Of course, now I have to go to the one free class to see what is so amazing that they want $40 a class for it. I only hope that it isn’t genuinely so amazing that I would really want to keep going, because I’m so not paying that.

Why wait? Tomorrow, 6:45-7:45AM, PINNACLE FITNESS BOOTCAMP Decatur is located inside Leapin’ Lizard’s Inflatable Center @ 185 Sams St., Decatur GA 30030. I hope we get to play on the inflatable stuff!

Ooh, according to their website, anybody can request one free class. If it’s awesome, I’ll pass it on.

I want to do a group exercise, but I want it to be something I enjoy and look forward to instead of something I have to talk myself into every day and only want to lie down and die after. That’s too much stress every day.

Thus, I’m ready to go check out the Decatur Jazzercise! 30 days, unlimited classes to try it out, and they have classes 7 days a week. I’m so psyched to do this! Now I can go back to my running trainer with Kit, and actually gradually improve instead of just trying to do something else on top of bootcamp running and ending up feeling terrible.

I sat down this morning and sent Dez a message about me dropping out, and then to Shannon letting him know why, and that I just wasn’t interested in a bootcamp type workout anymore apparently. Doing something healthy for yourself is supposed to make you feel good. Sure, working out hard and trying for fast results will leave you sore, but I’ve done that — and we see how well I can stick with it after the classes end. I need to find that healthy thing to do that I’m going to miss when it’s gone instead of enjoying my newfound sleep and non-injury status when it’s over.

Anywho, I’m still logging food and calories. Updated my RDI to account for less exercise immediately, so I”m down to 1800 recomended. Now I’ll just have to see when I can go by Jazzercise and sign up! I called, but they told me I would need to come by in person to officially get into a class with the groupon.

I’d like to keep up the extra workouts in March, and I think I’ve found a good option: Jazzercise. Go ahead, laugh. I snagged a voucher deal for an unlimited month of classes, no sign-up fee, for $23 — usually $85 — and there is one close by in Decatur. They have a nice class schedule, too — something every day, mornings, afternoons, evenings. I’m really looking forward to it now, because I remember how much I loved aerobics classes before, and this seems to be that plus yoga plus strength training. Only downside I see right now is that if I DO really like it, it’s damned expensive monthly @39 monthly for min 12 months or @44 monthly for min 2 months.

Skipped morning bootcamp. Got up, looked out window, saw snow, went back to bed. Just felt too tired to spend the time checking on the roads, so decided to sleep in. Knew I was going to meet Kit anyway.

11AM – Met Kit at climbing gym, and did three routes. First one was the blue one that I slipped off of on Monday. Second was the yellow one in the middle that I’m too chicken to try in a crowded gym, because it’s a busy place to climb. Couldn’t have done it if Kit hadn’t helped hold my weight to get over the little overhang — just not sure where to put my feet to get the leverage I need. Using my arms too much, too. Lastly, did the orange in the far right corner, but arms were just dead. Had to rest rest rest, and still fudged a couple footholds to get to the scenic overlook for a break, but then powered on up okay.

Then we hit the treadmill. As soon as I started walking, and this was just to find my playlist on the iPod, my left hammy is feeling tight. So instead of starting my running trainer, I walk through a song, then stop and stretch it some. Then I walk through another song to see how it feels. It’s still tight, entire left side, nearly to the point of downright painful, so I decide to keep walking a bit. After another song it is seeming to loosen up, so I crank it up and try to run a couple minutes. That isn’t feeling too well, so I ease back down and walk more. In the end, I never started my running trainer and just walked 2 miles at the briskest pace I could manage. By the end my leg felt much better, but I was still mentally wiped out.

Overall

I tried to tell Kit afterwards that my biggest hurdle with exercising seems to be the mental battle. I let every little though niggle at me and try to worm it’s way in so that my brain decides I should stop what I’m doing, and I just have to tell myself that it isn’t that bad. Staring at the distance clicking up helps sometimes, but only if I’m close to a “goal” like a full mile. I watched one of the MTV’s “I Used To Be Fat” shows tonight where a 260 pound girl managed to push herself within 3 months of trying to get to  a 10 minute mile. It showed several of her struggling attempts, and every time her failure seemed to be all in her head. I could really sympathize.

