I was very sore this morning in my legs and hips and butt from the last two days of work. Triometrics on Friday and Total Synergistics yesterday. I have been trying to work my legs harder. I am sure I am making gains, but it really is hard to tell other than how strong they feel. One thing I do notice, since I am doing burpees, is that I can sprawl better. If you know how to do a burpee, you would understand this, if you don't, hmm... OK. When you do a burpee, you squat down then kick your legs back into plank, do a pushup, bring your legs back up to "frog" position then jump in the air. That action where you kick your legs back into plank is also known as sprawling. It is more of an MMA term, but it fits for this as well. Anyway, I notice when I do this, I am able to do it better than I have been. I know I am getting more fit and losing weight. I know that my legs are getting stronger, but it seems that every week I make them more sore, which means I am pushing harder each time or doing more than I did the week before. They aren't huge strides, but they are changes that are progressing me forward. I feel that my legs need more work as does my whole body, but it is a slow process. I have to be persistently consistent. This journey I am on is not a sprint, but a marathon. All the running analogies.. oh yeah... I am doing a 5k in 6 days.
The burpee challenge I am doing is on day 9 and today was 35 burpees. You can space them out over the day and so far I have not. I do sets of 10 and 5 depending on the count. They go up by 5 each day except after rest days. I do 10 and then I rest for 3 to 6 mins then repeat. It's easier to do sets of 5 and if you space them out over the day, it would be much easier, but I just want to get them all done. I will be spacing out over the day by the end. Day 30 is 100 burpees. 35 was touch, but 100 will be extremely challenging. I am also doing a 100 day 100 pushup challenge. Today is like day 53 or 54. If we continue this all year, I will be able to do this challenge 3 times over this year. I am liking doing pushups daily as well. I have gotten much stronger with pushups and it has definitely shown.
I am really enjoying all the things that I am doing physically, but that next step is this Saturday, a 5k. I have not run and I mean really run with purpose for a long time. Not since 1995 have I tried to jog/run in any form. This is a huge hurdle for me, but it hasn't been so much about fitness as it was a physical problem as a result of the car wreck and some poor lifting habits for a beer company 2 years prior. Regardless of the problem, I had massive pain in my back and legs when I tried to run last time somewhere in the 1996 or 97 range. I decided to heed the Dr.s warning and never run again. I miss running and getting in touch with a friend from high school who is an avid runner has really pushed me to change my thinking. Now I have friends who have been doing marathons and half marathons while I lived in RI, but I never really put much thought into it, or used it as motivation for me to try to achieve that. Since I have been working out and eating as clean as I can, I have been really motivated to be better and do better than I have been. I can versus I can't. The mind can make great things happen if you just get out of the way and let it. I have decided to get out of the way and be better. Thanks Jamie!
She isn't the only person who inspires me. I watched a friend, Jeff, change who he was last summer. His daily biking journal and the pushup and situp challenges he was doing was inspiring to me as well. Just a few years prior to that, I was worried for him. I felt he was in danger of what he was doing to himself. We have talked a lot over the last I guess 8 or 9 months and to see his transformation, he lost 40 lbs with running and biking over the summer, made me want to do better and I had moved. My hand and wrist had the necessary strength to perform in a program like this (P90X3). I had all the time I needed. I really had no more excuses. So I did it. I stepped out of the way and just let it happen. Almost 50 lbs later I am glad I did.
Last night I had a really great time. A girl I went to high school came back into town and well she is the ... how do I put this... ring leader of get togethers. She has been coordinating all the reunions, which I never went to for one reason or another. I mostly didn't go because I didn't have fond memories in school and with all of these same people growing up. I moved in from out of town in the middle of 6th grade. I was different, much bigger ( 6th grade 5'10" 167lbs) and I came from Texas. That alone was reason not to like me. My first week here some kid came up to me and told me that Jeff wanted to talk to you. I was like ok I don't know who he is. I met him in the cafeteria that morning for the first time. I asked me, "I hear you want to kick my ass?" I was stunned and didn't know what to say at first, but I just said "No, I don't even know who you are." This scenario kind of played out for the rest of the year people testing me. I never got into any real fights, but I guess people felt threatened by me. As the years went on, some ridicule here and there about this or that took place, but I made some friends and got mostly adjusted. By the time I got to high school, however, something happened with the popular girl clique that made me really hate them as an entire group. I know what it was, but it was like 8th or 9th grade, so why hold on to that kind of bitterness. I did for some reason. Whether it was the use of a nickname I didn't really like bestowed on me by some jackass redneck coach who was only as bright as the dimmest bulb in the school calling me Big Al because I was 6'1" by 9th grade maybe I was a bit taller.. can't remember when I was what. I was 6'4' by 17 though. Those years weren't the most fun for me, some times were great, and some were not. They didn't know my past. I was a fat little kid and had taken, what by today's standard of conduct would get kids suspended, and it really affected me for the rest of my life and especially my body image issues that never left me. I had to fight and do drugs by 4th grade to either be feared or be respected. I got in a lot of trouble and I think was a motivating factor in us moving to this small town in Arkansas. I was also told to get straight to I was going to military school. I had been suspended, caught smoking weed and was only 10 and 11. That is insane.
About last night. This girl who gets people together and has the loudest most vividly heard voice in a 5 state region and who is probably one of the best people I have known since moving here in 1980. She is tough to get to know and sometimes difficult to like, but I thought really hard about it especially after all the joking around we did about our younger days. She was worth it and no one really knew it then. I see that a lot with some of the people from school. They were worth knowing, sadly I always tried to fit into that mold or box that I felt I had to be in to be accepted. It really wasn't the case and I feel bad for people I was really shitty to and feel proud for the ones who might not have been "______" whatever you might want to call them.. coolest, smartest, most athletic, gifted, best looking whatever. We had only lived for 16-18 years by then. We knew absolutely nothing and we thought we knew everything. So looking back last night and seeing everyone and knowing and learning things about them I have gained a greater appreciation for them. Brian Tracy sums it up well for me:
Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to
you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something
bigger and better than your current situation.
Trying to do this allows me to have gratitude for those people I have known since I was around 12. I might not be an active part of their lives, or them in mine, but I have seen them all grow, change, become parents and lose loved ones. Some good times and bad times have happened to us all, but no matter what has happened to us in our lives, we can still get together and have a great time. I hope to become better friends with as many as I can be. I allowed some feelings to become bitterness and it kept me from being friends for so many years and that is something I regret. Life is about living and not having regrets, so from now on, I live without regret and with a lot of gratitude that I still have people I have known for years and can call them friend.
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