Vacation ready

I am terribly excited today because I just have to get thru this one and I get to go on a plane tomorrow morning to a magical land that exists in the United States where the sun still shines. I have never been to Arizona but the weather forecast says Phoenix is like 77 degrees. That is perfection in my book. As I sit presently in my extremely cold office with a little personal heater placed close to me. Sun sounds down right amazing right now. My only complaint is that I know on Monday I have to return to this doom and gloom. But let’s not worry too much about that right now. For now let’s focus on the impending sun that is going to be magical for my soul.

I am beyond excited to get on an airplane and fly to a city I have never been before and get to explore. I am once again putting my brain thru the stress of running a half marathon. Or more like the mental torture of worry and fear over being able to do it. I have to admit something that is probably pretty obvious over the past couple months, I have not run that much. I have been very focused on my classes and strength training that I kind of forgot that I run. Consequently running is not as second nature anymore and therefore I have major fears heading into this race. I have to be honest though I am pretty sure that there will never be a race ever that I won’t be worried and anxious beforehand. I believe this is probably just my normal personality. But this one is going to be a struggle, I am pretty certain of that. But with the struggle I’m also guessing will be an even better feeling of accomplishment once I finish. No matter the time, which I am guessing is going to be awful, the feeling of completion will be rewarding and I am holding onto that.

Also let’s not forget the amazing feeling of that medal around your neck. Seriously, ridiculously cool. And this time I get 2 medals. I get the one for running the race and then I get an extra bonus Desert Double Down Medal for running both Vegas and Arizona. 2 medals for the price of one. This is all I am going to be thinking about those last grueling torturous 3 miles. I seem to do pretty well up until Mile 10 and then that wall hits. That I can’t move, I can’t do this. Why oh God Why wall. The answer to my why’s is 2 shiny medals. It’s pretty encouraging honestly.

I have to get up pretty early in the morning honestly to do all this. Well, early for me, I’m certain for some people my early is not that early. Nonetheless, I am used to getting up in the mornings at like 7:30 or 7:45. That’s my every day time. Our flight boards at 8:15 AM. Means I have to be thru security and at the gate at like 8 AM. Give myself 15-30 minutes for security and of course parking and shuttle from the parking garage so basically at the airport no later than like 7:30. We have to drop off our dog for babysitting before. It takes 45 minutes to get from babysitters house to the airport, so that means leave babysitters house at 6:45 AM, it takes an hour to get to babysitters house so that means leave house no later than 5:45 AM. This means in order to get up and ready and coffee, etc. we have to get up at like 5 AM. This is EARLY for me. All of this is necessary because our flight doesn’t get in until like 1 I think. We have to go to the expo center to pick up our race information and they close at 5 PM. So we have from 1 PM on to get our car and make our way over the expo center and get our packets. It’s enough time but not a ton of time to spare.

After we get our packets at the expo we go to the hotel to check in, unload, etc. Then we are going to hit up an Italian restaurant for some delicious carbo loading pasta. Lots of water is the plan and of course no alcohol the night before. I learned my lessons in Vegas. Because we then wake up early to run Sunday. Once the run is over then we have the rest of the day to explore and be tourists, pressure and worry free. We will have already accomplished our big running goal. So it will be all about enjoying the sun and relaxing. We go home Monday afternoon and don’t get back into Portland until 11 PM which is going to make a very long night with work on Tuesday morning, but it will all be worth it. It always is to see that medal earned with pride, sweat and hopefully no blood or tears. I love mini vacations. I love big vacations too but those are harder to accomplish overall so minis are always fun.

I have not done anything to get ready however, so tonight I am taking off from exercise and I have to pack and get all things in order and probably dye my hair. It needs it, but that’s always a process. Everything is a process. I have to create my running play list. Busy times tonight.

Last night was a pretty good night at the gym honestly. Here’s the thing, my personal training session on Wednesday night was BRUTAL. Like high intensity kind of brutal. But then again, most all of my training sessions are beyond brutal so I rarely have anything to compare and contrast against. It’s simply all I’ve ever known, beyond tough workouts.

This is what we did. Started with a giant tractor tire that I had to drag down the center of the gym. The center of the gym is probably 80-100 feet. That seems about right. I had to drag it walking backwards down using my forearms mostly and my legs. Then when I got to the other end I flipped it around and wore the straps around my back like a backpack and went the other way. I dragged it behind me pulling it as if I were going to run carrying a heavy ass tire. There was no confirmation of how much the tire weighed, but it was a lot. Out of breathe at the end. Then I immediately picked up a 30 pound medicine ball to throw onto the ground in slams. 10 of those. Then 20 kettleball swings with a 30 pound one. Out of breathe much. Then we went over to the battle ropes. These are those giant ropes that you have to use your own strength to toss up in the air and back down to hit the ground. I’ve seen them do them on Biggest Loser, etc. They are AWFUL! Probably my least favorite thing ever. I had to do 20 slams. This hurts so bad. And then to finish it off I had to do 200 mountain climbers.

The thing about mountain climbers is that 100 mountain climbers is enough. I can eek out 140-160 before I feel like I want to die, but those last 40 are pure torture. Go ahead and try doing that many in a row without stopping at all. Then for good measure do the entire series of exercises again. I was dripping sweat in an obscene way. That is what a personal training session looks like for me. This is what I expect. To be tortured. It’s my own fault, I told her I did not want to lift heavy and fry out and make my legs sore because I needed to use them this weekend. So instead I got heart pumping stuff. Fine. It worked.

