The Return to Fitness

[Guest guest]

Work has been kind of " blah " lately and I've been craving a change, and adventure... so I bought some sessions with my Trainer, Noel, because that way I have something to look forward to twice during the week and it gets me out of the house.

Meanwhile, something really special happened - I was one of around twenty people from a bodybuilding website I blog on that was invited to a reunion in Panama City, Florida, in October!  Mind you, these people are bodybuilders, some of them are even fitness models - so now guess who's REALLY a lot more motivated to get with the program!  I will have to really skimp and save $ to do this but I know it will be tons of fun.  Plus I've never been to Florida - so it will be a little adventure! 

I was greeted at the door by Noel's little baby girl who is 18 months old now, and in the stage of babble talk.  She has all the inflections down for perfect conversation, it's ADORABLE.  We blew each other's hair (except I don't have any hair right now so I pretended to fall back when she blew on me).

We did the usual 4 chest machines, three sets of ten of an ungodly amount of weight, and of course I don't know the real names for them and he never tells me what I'm lifting so I couldn't tell you the poundage either.  All I know is one you do laying on a bench, one you sit at and push forward, one you sit at an incline and push up, and the other one you sit and push at a diagonal (Mr. Diagonal is my favorite of the chest machines).  On my own I prefer free weights...

For triceps we got the usual Rope Pull (my favorite for triceps), the dip machine, and the regular one where I did 70 lbs - with Noel's help, of course.  The  usual crowd was there - Exile, Third Eye Jiujitsu, , and the other trainer that is afraid to look me in the eye (!).  After getting the crap kicked out of me by the personal torturer, I ran on the treadmill for four miles - the most I've done on a machine because usually I run outside.  I really dislike the treadmill BUT I was able to run further on it than I would during my lunch hour outside and also my joints are really thanking me for the lesser impact.  Race #4 of 8 for the year is coming up on Sunday, The Bridge to Brews, another 10K, and I don't want too much impact on the joints beforehand so that I will be race-ready.

Fitness is mostly a training and MMA gym so unlike most gyms there's hardly anyone on the cardio machines.  In fact for most of treadmill run I was the only person on the cardio machines.  I'm also usually the only one in the women's locker room and it's a nice change to not have to negotiate bench space and people hogging up counter space to do their hair and makeup, etc.

After running for around 45 minutes I went to the MMA room where Third Eye Jiujitsu was holding a class and guys were grappling/wrestling on the floor.  I did the usual yoga lower body stretches, took a shower, then went to put my name in the book for seven more sessions, where he said, " You went above and beyond the call of duty today!  How's your chest feeling? "   I wanted to say something like, " so, you're wondering about my chest, eh? " but held my tongue.

Well I'm fine now, but by 4:00 pm tomorrow I'm sure I'll be in a world of pain, as usual.  Tomorrow will be a rest day, then Thursday will be back and biceps, and more running.