One thing I did notice, which I should have already known from working out with Kit, is that you don’t have to just set a 10-minute mile pace and go for it steadily. You can vary your pace so that you sprint some and you easily jog some and your average comes out to be 10 minutes. The trainer on the show essentially had her doing intervals of sprints and jogs instead of runs and walks. When she felt too tired to go on, instead of slowing below a jog, he had her use the arm rails and hold on, kind of holding herself up, while her feet kept up the jog. Not using her arms for a bit was enough of a break to let her heartrate come back down so she could keep going. I don’t really have the arm rails at home to try it, but the treadmill at the gym ought to work. I think I might give that method a try — with the goal of just keeping going for a solid mile either jogging or running or sprinting, but not walking. We’ll see.

DEZ: Ok guys here it is, week 1 homework, you are responsible to do this every day in addition to your workouts.

2 minute plank (non-stop, at least 1 minute increments, no more than 30 seconds rest if you have to break it up)

100 crunches/ legs elevated with knees bent (don’t pull on neck please)

90 second superman (lay on your stomach and pretend you are flying, lift arms and legs as high as you can, this is a lower back strengthener).

Ladies/50 fire hydrants each leg (on your knees with hands down, lifting one leg up and down to the side, then switch) (keep your arms straight, and don’t lean over)

Men/75 push ups

And that’s all, make sure you do a few jumping jacks and a small stretch to warm up, and stretch some when you are done, should not take long, but you better do it or week two will be a beast!!!!

Even though I’ve been exercising and eating under my calculated RDI, I stepped on the scale 2/10 morning to find I was up 3 lbs. I’ve forced fatsecret.com to recalculate RDI, and it dropped it to 2100 now.

Morning

Bootcamp — warmup calisthenics, weights for biceps, dips for triceps, some kind of shoulder exercise I’d never seen, which you do laying face down, then we “rolled” across the gym alternating a pushup with a “crab dip”.

Overall

I had thought I would do some kind of second workout, but it never happened. I spent the day even more a zombie. I’m just generally sore from these workouts, but don’t feel like anything is really hurt, but I just can’t find any energy. Every time I sat down at a computer I just about fell asleep with my head on the desk. The couple times I really had things to do, I was thankful to have to stand at the work computer.

James says I need to hit a minute clinic for this earache that won’t go away, and I’m finally believing him. I’ve been head full of sinus crap many times, and never had it bother me this way for so long. The pressure and popping in my ear seems almost random. It is really bad in the morning, then seems to get better as I move more during the day, but apparently when we sit down to watch any tv or movie, it goes nuts again. I don’t have a fever with it, though, so I’m not sure whats to be done. A simple OTC Advil Sinus congestion pill makes it better for a few hours, but those damn things are expensive and obviously not actually curing the problem, since I”m on my 2nd box of them now.

Morning

Bootcamp — warmup calistenics include burpees and mountain climbers done over and over today because people won’t count out loud. I find these ridiculously hard for beginners, but he did say “lower impact” not “easy”.

Then we did suicides, but wrong — five times to the first line, next person same, then five times to the second line, next person same… etc, until when you get to the 5th and 6th lines you’re just running distance now. Then we did alternating tricep dips and pushups using a chair to make them a bit easier. Then reverse crunches and crunches with raised legs, and ended with stretches.

This guy is all over the place as a trainer, but I’m trying to cut him some slack with this being a new kind of class for them. It’s just the beginning, and he is still really taking a lot of time with each person individually during the class, which I do like. Since it’s been a while on my shoulder injury, though it still hurts with some moves, he’s encouraging me to ease into and try most exercises to see how it feels, but he’ll come over and watch me try. Then we modify from there if we need to, or he gives me half the reps or something — which always turns out still being actually pretty hard for me.

Late Morning

Climbing gym fitness equip with Kit. Despite my note to NOT bump up to week four after last Thursday since I didn’t really make it throught, I forgot and bumped it up anyway. 4 1/2 minute run, 1 minute walk, 4 1/2 minute run are the main intervals day one of week four. After “suicides” this morning, my left hamstring was a little sore, but this additional walking/running didn’t seem to make it any worse. I couldn’t get through the 4 1/2 minutes, though, and ended up doing about 3 then a short walk, so I ended up with 4 running intervals instead of 2. Not at all success, and worse yet I felt just so out of sorts after that I didn’t want to do any more intervals on my own to music. Instead, I just bumped up the walk pace to a pretty brisk walk and left it there until I hit my usual distance.

