Day 16

Whew! The weekend was a good one and I definitely needed some recovery from Friday's session. It was a great work-out but I did find very sore muscles that I didn't even know existed when I woke up on Saturday morning. I did not manage to get any work-outs in over the weekend. My body was fatigued, and I did sleep in both mornings. I know that I feel better when I, at least, get some form of exercise in when I get up in the morning so this is something I need to work on for next weekend. Today is the start of a new week so I'm not going to kick myself for weekend mistakes. What's done is done, and I'll leave the weekend in the past.

Today, I woke up before the alarm and layed in bed until it went off. I did linger sitting on the edge of the bed for a minute before actually getting up, but managed to get up with very little effort which really surprised me. I brushed my teeth, ate my oatmeal, drank some water, put my ponytail in and out the door I went.

I arrived a few minutes early and although my body was still pretty tired, I was really excited for today's work-out. We warmed up with our usual run. The sky was amazing this morning. It was baby blue with a few Clorox-bright, white clouds. The clouds were outlined with the most beautiful shade of electric salmon-orange I've ever seen. There was a soft purple mist grazing the trees in the distance. I'm truly appreciating every sunrise. They are gifts for me, personal paintings for me to enjoy, and I need to thank Him for every single one. The river was very high and I noticed many more ducks than usual. It was sticky and hot and the air was heavy as I pushed myself to "keep running" until I returned to "home base".

Rob informed us that this would be an endurance day and that we would be doing an obstacle course at full-speed until the last 15 minutes which would entail weights and core work. After a bit of stretching, we were off!!! We did push-ups, dips, squats, lunges, rev. crunches, jogging, a type of high heart-rate skipping that I don't think I've ever done before, shuffles, resistance pushes and pulls, and tricep-focused push ups. I completed the course 3 times and finished very strong today! Other than during the walking lunges, which I just can't seem to get the hang of the proper form on, I didn't find myself thinking any negative thoughts. Just the words, "Strength, Power, Endurance, Persistence" kept running through my head. I still hate sweating but there is something empowering about doing push-ups and feeling the sweat dripping from your brow and the tip of your nose and watching it fall to a small puddle on the ground below.

We finished with military presses, rows, curls, push-ups (Yes, mine were "real"!) and a few other arm/back exercises before moving on to abs and core.

Can't wait til tomorrow and I'm looking forward to Thursday's reassessment. I'm a little bit nervous but I know that I have accomplished things that I never thought I would so I'm hopeful that my "scores" will show that I'm improving in strength and endurance. I have to be honest so I can't say that I don't even care about that "number" or that I'm not even thinking about it. Of course I hope that it's gone down!!! But I continually remind myself every day, many times throughout the day, that "it's not about that". That this journey is about ME, my whole self, and HOW I FEEL, and today I FEEL ENERGIZED, POWERFUL, and STRONG!!!