Blogging it out

I'm doing better today, on the eve of the big 35. First of all, thank you to everyone who read the blog or talked to me yesterday and helped me to regain my perspective. I received a variety of emails and other forms of encouragement to remind me that even on the days when I'm not feeling it . . . I'm doing it . . . and that is worthy of appreciation. By me. Which is something I'm not always good at. So even though Wonderland is full of dark and scary places, and tempting tangents (Chocolate Pink offering me free goodies for my birthday!), there are a host of white bunnies leading me through, I just need to stay focused. And not get my head lopped off at the end. Ok, maybe I've just worn out this metaphor's welcome!

Today's workout didn't have a name (that I caught anyway, correct me if I'm wrong) but it involved a jogging warmup (interspersed with other fun stuff) and then pyramids of pain. We did alternating tricep dips and pushups on the wall around the playground, going down from 10 to 1 and back up again. Then it was up to the field for more circuits around a triangle, with one side always being a sprint. Then the culmination, and the funnest part, was the sprinting pyramids. Sprint for 10 seconds, jog it back, sprint for 10 jog it back. 4 times. Then sprint for 20, jog, sprint for 20, jog. 4 times (I think . . . getting a bit fuzzy on the reps). Then sprint for 30, jog. etc. etc. etc. and back down to 10 second sprints.

It started to be more fun than pain about 2/3 through. My shins were screaming throughout but it did feel good to have the wind in my hair. As an added bonus for me as we progressed some of the other folks were tiring and I was able to keep up with them better, so that was a nice little ego boost for me! Even though this was sprinting I felt like I hit my stride with it and could have kept going a little longer. Wierdly though, once we had done cooldown stretches that momentary lapse of reason had receded and I could barely walk to the cars and do some shin stretches with Instructor Tim.

I'm nervous about my shins getting progressively worse and affecting my performance in the PT test on Friday but I'm not sure how to handle it. I got a nice gel icepack and iced them twice today at my desk. Since I heard compression could help I wore my knee high skin tight leather boots cause they do compress nicely.

I also picked up a new book today, I discovered John "The Penguin" Bingham on the web and I read the first few pages of his book THE COURAGE TO START on Amazon and had to get it. I'm definitely a penguin and its refreshing to consider being ok with that. One of the reasons I avoided sports my whole life is because I had no apparent natural talent, I couldn't compete. And I'm competitive. So while I'm sometimes over the moon about the mere fact that I'm doing bootcamp, other times I still get overly concerned about how I recognize everyone in my group easier from behind than I do from in front!

Wish me luck with the whole birthday thing tomorrow. Maybe I'll treat myself to a trip to Phidippides!