Week Three! Friday

Breakfast: Small bowl of fruit, 3/4 of a small slice of quiche, 1 slice of potatoe. Water
Lunch: Two Vietnamese Spring Rolls with peanut sauce (only used half). Small bowl of noodle soup.
Snack: Almonds and Banana
Recovery meal: Mixed nuts and raisins
Dinner: I have to explain this one. I went to a friends house and all they had was kentucky Fried Chicken. 1) I dont' eat meat on Friday. 2) They workout hard, so they binge hard nothing was 'clean' but a weak tomatoe/iceberg lettuce salad. So after, I went to Rubios and chowed down on a mahi mahi health mex burrito. Didn't eat the rice


I started the day on the USS Midway for the Red Cross, Real Heroes Breakfast. It was very touching, I wasn't really expecting it. The Keynote speaker was the firefighter in charge of the NY FD during 9/11. He actually was second in charge, but when the Chief died after rushing in to help save some trapped firefighters, Daniel A. Nigro was named Incident Commander that afternoon. He survived both collapses. What an amazing man. He spoke so well. He said, that he wanted to do best service to the local heroes being honored that morning, so he told us a story. He said that most Heroes believe that anyone would have done the same thing that they did if they were in the same position, but he said, that that is just not true. He told us a story about a man who lost conciousness at a subway station and fell to the tracks below. A train was coming and one man jumped down onto the tracks. He could not get the man out of the way on time, but he was able to maneuver the mans body to the center of the tracks and he lay on top of the other man while the train rushed over them. They both survived. That day, there were many bystanders, and only one man acted to save the other man's life.

Oh my gosh! Stories like these all morning were choking me up and tears were being fought back as many managed to escape and just run down my face. HOW BEAUTIFUL people can be when we act the best that we can be.

I was honored to be in the presence of so many heroes. People who made choices to extend themselves, even to the point of risking their own life, to help another. How beautiful is that?

That is some Hero Living. I wonder why this theme of Hero has been following me so much lately. A couple of weeks ago, I was at a Girl Scouts benefit and the band that was playing was great! They were called the Heroes... no joke, folks.

On the exercise note:

My abs be killing me! I laugh or stretch wrong and I am feeling it! That's a good thing :) My belly is my biggest problem area and I need to blast the sucker. I know they say that you can't really 'spot' exercise, and that you need to just lose fat all over, but it feels good to have some soreness there again.

That deep pain I had in my thighs is gone. Not sure if it got worked out through the bikes, or because I tried to do a little splits training last night before bed.

( I will add to this tonight after my workout)

Boy, Rudy sure is a successful bottom whooper... I am whooped!

Friday night, I was introduced to the Bosu ball. Half ball, half platform, all intimidating...

So we warm up the usual way, run in place, steam engines, open/close, elephant trunks, most of us have the drill by now. Once again, LOVED the boxing part. He showed us a really cool move that is just so much more fun and exciting than anything I ever learned at White Dragon for sparring; and it was fairly simple but when he first showed us, I think we all kind of laughed, like when you go to dance class and they show you this awesome move and they say, 'Now you!' And immediately you think, hahahaha, yeah right that looks so complicated, BUT part of you is still excited and like, wow really, I might be able to do that sometime soon and you are going to show me how? Bring it!

So, it was a simple jab, punch combo, with a duck to the right and a right cross, then a duck to the left and a left hook (as Rudy emphasizes ALWAYS THE LEFT; but I dont think he said why) and a right uppercut. LOVED IT! Felt great. Katherine was totaly agreeing. I think most of us girls really like the boxing parts.

Now to the balls. Rudy likes them fliped over, so the ball part is on the floor and the platform is face up. He jumps right on with the ease of a chinese acrobat jumping on his partners shoulders to stand. Aha! See no problem! Now YOU try! :) ahahahahahaha Needless to say, my mount was not as graceful. This was not one of those exciting 'yeah rights', more like the kind yo have when you are pretty sure everyone else can do it, but you might not be able to.

Okay, one foot on til it teeters all the way to the floor, now the...oth.. now the othe... now...now the other! Conslusion: YOU'VE GOT TO ME KIDDING ME! By now, Katherine, who has had the delightful bosu experience before has been balancing for quite some time now. She is good. so, I am inspired and I am determined. I finally get on and Rudy is leading us in squats.

We get off and put our hand on the platform and proceed to do mountain climbers. I suspect my booty is not supposed to be so high in the air, but that's how I can do them. I think once my core is stronger, I'll be able to do it without the gluteous maximus high in the air.

Now we are jumping back on. This time with weights! Rudy wanted us to challenge ourselves and go up 2 lbs. I started with 2.5 the first time, then went to 5 and now am at 7.5. I really think I wasn't ready for 10, but hope to move to it some time next week. There is a point though, where I don't want to go any higher, cause I really just want to be slim and tone, I don't want bulk. I can imagine that I'd be just as frustrated being too big with muscles as being too big with fat. I hear women cannot get big like that, but I have seen it... not what I want. Actually Rudy had a friend workin out tonight and I think I heard she was doing twenty lbs. She looked small still. Anyhow, I guess I am getting ahead of myself. Perhaps I should be more concerned with the extra flap of skin I have on my arms right now rather than worrying about being too much in shape, right? ahahahaha

So the rest of the class, we alternated from standing on the platform and squating with weights, push presses, and sitting on the ball and doing ab/core exercises (some with weights in hand). The 7.5 were enough in the class, my triceps had had it by the end. Had to use two hands for one weight during the last tricep extensions.

We ended with some Tai Chi breathing.

Went to hang with some old kung fu buddies. Two of them had just gotten back from their backpacking trip in Europe, so they had the pictures running the whole night. Morroco, France, England, so many places...

I head to Switzerland right after this program finishes. No kidding, we end the last week of November, my flight leaves the first week of December. I hope it is enough to improve my Europe walking survival, and to improve what little snowboarding skills I have. I will have less fat, so that might be a negative in the snow laden country, but I guess that is what clothes are for :)