First of all, my failure to update all week was not an indication of me slacking off this week. I made it to 5/6 of the days... so there.
Monday was great... Sarah's first day back and we partnered up. It's so different to have a partner that you know. I suppose I could get to know the other Farrellites better too, but I haven't been there enough I think. Or I'm unfriendly, I dunno. Regardless, the week in general went well. Originally Sarah and I had talked about her doing 6AM and I just bring the boys with me to 7AM and she'll bring them home... trade off at Farrell's. Great in theory, but in practice that would mean I need to wake the boys up in time to get them in the van and down the road by about 6:20... which is pretty early, they're pretty much never up then. I can't remember the last time I saw Joshua up at that time. So on Tues/Wed I wound up going to the 4:30 classes.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Sat at the end of Week 3 burned the hell out of my thighs. Consequently I spent most of the day Sunday in pain whenever I tried to use said thighs. I was worried about Monday morning because of it, but it went well, except for burning out in warmups when we were doing squats. My thighs weren't an issue the rest of the week.
Tuesday we did drop-sets for strength which apparently is really focused on doing high-resistance bands to make sure that you fail. I suppose it's kind of like the 'low rep/high weight' part of free weights training rather than high reps with lower weights. It's my understanding that it's geared toward building muscle bulk more than strength... bigger muscles rather than leaner muscles. Regardless, it's still a lot of reps. 10 instead of 16 in a set isn't a huge difference, but when you're banding up, it's pretty different. Plus that gave me a better view of what bands challenge me for each muscle group. Most anything chest and tri-related was blues or purples... well, curls too. Back and shoulders are generally green/red. My coach John was there too which was good.
Wednesday kickboxing was fun... but then it always is. We added a new move/combo... jab-cross followed by a spin with a back-handed punch. Pretty fun, I'm surprised I didn't hyper-extend my elbow because I was getting wiped by that point and a little fuzzy mentally. Pyramids included roundhouse-pushup combos and I was a little overzealous throwing myself onto the ground for pushups because later on my lower back was feeling kinda sore and tweaky.
Thursday was Halloween. Sarah worked Wednesday night so I was going to do the 5AM class Thursday so I could be home right after work to give her time to nap or otherwise recover. However, at 4AM I realized that the van didn't have enough gas in it to get me to class and back and my wallet was in the car... which was with Sarah at work. So I missed Thursday. :-(
I took Friday (and Monday/tomorrow actually) off of work... I've been needing some extra days off for a while. Sarah and I dropped the boys off at Kid's Time and went to the 9:30 class which was a blast. It was my first 'Friday Funday'... Justin had the bags set up in rows and we warmed up running through them hitting them... then doing either jumping jacks or pushups at the end and then running back to the start. I consider it a minor victory that I didn't screw up a hip, ankle or my back on the final run through with alternating roundhouses... right then left on a bag, run to the next... repeat... Then the bags got put in a big circle with one partner on the outside and one inside and the inner circle rotated through the workout, so I got to partner with everyone on the outside. That was fun, even though I spent less quality time with Sarah... <shrug> Near the end, we were doing right roundhouses for power and I happened to be partnered with a bigger FIT member guy (Randy... not the owner Randy, different) and his first hit really rocked the bag over which kind of woke me up... like 'okay... okay, let's do this...' so we had a good 'see who can knock the bag over first' contest. I had a few good ones in there, but I'm pretty sure he won. But we both won because it was a good workout, right? Right. I know I've never hit that hard... like anything, the best way to improve is to compete with someone better than yourself. Although I suppose that assumes you're a competitive person... which I probably am... a little bit.
So... Friday was the best day so far, I think. Sarah and I were going to get pedicures and some sushi and a movie too so I showered there and we wound up chatting with some of the loitering FIT members along with Justin and Randy.
Saturday morning I was going to go at 7 but Sarah worked and I realized that she wouldn't be home until 6:40 at the earliest... and since Em and Nate aren't here this weekend, I couldn't leave early. So I was faced with a dilemma... show up 15 minutes late to the 7AM class... or just go at 8. Problem with 8 is that it's the FIT class. But I figured... usually in classes through the week, they just have FIT members do things like squats or planks while the rest of us are doing jumping rope or boxer shuffle... so I figured 'well, I can do that'. I showed up and John was there, asked me how class was... and when I told him that I didn't make it to 7, I was there for eight... his eyebrows went up and he was like 'you're doing the FIT class??' I explained my scheduling issue and thought that doing FIT was better than missing 15 minutes of the regular class. I don't think he actually said 'good luck' but the sentiment was implied.
Jill was running the class and it was pretty crowded which especially sucks for me because when we're doing anything that spreads out like lunges or burpees, I take up a lot of room. So Jill started out telling us that we were going to run later than 45 minutes... already a bad sign. The transitions between exercises were much quicker than I was used to and the exercises were quite a bit tougher than I'm used to also. 'Warm ups' included a new thing for me called 'around the world'... which was lunge forward, lunge to the side, then lunge back... that's one. Ten on one side, then ten on the other. Christ. Did hen pecks for the first time... also challenging since I'd never done them... and burpees with pushups and jumps in them. That REALLY sucked... I was only about half-speed as the rest of the class and I was all discombobulated. By the time we were doing walking pushups (stand up, bend over, walk out to standing arm plank on your hands... pushup... walk back on your hands to standing), my hands were so sweaty I was in danger of slipping on the mat while walking out. We also did something... I forget what it's called... it's not 'impossibles' but it's something similar. You stick one leg out behind you like a back lunch, then slowly lower yourself to that knee, then bring the other knee down... then the other leg forward to stand up slowly. It reminded me a lot of exercises we did in wrestling where we'd walk forward like that... foot to knee, foot to knee. I didn't think that was terrible, but then I was also more falling to my knee than lowering myself to my knee...
What else... I dunno, it was brutal. It didn't quite go an hour... I was POURING sweat like I can't remember... dripping into my eyes off of my hair. Our last set was abs stuff and I just sat there for a couple of minutes when we were done.
But... then I drove home. Sun was just up a little ago... it was 35 degrees out, no wind at all, not a cloud in the sky... and that blue sky against the fall colors on the trees... it's some of the best weather I ever see in Minnesota, I just love it. By the time I was ten minutes from home, I had recovered from the class mostly and I just felt... great. Not just the weather, but everything. Chris Brown's 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' song played on the radio when I was almost home and if you've seen the video for it, there's a lot of running around and jumping in it... and it was like how I felt. I don't know how else to express how I felt... it was like life-changingly good physical feelings.
I have six weeks to go... Whatever any of my other goals might be, my main one is just to get to class every day. Next Saturday is the midway point evaluation... I guess we just do pushups and situps to see where we're at. Sarah's working but Em will be here to babysit so I'll be at the 7AM instead of 8AM FIT.... probably... ;-) Really looking forward to 7AM kicking with Sarah again tomorrow.
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