boot Camp v2

The great news is that Ryan is ready to whip me back into shape. I had my nice little sabbatical, but I'm ready to get back to work on my goals. We reported back to boot camp on Tuesday. This camp's pre-test results were expectedly a step backwards from my first post-test, but I am still better than my original pre-test!

Exercise	Pre-test	Goal
Fifty-Fives (55s)	10	12
Regular Pushups	24	30
Assisted Pushups	??	TBD
Regular Dips	??	TBD
Assisted Dips	??	TBD
Sit Ups (in 1 minute)	22	30
Planks to failure	55 sec	1:15

What are Fifty-Fives and where did the Mile run go? We did not test the mile run because we were forced inside due to weather. Instead, we tested to see how many time's we could run across the width (from sideline to sideline, not baselines) of the basketball court in 60 seconds, named "55s". Ryan remarked that to make the Whitefield HS varsity basketball team you must make at least 16 (8 times down and back). I need Ryan to remind me what my scores were for those exercises labeled with question marks; I will update when I hear back.

After we got done with our pre-test, Ryan was delighted to learn we still had 15 minutes left. He introduced some exercises to the newbies and we moderate ab work. Never one to let a step go un-stepped on, we ran stadiums around the gym for some cardio to finish up. After 2 weeks of inactivity, those did not go over well. Ouch.

Wednesday was a little warmer - a balmy 35-40 degrees Fahrenheit – so we were out on the field. Even after 3 weeks of camp last month, this was my first non-test day outside. After our usual warm up, Ryan had us jog and sprint several distances to warm up our legs in the cool weather. First twenty yards. Then thirty. Then forty. I'm going to let you all in on a little secret: When you are the slowest runner on these "warm up" sprints, there's not a whole lot of recovery time between when you get to the line and Ryan tells everyone to go back the other direction. I was pretty fatigued by the time we were done. I guess that means I need to get myself in shape where I'm not always the slowest, right?

The first real workout day was definitely an attention grabber! We went heavy on our upper bodies, doing lots of pushups and dips. Throw in 30 yards of bear crawls with pushups every five yards and cap it all off with crunches and burpees/squats separated by 30 yard sprints, and you have a recipe for some tired campers. As hard as Wednesday was, it felt good to get back in the saddle again.

Thinking back to my first "first day", I'm already ahead of where I was then. It's tempting to look back on the holidays and get frustrated that I made poor choices that jeopardized my goals. I'm trying not to look at it that way. I prefer to think during my first boot camp that I took 2 steps forward. My vacation took me one step backwards, but I'm still one step ahead of where I was. My goals are still in front of me and I'm moving back in the right direction again.