Sunday, April 27, 2014

BEACH FINALLY HAPPENED.



It happened so hard. And it was glorious. And we even had a side of adventure thrown in. For example:

ZIP LINE!


You might think that as a person who runs ultra-marathons that I have a healthy sense of adventure. However, when I'm not running I like my feet firmly planted on the ground (and let's face it, butt on the couch) so the fact that I hung from a wire high up in the sky above all the tree tops is something that I still have a hard time believing happened in my real, actual life.

But it did!

And then I showered in my air conditioned hotel room and marched my ass back to the pool for more pina coladas. I may have drank my weight in fruity cocktails last week. It was an impressive showing.




Seriously though. Just to lift my face to the sky and feel ACTUAL WARM on my skin was almost more amazing than flying through the air like an extreme-adventure-style-Mary-Poppins. After the winter we had here in Wisconsin (that at times felt like it would break me into pieces) I feel like I can hardly put into words the feeling of calm that swept over me to just dig my feet into the sand and watch the sun setting over the Pacific. I had been holding so much anxiety in my body leading up to this trip that it was phenomenal to relax and let it all fall away.




Getting a Swedish massage may have helped as well. And did I mention all those pina coladas?




Monday, April 7, 2014

Ch-Ch-Chisel

Episode #6 in my YMCA group exercise saga is Y-Chisel! (Gotta love the names of these classes.) After Combat, Blitz, and Pump I wasn't quite sure what Chisel would bring and how it would be different from the others.

This time I joined up with my friend Sara. We were the first two there but the instructor already had a mat laid out in the middle of the room with some weights and a resistance band so we sized up what she had and followed suit. I was still a little unsure how heavy weights to use so I ended up grabbing four sets to choose from (along with what I knew to be a medium-weight band.) This many weights was probably overkill but the class ended up being so small that I didn't feel bad taking so many options.

Getting down to business:

This class felt similar to Body Pump in that it had set tracks of music for different types of exercises. (Shoulder pressing, lunging, core work, etc.) We stuck to high repetitions of lower weights again, which kind of throws me at first because I usually like to use heavier weights. Despite grabbing one of the larger sets of dumbbells before class, I never used them! We also did a lot of exercises that used our own bodyweight. For example we had a few sets of plank walkups that seemed to go on forEVER. It was a real challenge to push through that track without stopping to take a break. Another track had us using the resistance band- lots and lots of glute kickbacks with the band wrapped around our feet. I certainly felt those the following day.

I really enjoyed how this class is a blend of cardio and strength work. My heart rate was up the whole time and the 45 minutes seemed to fly by. I also feel like I got a very balanced workout from head to toe. Overall I feel like the Y has a great mix of classes so you can switch things up a lot and not get bored.




Next up: ZUMBA