Arrrrrrrrgh not AGAIN

Went to the gym this morning, thought it might do me good to sweat out some of this cold bug.... I did over 10k on the bike (7 miles in just over 19 mins at level 5)and then my trainer took me into the fitness room to stretch. Today we did some yoga moves and I friggin moved the wrong way and totally messed up my back again. I have been in severe pain all day. I was practically in tears when I felt the pull because I know what is to follow and I am so tired of hitting roadblocks in this journey. So here I am at home with a bad back and coughing my head off (you can imagine the pain associated with that) and a spirit that has once again been deflated.

I have cancelled all plans for the weekend and will work on stretching my back and legs in the hopes that I will be better next week. Damn this is so frustrating, but I suppose if it was easy, it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying at the end!

The Dreaded Man Cold!

Ever heard of that term. Apparenlty men become whiney when they are sick.... well I am not a man (in case you didn't notice) but I am probably the biggest suck to be around when I am sick. I went to the gym Wednesday morning, wasn't feeling great but not too bad either. Came home and showered and was driving to work when the cold and flu symptoms hit me like a ton of bricks! I still have the head congestion, you know where your entire face hurts, and the runny nose and fever- blargh. I was supposed to go check out a martial arts gym with my trainer last night which I am pumped to go see but had to cancel, and I had to cancel a date tonight which I was so looking forward too..... ok ok, I will stop whining..... I just hate being sick. Hopefully I can get in a workout tomorrow morning.

So speaking about working out, I have been wearing my body bugg when I work out to calculate calories burned. It's a little bit surprising to see the calorie burn when I think about how hard I work out but it is also interesting to see most activities, with boxing being the exception, burn between 275 and 300 per hour. Here is how my last six training sessions stacked up against my CN Tower climb:

CN Tower : 1 hr 10 min calorie burn 310

Weight cycle: 1 hour calorie burn 275

Cardio: treadmill 1 min intervals at incline 15, speed 3.5 and lunges in between sets - calorie burn 293

Boxing : conditioning, wearing 40 lb vest 1 hr calorie burn 495

Weight cycle: 1 hr - shoulder back and legs calories burned 277.

Cardio: 1 hr bike 10 k lv 5, rpm between 80 - 90, treadmill intervals lv 15, sp 3.5, calories burned 410.

Wow, I just downloaded wednesdays workout and the bike and treadmill gave me a great calorie burn, this is something I will look at doing myself when I go.

Finally, a fitness progress report..... Plank position- lol. when I started I could hold the plank position for oh about 5 seconds before collapsing in a pool of sweat on the floor..... Wednesday I did the plank position for 1 min 16 seconds yay!

Boxing and becoming an athlete

Well I boxed on Friday and had an amazing workout. I was feeling really good about the workout and how I was feeling. My trainer brought his camera in with him and taped one of the sequences. I didn't want to look at the video because in my mind I have a vision that I look amazing, cut like a boxer, strong arms and have perfect form. I know that is not reality, but that is what I imagine and my hope is that if I can see it, I will eventually be it -lol. So anyway I finally watched the video and was actually pleasantly surprised by how I look. Not great by any means, but really not that bad either. I am hoping to get a copy of the video and will post it here eventually.

I took Friday off of work and took my Nephew to my eye doctor to do his very last requirement to join the Canadian Armed Forces, and his vision is fine. He has completed all of the tests, all of the interviews and all of the paperwork and is official accepted into the army. He now has to wait until there is an opening in the artillery section which is now where you has decided to go. I am so proud of him. He has come such a long way and I look forward to watching him graduate from boot camp sometime in the coming year.

Finally, I went to my cousins house yesterday and saw lots of relatives whom I haven't seen since Christmas and it was so funny, and a bit surreal, that everyone now relates me to fitness. One friend of the family hugged me and then yelled out to everyone, "she just climbed the CN TOWER" while everyone cheered. My cousin and her husband were planning our upcoming triathlon and my cousin was asking me to help her pace herself in the pool, and another cousin, her husband, and her son, all specifially have me in mind to run a 5k race in June with my cousins son for crohn's desease as he was recently diagnosed, which of course I will do. It was just so strange and so wonderful to be looked at as an athlete, having my family look at me with pride and think of me as a bit of a role model for what can be accomplished.

Having a great weekend so far.... amazing date night on friday night, helped out a friend yesterday who was having a spa birthday party for her daughter, 1st communion party Saturday night and today, I am helping out my sister who is having a spa birthday party for my niece. I will be glad to get back to work tomorrow, just so I can rest!

Just some odds and ends and jokes

So the odd part is that I was upset yesterday, even though I am crazy for feeling this way, but when I saw the published list of stair climb finishers, there were about 4500 participants and there were 15 who finished slower than I...... BUT I have gotten over it today after thinking about where I was a year ago so I know it was a dumb thought, but I wanted to capture it in words for future use....

step back in time abour 6 years ago, I hurt my back and somehow ended up stuck in bed, unable to lift my big ole self up into a sitting position. I live alone, but there was a phone beside my bed, so I could have called for help, but I was too proud, or didn't want to alarm anyone, or didn't want to go through the shame of having someone come and break into my apartment to "save" me. Well after 3 days of not moving, no food, no water I started to feel a bit weak and decided to try one last time to get up. I managed to get into a sitting position but realized I was too weak and couldn't get up, so I ended up calling my Dad to come save me, which he did and everything was fine.

