Month 2 Monday

Breakfast: Peanut Butter sandwich
Snack: 2 celery stalks with peanut butter
Lunch: 2 chicken tacos with salsa
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Beef Thai Salad (wanted to eat the whole thing, but only ate 3/4. I hope it fit in the mug...It was touted as 'lean beef' on the menu, but it seemed a little greasy and fatty... I think they meant to say 'thin slices of fatty beef' instead of lean beef)

Ok... kick my booty they did!

Rudy and Sal really put a whoop on us.

As we were gathering (one thing great about night class, is I can come early and relax and chat with a few folks. The AM I am usually making by the skin of my teeth)many of us were talking about results. WOW! Everyone has done so well! I am so excited for everyone! Next month will be very cool. I am starting to really BELIEVE! As Rudy always urges us to :)

We started the workout with a warm-up run in the parking lot. I usually walk shortly and then just get into it. I feel like I probably run less than half a mile, so my thinking is to just go for it.

When we circled up around Rudy, he led us in some cool yoga poses which I found challenging! Usually I stay near the rear of the class and try not to look at others so much. Rudy suggested that I should explore the competitive side of me and work nearer to those who I am aspiring to be more like. So like for me, it's definitely Ava (so strong and hard working- such a motivator!) and Courtney (would love to look like her. During the poses and some of the tai chi moves, I worked near B Healy and them, but I found myself more focused on myself. I will try again tomorrow to 'compete' I'm just not very competitive usually. It's easier for me to compete against myself rather than others. When I would do my kung fu tournaments, I grew to rarely look at the other competitors. I just tried to go in and do my thing and if I medaled, I medaled. I'll see if competition amps my workout at all. So the squat poses were killer as well as the kf horse stances, but one that I feel I did really well was the tai chi cat stance. I loved that! Weight all on the back foot and hands extended forward in like a praying/fighting pose at eyebrow level. I loved the stretch it gave and that feeling of 'intention' in the body.

Anyway, we got out legs killed and then Rudy had us walk one lap then head to the spinning chamber of pain. I mean... spinning room.

So... we did 10 intervals. Started easy.

1. Then two turns to the right, seated for 1 minute
2. Then I think we turned it one more time to the right and standing, we did 1 minute
3. Then we relieved the tension and did 3 turns to the left; while 'recovering' we punched the air for 30 seconds, then we rested our hand on our head for 30 more seconds.
4. Then we did three turns to the right and again stood up to work hard
5. We did a recovery
6. Then we went hard again

Near the end, our recovery was 30 seconds punching forward, then 30 seconds punching upward; then we went hard again.

PHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEW!

All the while, Sal is leading on the bike, totally working hard (they pour themselves in!) and Rudy was going around calling us out. "Punch up the pace, Arlene!" "Push, push, push!" "Pick up the pace, back row!" Sometimes he would briefly touch our backs as he was motivating us and to me it was like, he was saying, 'I'm here with ya, come on. You can do it.' It kind of gave me a sense of accountabilty more during class. Oh an yeah, the "15 seconds left" was kind of not as effective for me. I think because a couple of the intervals, I really decided to go hard the whole time. I was just in pain, trying. Maybe the last 5 seconds on some of the intervals, I was able to ramp up my speed... others, I could not... slow was as fast as I could go.

MAN My legs hurt as I write this! I am curious how I will feel for the AM workout. Rudy, Sal, Angela and some of the other participants who go twice a day are simply crazy amazing athletes~ I want to try it at least once. Probably sometime in month 3...