After that I did 60 minutes of strength training class. I went home. The end. Last night I headed to the gym for a 30 minute dumbbell fit class where we did do lots of squats and leg work. I followed this up with an hour of turbokick which is just plain fun. Lots ok kicking and punching. By the end I was tired. Obviously ready to call it quits, but something else happened.

After class I was walking up to the front desk with Amanda talking and she said she had a training session with another client now. I walked up and this girl Stephanie was standing there and I was like, Oh your session is with her :) I smiled; I am Facebook friends with Stephanie. Actually Stephanie is a girl who I encountered at the gym in October in a class and she originally rubbed me the wrong way. Very competitive with me. But I am nice to everyone and gave her the benefit of the doubt. Since then I have been very nice to her. She sent me a friend request on Facebook I accepted and have encouraged and wrote positive responses on her page etc. Somewhere about a month ago or so Amanda told me that in a training session Stephanie was talking a lot about me and telling Amanda how much she liked me and how awesome I was and how much she loved my back. Basically I have to love anyone who says nice things about me. Plus truly I do live to try and help and encourage and inspire people.

Anyway, back to the story, Stephanie is standing there was like I just sent you a private message on Facebook but then realized you were probably in class. I have a personal training session with Amanda right now and was wondering if you wanted to join me for it. I was kind of baffled by this. I don’t really know this girl all that well, but clearly she likes me. I was tired already but it was a sweet offer and I was like, well, I’m pretty tired but I can go and hang out with you guys and do what I can. The thing is I was expecting my awful workouts. When I think of personal training session clearly I think of torturous gonna die kind of events. I wasn’t sure if I had another half hour in me. But I just went ahead and said sure because she clearly wanted me to hang out.

So Amanda takes us over there and says we are going to do a 15 minute routine. Get in at least 3 sets of these exercises. Get thru these exercises 3 times; see how fast you can do them. It’s a competition she said. I was like, ugh, NOOOO. I am not competing with anyone. It was all fun and games honestly. But it was 5 jumping pull-ups, 10 pushups, 15 box jumps, 20 burpees and then 20 crunches. I was like okay not so bad. I started going for it and it honestly felt fine. I didn’t feel nearly as bad as I normally do in a training session. I get thru one round of them and Stephanie is complaining saying how hard it is. I am not trying to gloat or sound superior or anything but it wasn’t that hard for me. I did another round, and then I finished my last round. It took me like 10 minutes 30 or 40 seconds something like that. I wasn’t really trying to go all that fast. Then I got to stop. Stephanie was still going for it. I sat there and chatted with Amanda. When the 15 minutes was up Stephanie was finished and was like, wow, you kicked my ass. She said thank you for doing that with me, because I wouldn’t have worked as hard if you weren’t here. I could not have gotten thru that without you.

It was a nice compliment and I guess what she needs and/or wants is motivation or someone else to push her. I was really trying to figure out why she wanted me to work out with her, but maybe that’s honestly it. She just wanted extra motivation. I smiled at her and said of course you would have and could have. I didn’t do anything. You did it all yourself! Which is entirely true.

The main take away I got from this was that my training sessions are indeed ridiculously hard. I also suspected that I got hard stuff. I have seen lots of training sessions occur at the gym and obviously they are tailored to a person’s fitness level and capabilities, but it’s quite different living thru someone else’s session. My session made me want to die, like pass out can’t do anymore. This other session was like a little warm up. It just put things in perspective for me. Not knocking anyway, seriously, this stuff is all hard and anyone doing anything is amazing. But at least it made me realize how ridiculous my sessions are which actually made me feel better not because I am better than anyone, on the contrary, but because most of the time I feel like I am going to die and like a failure because they are so hard and I can barely hang on and finish them. It makes me feel like I am not that fit or that I am not performing enough. My session’s ususally leave me feeling inadequate. At least this put it into perspective that while I may feel like dying after them, it’s for a reason, because they ARE hard. They are designed to make me feel that way to keep challenging me. If they were easy they wouldn’t be worth my time or money. So perspective achieved. Very good to know. I feel like I want to die because it is hard and it’s supposed to be that way.

By the time I got home I was tired and it was late. But I did manage to actually cook some dinner. This is a rare statement for me. I made rice and veggies with beans and chicken. It was pretty damned delicious and I have leftovers for lunch today. I have made a commitment to myself that starting next week, post vacation that it’s about time to get on this clean eating bandwagon for a while. I am really getting committed to it, mainly because I have been eating something awful as of late. I do fine most of the day, well, I still eat too much, but it’s really post dinner where I just let it go and eat and eat. I know that if I continue eating that way, no amount of exercise I do is going to counterbalance the food. I WILL gain weight and it won’t be the muscle kind. It’s time to cleanse and detox and honestly I’m looking forward to the fresh reboot. Enjoy Arizona and then start at day 1 of being clean. I think I can do this. I really really do. I’m not going to give up all the things I love or not have cheat meals here and there, but honestly a more conscious decision to eat healthy stuff is definitely in order. Plus I forget how much I actually love healthy foods. The meal I had last night was amazing.

So basically, I am excited for the next phase of life. I am excited for this weekend, and boy oh boy am I ready for a new shiny medal!