More Birthdays, Homecoming & Boot Camp Week 2

Another crazy busy weekend gone by! I'm going to do my best to recap without writing something too long.

I worked out for 6 of 7 days last week - haven't done that much in awhile, it feels great! With all the festivities that have been happening so far this month, I have to do it to keep the pounds away. Here's a quick recap of last week:

Sunday - 4.3 mile run outside
Monday - 6:15 AM bootcamp
Tuesday - 7:15 PM bootcamp
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - 7:15 PM bootcamp
Friday - 6:15 AM bootcamp
Saturday - 40 minute stairs and crossramp cardio combo (say that 5 times fast!)

To kick off this week, I did 40 minutes on the Stairmaster yesterday - 20 minutes on the fat burner setting and another 20 on the aerobic training setting. I try to simulate real stair climbing as much as possible by not holding onto the machine. I also increase/decrease the resistance throughout the workout to get myself to run up the stairs several times throughout the workout. The Willis Tower Climb is fast approaching, it's on Sunday, November 6th. I'm not quite sure how to train for this thing, but I feel I am in pretty good shape for it. I don't plan on running the stairs, I just plan on getting up them! An hour of cardio is no issue for me and all the squats and wall sits in bootcamp are helping strengthen my legs.

By the way, I surpassed my required fundraising goal of $100 and am currently at $150. But if you would still like to make donations to this great cause - the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago - you can support my personal fundraising page here. Remember, any amount helps out the RIC! RIC provides world-class rehabilitation care to patients - children and adults - from around the globe for traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, as well as stroke and cancer. The funds raised through SkyRise Chicago will directly impact patients' lives by supporting advances in patient care and cutting-edge research at RIC.

Weekend recap
On Friday night, Jacklyn and I went over to Lisa's place to celebrate her birthday. We've been friends for 20 years! We went out to Aurelio's pizza and I definitely ate a lot of pizza. Plus we split a cookie monster dessert. Between us 3 girls and Lisa's hubs Joey, we all did equal damage! We had a great time reminiscing, laughing and making some confessions ; ) Then we hung out at Leese's place the rest of the night.

*My longest friends!*

Saturday was a day I've been waiting for for months...NIU Homecoming!

Me & Carlene

Jermaine and I

Now, since I only get to DeKalb about once a year now, I HAD to stop for some DeKalb indulgences. This included cheese nuggets at Pizza Pro's...beer nuggets at Lukulo's...and later an Oreo shake from Ollie's. Pretty positive my entire week of workouts went to waste! Guess it will all balance out in the end...perhaps...!

Today kicks off Week 2 of bootcamp. We did Kettlebell Khaos again today and I was pleased to find it was already a little easier than last week. Might have to up the weight!

I never thought I would say this...but...I *might* be becoming a morning workout person. AHHH!!! At least a few days out of the week, anyway! It feels nice to come home from work and not worry about getting to the gym. I was able to finish switching out my fall and winter clothes tonight, so now I don't have to worry about it this weekend. This may sound a little strange, but I feel more pressured to stay in shape during the winter than I do the summer. Summer clothes are generally looser and to me they seem more flattering. I always feel much more comfortable in my summer clothes. Sweaters, on the other hand, often make you look bulky. Jeans feel so damn confining. Blech, I hate winter clothing!

Evening Boot Camp and Cat Drama

Tuesday night was my first evening boot camp class. The class size was about 10 people, so you still get personalized attention. Mike is the evening instructor, and like Damon, he was very nice - no drill sergeant type attitudes at these classes! However, I didn't like 2 or 3 of the stations, as they were kind of "eh" to me. One station required you to do one-legged crab walks across the room and I couldn't understand what I was working out or trying to accomplish through those. Another station was just push-ups, which I'm probably complaining about simply based on the fact that I don't like doing push-ups :)

The rest of the stations were great, though. We did some more work with kettlebells, including squats and swings. Then we also did some new stuff with the harnesses - suspension planks!



You can do a lot of variations on these for your abs - LOVE IT! You can swing your legs out to the side to work your obliques, or pull your knees to your chest to better engage your core. I did a mix since we do three sets of these. By the third one I was pretty worn down so I just held the plank position and still felt the burn!

I decided to skip Wednesday morning's class for a couple reasons. The first was that I felt my muscles need a day of rest to recoup and get stronger. I will still be going to classes Thursday and Friday, so that's 4 days of boot camp; plus I did a regular workout on Sunday and plan to do stairs this Saturday and Sunday. I feel I'll be able to finish the week out strong if I give my muscles a day to repair.

Beyond that, there was a more important reason to me for missing - my cat, Lucas. Some of you may remember he was really sick earlier in the year. We noticed on Tuesday that he was squatting and trying to pee in strange places all over the house, but nothing was happening. We put him in the litter box and he would try to go, but couldn't. My aunt, a vet tech, told us that we should take him to the emergency animal hospital, but we were told that it was going to cost $600 - $800. We love Lucas and want to do anything for him, but how are you supposed to scrape up that kind of money at 11 o'clock at night? Especially after I just had to shell out $1,000 for my car accident. All we could do was pray that he would make it until the morning so we could take him to the vet.

Since I was up late, I was already concerned about waking up the class, but I woke up a couple minutes before my alarm went off at 5:30 AM. That's when I knew I wasn't going to go - Lucas was laying next to me and I thought to myself, "If he's really sick and this is the last morning I get to cuddle next to my cat, I'm going to do that." So I stayed with my baby.

Just look at that face. How can you not fall in love?!

THANKFULLY...this little mischief maker is going to be OK. He had a very bad bladder infection, they helped him clear out at the animal hospital and gave him some antibiotics to get him well again. There aren't enough words for how much I love this cat!