Week Three

Today I am exhausted. It is from a couple of things, including the reason I didn't blog about Monday's class. However, as Sophia Petrillo would say, I digress. Let's get to Monday's class first.

Ryan led Monday's class. I knew right when we got there that we were in for a workout. We started by warming up, running around the field. Just like last time when we wound up at the hill so I was a little leery. We had to hop on one foot part of the way. I have some soreness surrounding my achilles tendon on one foot so that was a little uncomfortable and I had to go slowly on that. We stopped midway and did some burpees. I did better this time than the last time. I went a little quicker, tried to get up a little faster, so some progress. Then we ran some more and I thought, Oh no, the hill! But we didn't go to the hill. Yay! We did some running, some sprints and then some slow. Kind of like red light, green light. I liked this exercise because this was something I could do already pretty well. Then we ran back in for our circuit. We had to do push-ups on the weights and then lift out the weight. Yikes. That was a challenge. Another challenge to meet. We also did the wall sit, did a fast run around a cone, hopped around in the shape of a box, and did some lunges with the medicine ball.

We had a water break and I was ready for a second go at the circuit. But we didn't do the circuit again. We took our mats, made a circle and played a card game. Hearts were high knees running in place, clubs were partner push-ups (more push-ups, ouch), spades was doing some in and out squats, and V-situps. Someone would pick a card and whatever suit it was we had to do that. Someone said, "Pull a joker", which I thought was a joke. We had to do the high knee runs twice in a row, partner push-ups, and the squats. Somehow Sharon hurt her hamstring doing this. She had to take it easy the rest of the time, but she still did pretty much everything. Finally, someone really did pull a joker. But it wasn't a joke. It meant run the hill! So off to the hill we went.
I regretted those dang sprints now. I ran up most of the hill but did have to walk some here and there. Sharon jogged all the way up! What endurance, even with a sore hamstring. Again, on the way down, I ran hesitantly. Don't know what's going on there but some kind of psychological hurdle there to jump. Finally, got to the bottom. I was thinking I'm getting closer to meeting my challenge of running all the way up the hill and down. But not quite there yet. I waited at the bottom with the others, encouraging others to finish and thinking that at least this part was done. But then the bad news. We had to do the hill some more! This time we had to run up the hill to where cones were placed, do 10 pushups (still more push-ups!), and then run to the next cone. I was beat but when I got to the last cone and was doing my last set of push ups I thought, Wow. I did it. I made it to all the cones and did all the push-ups on my toes. Awesome. Then we ran back down and when we got to the field I still had enough in my legs to run back to the shelter. That felt really good. Of course, we still had core exercises to do which didn't feel really good but hey, got through it. This was made especially easier when I saw people arriving for the next class. Monday was a workout! But when I was done, what a great feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. At least it was for me. Poor Sharon kind of hobbled back to the car with her sore hamstring but it's feeling better now.

This blog is kind of long so I'll post about Wednesday's workout tomorrow.

Roger