Ch-ch-changes

Well, looks like it's finally happened.  After many years of threatening to do so, the morning bootcamp that I go to three times a week at an ungodly hour (yep, 5:30 am, rain or shine) has been cancelled for the winter.  While I understand the rationale...it can be rainy, windy and cold and quite often attendance drops during these months...I can't say I'm not disappointed by the decision.   I've been doing these classes since 2008, so it's become a bit of a habit over the past seven years, and one that quite frankly has saved my sanity on many an occasion.  These bootcamps were the catalyst that led me to running and the choice to lead a healthier lifestyle, so I'm pretty sad to have to give them up.  I've come to really like the other ladies in the group as well and to be honest, 5:30am is the best time for me to get up and work out.  I know...sounds insane, right?  But life is so busy and after a long day at work, I'm not motivated to work out in the slightest (well, except when I go to personal training because I loooooooooooooooooooooveeee eeeeeet).   The trainers push me hard, and I've come to know that while I have the motivation to get up in the morning and work out on my own, I know that I absolutely work harder when I've got someone else there pushing me.  Plus I love the variety, and I'm happy to have someone else come up with the workout and I can just turn off my mind and turn on my muscles.  The other part that makes me sad about this whole thing is that the winter months are when we tend to...shall we say...put on our winter coats?  So cancelling classes during this time seems a bit counterproductive.  The winter months are where we work hard so by the time the summer rolls around, we're in shape for tank tops and shorts, amirite?!

So what am I gonna do?  Well I looked into many facilities and it doesn't look like there is anything that early.  My evenings are limited as I'm doing personal training twice a week and taking swimming lessons but it sounds like some of the other ladies are interested in hiring a trainer on our own and having her work with us, so looks like that could be an option if we can get enough people interested.  The flip side of this whole thing is that maybe I'll discover something new and different, like I did with strength training.  There's lot of stuff out there and with January right around the corner, there will be lots of new stuff starting.  So there's still hope so I'm just going to roll with it, and maybe as they say, a change is as good as a rest. 

Chicken Arms No More

 

Sooooo....a little confession.  As a follow up to last week's post, I somehow managed to not have to try a pull up at the gym this week with my trainer.  I know, I know...you're all disappointed, right?  Well, not so fast...last week I was admittedly feeling a little nervous because I had promised Graham that I would attempt a pull up, and to be honest I was shitting myself a little.  OK, I was shitting myself a LOT.  As you all know I suffer from extreme gymtimidation, so was picturing people all pointing and snickering as I tried to hoist my substantial body weight with these two stick things I call my arms.  I was by myself one night last week so thought hmmm...I have a chin up bar downstairs...let me see if I can maybe sort of do one?  I slipped downstairs, jumped up to the bar and....

NOTHING. 

*@(*(#*(*(!!!  I could barely even get myself out of the dead hang position.  I tried everything I could to pull myself up but I just couldn't.  Blah.  Disappointed with myself, I was dreading the next training session because I hate to disappoint others even more and was already envisioning the slightly pitying and somewhat sad look that Graham would flash me when I failed to even budge an inch.

As I headed into my workout on Thursday, I was a feeling a bit worried.  We started off with some lower body work, and moved onto supersets of dumbbell chest presses and negative pull ups (which I seriously despise).  I think possibly I had built up this week's imminent pull up failure to epic proportions because last week, I had completely sucked at the chest press...I'd been successfully pressing 30 pound dumbbells with each arm so had tried to move up to 35 pounds but couldn't even get the buggers into the starting position.  Graham is really good about pushing me so I keep progressing so suggested that we try again...I was a little hesitant but thought about my post from last week...way better to try and suck, then to not try at all, right?  So dutifully I tried again and guess what?!  I was able to get two sets of six reps!  My arms were shaking the whole time and he had to help me a bit but whatevs...I did it!  I think the headiness of reaching that next step gave me a buy from attempting a pull up this week, but methinks I may not be as lucky next week.  And who knows...maybe I might surprise myself?  Here's to hoping.