Worst blogger ever.

I’m officially the worst blogger ever.  It’s been like a week since I’ve posted and more than that since anything of significance.  But today is my last day ‘on campus’ as they say – so I’ll have some time to post some of my recent experiences soon.

I’m so sad to be leaving LIFE again!  I’ll have some new “before/after” pictures shortly tho, and am excited to report that since this journey began, I’ve lost over 30lbs!  It’s very exciting – I really need to go shopping!! 

But while I’m sad to be leaving, I’m so happy to be heading home to see family and friends.  I haven’t seen my niece and nephew for weeks!  My sister, Kelly, has planned a massive 50s Birthday Party for my other sister, Katie for her 30th bday – and it will be so fun to see all my family!

There’s some work to be done when I get home of course – gotta figure out how to keep excercise and eat right at home too, but I think I can manage it!

Off to my final weigh-in.  We’ll see where I’m at before heading home!!

Crazy Bi*ch

Short funny story.

On Friday we went to the Santa Monica stairs.  I was suffering from a bit of a mental block about the stairs.  The last few times I went, I had topped out at 5 or 6 sets (up and down 170 stairs) – I couldn’t seem to get past it.  So I knew I had to do at least 7 or I’d still be stuck.

Generally I don’t listen to music or anything.  I like looking around at the people and listening to their conversations.  But this time I brought the iPod.  I figured I should break out the motivating music.  My iPod workout mix is….interesting.  My friend DJ Dan likes to say that I listen to a wide variety of crappy music.  That’s probably true.  The only requirement for a song on my workout mix is that it be fast, have a good beat, and make me happy/motivated.

So one of my favorite workout songs is “Crazy Bitch” by Buckcherry.  Please don’t click on the link…it’s a completely inappropriate song.  COMPLETELY.  Don’t do it.  DON’T CLICK.  Just know it’s inappropriate.

Seriously, I can run SO fast during this song.

So I’m climbing stairs and humming/singing to myself with the music in my earphones.  My friend Mark is coming down the stairs while I’m going up and he sees me and starts laughing.  I think he’s laughing ’cause I’ve just mouthed the words “crazy bitch.” so I smile and laugh and we pass each other.

Well – after we got home, he told me that I actually said “crazy bitch” super loud and the woman walking in front of me turned around and looked at me in shock, obviously thinking I’d yelled at her.  He said it made his morning.

By the way – made 7 stairs.  I’m still going for 10 by the time I leave on Nov 20.  Trainer Rob and I are going to schedule a longer stair climb to give me a few extra minutes – I have no doubt I can make 10, I just might need an hour and 10 minutes instead of an hour.

Run, don’t walk.

I think it might be time to talk about running.

Let’s be clear. When I arrived at LIFE, I could run for maybe, 20 seconds.  Maybe less. I used to joke that I didn’t run unless I was being chased.  But the reality was that I couldn’t have run even if I WAS being chased.

One of my challenges when I got to camp was that I was slowwwwwwww.  Even walking, I was slow.  I always blamed it on my short legs.  It’s true, I have short legs, but that’s also a pretty lame excuse.  So I’ve been working on running.

It’s simple really.  I started out by running 20 steps.  Anybody can run 20 steps right?  Then I would walk, say 30 steps.  Then run 20, walk 30, run 20, walk 30…and so on.  At first I walked more than I ran.  But pretty quickly, I was running about 45-50% of the time.  So I started adding more steps – running 30 steps, walking 30.  Then running 50 steps, walking 20.

You get the idea.  So how am I doing?

I’ll tell you about Cardio Bootcamp.  For an hour in the morning, a trainer has us do hardcore cardio intervals.  5 min warm-up.  Then 2 minutes at a 7-incline on the treadmill at a fast walk.  Then 1 minute flat walk.  Then 2 minutes at a jog. Then 1 min flat walk.  Then 3 minutes at 8-incline.  1 min flat walk.  3 min jog a little faster than last time.  And so forth for 45 minutes.  Well I was actually able to run for a full 4 minutes.  For the 5 minute run, I had to walk for two 10 second rest intervals in the 5 min, but managed to run almost the full time.

I also shaved another 5 minutes off my Pier Run (which I’ll tell you more about later, but is essentially a 2.5 mile beach run/walk).  I run about half of it – and managed to make it in 55 minutes. At TBA I run most of the game (off and on).

And in our beach bootcamp on Saturdays, we often do a run around a bird sanctuary.  Its about 3/4 of a mile in soft sand.  In the past I’ve done it in about 14 minutes.  Last week I did it in 11.30 the first time.  About 20 minutes later in bootcamp, we had to do it AGAIN – and beat our time.  I beat my time by about 20 seconds   Don’t get me wrong – I’m still one of the slower people at camp (those short legs and all), but who cares?  I’m twice as fast as I was!

Hey Sir-Mix-a-Lot, I may not yet be Flo-Jo, but this baby’s got back, and I’m running with it.

What the heck have I been doing anyway?

Good lordy I know I haven’t been very good at posting lately.  I have a good excuse – my schedule has been “pumped up” as they say.

When I first started at LIFE I was generally scheduled from around 8am till 5pm.  One or two days a week I may be scheduled to 6:30pm or 7 (always on Cardio Movie night of course – when we do cardio while watching a movie, every Thursday night).

Since I came back this month, I’ve generally been working out till 6:30 or 7pm every night.  It’s been great – but especially exhausting.

On the plus side?  I’m burning a TON more calories than I was last time!  In my first month at camp, I burned an average of 2300 calories per day (judged by my trusty Polar watch, which keeps track of my heart rate and then gives an estimate of calories burned based on my weight and VO2 max fitness level).  This time around I’m burning 3000 – 3500/day on long days.  On Saturday, with TBA and bootcamp, I burn almost 2000 by lunch!

Why am I burning more this time around?  Well, I’m WAY more in shape than I was when I started.  So instead of walking I’m running.  And instead of stopping every few minutes to catch my breath, I’ve got the endurance to keep going.  That means more calories burnt!  So hopefully that will translate to faster results.

I’ll try to be better about posting, gentle readers.  If I can just stay awake….

Happy Halloween (LIFE-style)

Played TBA on Halloween and thought I’d share my special “look” that day.  Hehehe.  Do I intimidate you?  Hmmmm?  I know I’m VERY scary. 

We had a little Halloween party on Saturday night!  The LIFE people made us a few special pizzas and we heated them up and watched Carrie and Young Frankenstein.  So much fun!  See?  Even at bootcamp a little fun can be had