W4 Month Mark Friday

Recovery Meal: 3/4 chocolate muscle milk
Breakfast: Cup of Watermelon
Lunch: Tofu Burrito with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, avocado and green salsa
Snack: Spanish rice, 1 sheet of dried seaweed
Dinner: 1/2 Salmon Salad and a rainbow roll
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Today I was a little late and joined the warm-up. People were walking and walking backwards and then running in a circle. I did 1.5 'laps' walking backwards and I since I was late, I didn't understand what we were doing, so I said, "When do we start running?" Saleem zooms past me and says, "Now!" I thought, 'good answer!' so I started to run even though some people were still walking. I just decided to get going. I tried to pace with Saleem. That was pretty good.

After the run, we were told to hustle to the spinning room. I started to walk and then Sal ran past us, so I started to jog. Saleem and I were first up the stairs, but then we had to wait for Sal to open it from the inside because it was locked.

I think last time, I was last to the spinning room, so it's nice that I was first this time. :)

So, we get inside and I actually am able to help someone put the pedals on! What did it take me? Four or Five sessions to finally understand it? Phew! The funny thing is at the end, I had to ask Peter how to get them off. I usually just leave them on, but someone mentioned we should be taking them off when we are done. So I guess the technique is to put your foot in and twist them off. I will have to try next time, I just watched Peter. So I will see next time if I can do it. You know I never thought I'd be in a spinning class ever. It seeemed so boring. I think it is so hard though, that you don't have time to be bored... you are constantly challenged.

So this time, Rudy went around and helped make sure we had our technique right and kept motivating us. Personally, he reminded me not to lean my elbows on the handle bars. You have to have your hands grip the handles, elbos not helping, so you can work your upper body as well as your legs.

I still feel slower than everyone, but I am just glad I can keep pedaling. Sometimes, its so loud in there, I can hardly hear myself grunt, but my grunts in the class are more like my own little self motivations. When it gets super hard, Isay, "Push, push, push, push....come on! Push, push, push!"

My arms, thighs and across my middle back are SORE! Probably because of the killer dumbell workout from the night before and the constant shadow boxing on and off the bikes. Sometimes, Rudy or Sal will have us punch the air while we are on low bicycle resistence. I try to make sure that I extend my arms with each punch so that I get more of a twisting motion, so that could be it too. I also have to remember to twist my fist before my punches land.

One of these days, I want to try the hand bike, but it looks really hard and my upper body strength is not very strong at all.

What's interesting to me is that we all use the same resistence regardless of our level... I wonder if the bike adjusts to each person or are the stronger people with three turns having it easier than the less strong (like myself). So is it subjective of objective? I wonder...

Tomorrow I get to see how these last 16 or so hours have affected my body... did I lose weight (no, I still think I gained), did I lose fat? (I better have!), did I lose inches (who knows? maybe I'm bigger now with muscle AND fat--hoep not!).

We will see, I am almost as excited for this as I was the first day. I hope people are willing to share their results. I'd love to know how Rudy, Sal, Angela and the already fit girls have changed too. I wonder if they took pictures too etc...

Tomorrow should be an interesting blog.

Im so tired, I stayed up too late. Sorry if this one is a bit boring.