Billy and Battlewounds

Billy, a trainer at NYSC, runs one of my favorite classes ever--an outdoor conditioning class in Central Park during the spring/summer. So naturally, when Billy told me about doing an intense indoor invite only class at NYSC 86th Street, I couldn't say no...even though it takes place on the day that I planned to take off. As a result of taking on this new class my schedule is now as follows:

Monday/Wednesday: Warrior Fitness Boot Camp
Tuesday: Speedwork with Terrier
Thursday: Easy run with Alanna/Terrier Swim Practice
Friday: Terrier run (hills or tempo)
Saturday: Boot Camp with Billy/spin
Sunday: Long run/swim

So yeah, that's ridiculous. But not quite as ridiculous as (a) today's class and (b) how sore I know my entire upper body is going to feel tomorrow when I wake up.

On to the fun that was class. We warmed up by doing lateral shuffles and karaokes and some pushup drills in a circle. Then, Billy decided we'd do pushups in a circle until someone gave up and stopped. Basically, one person does a pushup and holds pushup position and then the person to their right does one, and on and on around the circle. I think we got to 27. By then my arms were already killing me but there was more fun to come. At that point we did a number of timed exercises including squat thrusts for a minute (I did 37 which I was pretty pleased with) and squat jumps.

Then, Billy split us up into three groups and we split up and did different circuits. My group was incredibly hardcore and we started by pulling this sled across the room by a thick rope. Let's not forget to mention that the sled was loaded up with 100 lbs of weight. No joke at all. Next up, we had box jumps and pushups. In our group of 3, 2 of us did 20 box jumps while the other did pushups. Once the "counter" (the designated box jumper) was done with her 20, we rotated. I think we each ended up doing about 160 box jumps in total. Then we were on this crazy upper body circuit, which is the reason my arms are going to be SCREAMING tomorrow morning when I wake up. It went like this: 12 pushups (I know...clearly Billy likes to torture us with pushups), 6 bench presses, 12 pushups, 6 bench presses, 12 pushups, 50 punches with the bands, 12 pushups, 6 bench presses, and 12 pushups, 50 punches with the bands, 12 pushups. I don't even want to count the number of pushups I did in total today.

Finally, we did one more RIDICULOUS thing. Billy stacked up 7 risers under a step and made us jump up on it 5 times. Once all 3 of us had done it 5 times, we added another set of risers. We got up to 12 risers, which, let me tell you is pretty freaking high and needs to be stabilized by a non-jumper holding down the step. When I was performing my non-jumper stabilizing duty, however, Jamie, one of the girls in my group jumped up onto the step but managed to scratch my face in the process. It's not too bad but I'm counting it as battlewound nonetheless. (see below for a photo of my scratch taken later in the day after I had showered and put on some makeup...for the record, it looks much worse in person) After all the jumping, our time was up for using the space so Billy couldn't torture us anymore.



I then decided that for good measure I should do 20 minutes on the spin bike b/c hey, I didn't have brunch plans for another hour.

Total Exercise Today:

1:15 min of Billy's bootcamp
20 min spin

Day 1 of Blogging

After reading tons of fitness blogs and loving them, I decided to start one of my own. For one, I'm pretty sure all of my friends are sick and tired of me raving about my workouts so, this gives me a place to share them. I began running back in 2007 thanks to my friend Stin and my firm track club. That November, I did my first half marathon and then the following November I ran the NY marathon and I've basically been a running junkie ever since. I did the Philly marathon in 2009 and then the NY marathon again in 2010. NY is an awesome race--I'm signed up to do it again this year. As a result of training with the terrier tri team running coach Spencer for NY 2010, somehow I got roped into signing up for the team and allegedly training for my first tri. So here I am, from a runner (loosely speaking) to a triathlete.

I'm not really much of a triathlete because I didn't really learn to a bike until Summer 2010 and I just am learning to swim this year, so it should be an interesting transition. I'm also a bit addicted to other gym activities like kickboxing, spinning and boot camp so that gets in the way of training for the 3 sports.

Today I was supposed to go to Terrier Practice at 6am but I literally put on all my running clothes, went outside, noted the "wintry mix" falling from the sky and turned around and went back inside and back to sleep. 2 hours later, I woke up and did the Terrier workout on the treadmill. 6x400 meters with a 400 meter active recovery and 4x200meters with 200 meters active recovery. I did the first 4 400 meter intervals at 8.5 and then the last 2 at 8.6 and 8.7. Then I did the 4 x 200 meter intervals at 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, and 9.0. I warmed up and cooled down for .5 miles each which ended up making the workout approximately 5 miles.

It's weird because sometimes I feel like I can push myself way harder on the treadmill because my body has to keep up with the conveyor belt unless I actually stop the mill. But on the other hand, I've heard that the mill pushes you a long a bit.

Total Workout today:

Running: 5 miles (45 minutes)