We did not do any weights afterwards today, though, which was probably good. It was also a relief on my feet to wear the Vibram for this part of the morning. Suicides in tennis shoes was just enough running to start bothering my arch.

Overall

I was starving when I got home from working out, but only managed a sandwich before work got busy on me. I kept meaning to go back and get some carrots or something else, but didn’t manage to. At about 3 I was freezing to death, still sitting around in my dried-sweaty clothes, so I had to pause at least to shower. By the time James got home I was so hungry I was grumpy out of my mind, and I had to go grab a snack before I could even talk to him. We ate out, sushi, edamame, miso soup, and sat through a movie, so it was a pretty restful evening, though my left hammy started really hurting again while sitting at the theater.

By 9:30 I was a zombie, tired, thirsty, hungry — and it wasn’t until I logged my calories for the day that I realized how far under I was. I made up some of the gap before bed with a big glass of milk and a handful of almonds, but then I was just passed out.

(FatSecret.com calculated based on my activity I should shoot for 2400 calories daily to stay healthy during my two-a-days experiement.)

Morning

Bootcamp eval day — warmup calisthenics, timed “mile” (it’s a little more than a mile he said), then situps and pushups, stretching.

13:42 mile, 38 situps in 2 mins, 19 modified pushups in 2 mins

The pushups and even just the arm circles in warmup are touchy still with the shoulder. Still painful and very weak, though I can hardly call it painful really in comparison to how it was.

Evening

Climbing gym — barely ought to log this.

First route I climbed, my foot slipped off just as I was moving my other foot, leaving me hanging by my arms unexpectedly. Held on, but the jerk it caused in both shoulders was unpleasant and left me in a foul mood. Finished that climb deciding I’d give myself some time before I tried another route.

Second route I tried, easy ranked route that I have only climbed once ages ago, and I bombed it big time. No skill. Couldn’t focus on what I should be doing. James said it was a lot of match hands to pull up then reach moves that I couldn’t see. Didn’t make it all the way up before I was so stressed out and tense and worried about hurting myself. Took my shoes off and gave up climbing for the night after that one.

Overall

I’m generally tired, feeling like I’m in some kind of brain fog. My memory is for shit. I’m sure it’s the altered sleep schedule and general anxiety of bootcamp again. I’m drinking a lot of tea and water, and I’ve upped to 2-4 morgina supplements a day just for the added vitamins to keep myself from getting sick as I try this.

I think two-a-day workouts are a good idea, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want one of those two to be bootcamp. I guess I’m glad he thought of me to try this month, but I’m really over it. I already know I’d rather get up every morning and go to the Curves circuit instead, and keep going with the running trainers, maybe 3 days a week instead of 2. But I will stick it out for now.

Thus, seems a shame that  it is also available as a supplement to fat-assed, overindulged Americans, but so it is. Just because we eat a lot, doesn’t mean we’re eating what we should to be healthy. Studies have indicated that “cravings” were originally the bodies way to telling us we were lacking in some nutrient, though our chemically altered food in this century has wreaked havoc with that natural process. Never-the-less, I’m interested to see how a nutritional wonder supplement, essentially nature’s daily vitamin, will affect my usual food cravings.

“Recommended” dosage is 4 x 375mg capsules daily, but I’m going to start small and see how it goes. I don’t really think I eat all that crappy. We’ll see.

I’m hoping the best part of this supplement will be no added crap to boost metabolism that will make my heart race or just make me sweat at random. Yay vitamins, boo diet pills.

And — I may have, I guess I should say I as good as promised to go back for a month of bootcamp. It’s a new trainer and a new venue at a somewhat later but still early morning timeslot, and it’s supposed to be a true “lower-impact” version but still a great workout. He was looking for the previous drop-outs, the previous injury-prone, and the previously unmotivated. Apparently I’m not the only one out there with pre-paid time they haven’t used, as he said this class isn’t being advertised yet — so it will be all “vets”. It is 7am Monday-Thursday, and starts Feb 7th. I’ve said I’ll try it a month and give him feedback, but there’s a big part of me that can already say I don’t want to get up and workout four mornings a week right now.

So, hey, it’s 2010 and stuff. Welcome. Yeah. Most of you knew that already. So far I’ve had more work to do for less pay than I can remember in a long time, put our household on a strict budget, and resolved to take the need for some personal changes more seriously than ever before. As for how all that’s working out for me, well, tonight it took two Tylenol and a Lynchburg lemonade to make the pain go away from hunching over the desk all day, so I could go hunch over a table with some friends and play Cthulhu for hours.

So yeah, there’s that. I’m gaming again, but I’m still off the electronic stuff, I swear. It’s only the good clean paper and dice gaming for me, man. It occurs to me it was only Tuesday I heard Ben was still playing WoW like an addict, and I actually kinda felt sorry for him. After tonight’s few minutes of gaming interlaced with hours of bad puns and tangents, I’m actually thinking the computer games might be a little more immediately satisfying. I forgot how much I dislike “cliffhanger” gaming sessions, unless I’m running them, of course. Let’s just say tonight’s session was a real train wreck and leave it at that. *wink*

A new year always seems like a good excuse for attempting some changes, so why not follow that crowd. The job scare didn’t hurt either. So, I’ve recently brushed up on some PHP basics with the notion of looking into Facebook app programing, and then gotten merrily sidetracked with the phenomenon of social media’s influence on modern advertising, and sort of haphazardly found myself reading up on SEO instead. Heck, today — I wish I could say for fun — I made some photo slideshows with flash, another set of skills I probably ought to have and really just don’t. Essentially so far 2010′s been all about “back to school” for me. Apparently after you go to your 20 year high school reunion you start to wonder if all your knowledge is really 20 years old, and start to seek out new skills. Or it could be just me.

Haven’t forgotten how to write, though. Well, not literally at least, see I’m doing it right now! Grammar is a little out of left-field these days, but I do like to capture what I’m thinking and worry less about what grade I might get. Felt good to stretch the mental muscle a bit to write up the first in my SEO tutorial series, where I’m essentially taking the general concepts I’ve picked up, focusing them for real estate agents, and even further focusing them based on what can actually be done with our websites. I’m actually looking forward to writing up hopefully the next two lessons over this weekend, so I can get ahead in case things get insanely busy again.

I meant when. I’ve put in more hours for work this month than in ages, and it’s nuts when I’m supposed to be cut back to a 24-hour work week. There have been some interesting challenges for sure, and honestly it’s been coming at me from so many sides it’s been hard to decide where to focus. Just when I get the plan in place to use all my idle time to study, somebody goes and takes away my idle time. I guess that’s why I have to resort to making time to journal again at 1AM, when I’m supposed to be on a 10PM bedtime schedule. Shyeah.

So, before the uber-budget hit, I plopped down the dough to sign on for another 6-months of ass-kicking bootcamp, this time at an indoor location. I got three days in, then the snow-ice hit. Then I got kinda sickly. Then I just got really off my schedule, which brings us to now. Tomorrow… er… later today is the last day of January and I’ve been to bootcamp three times! Woohoo! Month one down, right!?

It’s the timeslot. I cannot do getting up at 4:30 daily, fancy new-fangled light-therapy alarm clock aside, I have not been able to do it. Just knowing I’m going to TRY to get up the next morning causes me to have the worse time getting to sleep that when the light wakes me up, I just want to smash the light. I’m seriously considering swapping to the evening class back at Stone Mountain Park, which would be outdoors, but at least would be 6:30 in the evening instead. I have decided to decide this weekend, and make a fresh go at whatever come Monday. Of course, I could just go to the Saturday bootcamp at Stone Mountain park and tell them in person, but that’d mean I’m running come Saturday and I can already feel the notion-of-exercise-induced-insomnia coming on.

In what seems like an unrelated note to the reader, yet is clearly only a tangent in my brain, I’ve also decided to actually do the little photography project I’d considered doing a couple years ago, wherein I take goofy pictures of my favorite things and try to capture their story. Figure out, essentially, what makes them my favorite. Stupid, likely, but either all this crap sitting around on shelves are just toys and junk I’m hoarding, or they actually are “special” and deserve a little consideration.

Alright. I think I can walk away and consider that a big meaty journal entry for 2010 to sink it’s teeth into. Take that 2009! 2010 journal entries are going to kick your ass, and this is just the first one!