Fast forward to my stair climb....I'm certain my Dad was terrified I was going to have a heart attack, but he just kept saying be careful, be careful...... So I was taking to my younger sister yesterday and she mentioned she has been battling vertigo, and I mentioned that I have had that before...... note the BEFORE, not now. So tonight my Dad calls and asks if I am alright because somebody mentioned that I am feeling a little dizzy after my climb- OH FFS...... On one hand I am sad that my 74 yr old father still has to worry about my health, but I the other hand I want to say please give me a little credit here..... show a little bit of faith in me...... I told him I am fine and in fact I have already began training for my triathlon....... wait until I invite him to my boxing match- lol, that will get him going- haha

Anyway, as per usual, I don't know where I am trying to go with all of this but I just wanted to let it go from inside of me and move on.

Challenge #2 done- time to refocus and move on

So today has really been about reflecting on yesterdays accomplishment and using all of the positive aspects of my climb to motivate me in moving forward on my journey. I was talking to my friend Merlyn, who climbed with me, today and we both agreed that every moment of yesterday was such a positive experience, and we were both glad that it was so difficult to complete because in finishing it, we both realized that we really are capable of doing anything! For me I was also excited about feeling like I fit in with everyone else climbing, even the conditioned athletes who passed me were breathing really hard and were struggling a bit and we met up with many many people who were basically going at the same pace as us, so we would pass them, stop to rest, then they would pass us etc etc. Nobody turned to gawk at me as they passed, nobody snickered at the fat girl trying to catch her breath, there was nothing but support, and encouragement for what I was doing. That really is a big thing for me, and I know I beat this issue to death on here, but the reality is that is the one thing that holds me back I think.... is after spending my entire life trying to go unnoticed and fly under the radar, putting myself out there is a difficult thing...... blah blah blah.

Anyway, today I am emptying my entire fridge of anything that is not healthy, not fresh, or is beginning to look like a science experiment *blarg* and tomorrow I will re-stock, replan, and kick my ass back into gear. I have also dusted off my body bugg and will try and get back into using that. It is really quite surprising to me that climbing the CN Tower for 70 minutes only burned 310 calories. When I box (conditioning) at the gym, I burn approximately 500 calories. Since my knee is feeling better these days, I am going to see if I can start adding some more cardio to my routine, and also getting in some extra time at the gym..... even if it's just walking on an incline in the evenings.

1 hour, 09 mins, 52 seconds of pure climbing hell!

Wowza what a challenge THAT was. A breakdown of my CN Tower stair climb is as follows:

- stopped on the 10th floor and was already feeling tired, only 134 flights left to go
- stopped on the 20th and for a split second thought about turning around and going back down
- stopped on the 30th and thought that my lungs were going to explode, pain in my lungs was tremendous - cursed myself for all the damage done from smoking for so many years.
- stopped on 40 and realized that time no longer mattered, this was about pride and just completing this climb
- decided to break down the floors in 5 flight sets with breaks after each set
- got into a rhythm from from 40 to 72, the half way mark. High 5'ved my climbing partner at the thought of actually climbing that high. Tried not to think about still having 72 more to go. At this point our ears started to get plugged because of the altitude.
-72 to 100 was a bit easier. Decided that instead of thinking about doing another 44 floors, we would concentrate on doing 8 sets of 5 flights and just count down from 8. This worked tremendously.
-made it to the top...... I think the cruelest part was they stamp your card at the top and you think you are done but then you have to climb another 10 flights to get out into to tower. It was awesome coming through the door though, drenched in sweat, to the cheers of the crowds at the top.

To me the best part of the day was the people. Everyone on the stairs was cheering everyone else on, it was lovely to see and to be a part of. Fellow blogger CD Blueberry often talks about "not fitting" being a bigger person, and today everyone fit and that was fantastic. Just as a side note, the best part of the day was meeting a young woman who stopped to rest with us at about floor 110. She was in obvious pain and I asked if she was alright. She said she wasn't sure if she could continue for another 34 floors and I told her we were breaking it down into sets of 5 flights and surely she could do that 6 more times.... So she kept pace with us and we helped each other out. When we stopped on floor 130 she told us that she was fulfilling a promise she made to her mother a few weeks ago when she died of breast cancer. She promised her she would complete the CN tower climb. This totally inspired me to push hard at the end and get up there with her and that totally got us to the top where she thanked me for helping her through when she thought she wouldn't make it.

I have attached some photos of the day and have included some pictures from the top looking down, just so you can see how high we really were(note: the official height from the base up to the main deck of the tower is 342 metres (1,122.0 ft).)

Habit Wabbit

A long time ago when I was attending weight watchers meetings the leader did something called a monthly habit rabbit..... I changed it to wabbit just because I like the sound of that better. Anyway the premise of the Habit Wabbit is that it takes 28 days to break a habit, so at the beginning of each month we would choose a habit to break and work on that for the month. The next month we would continue with the newly formed habit an choose another bad habit to work on breaking. Get the concept?

So since I just thought of this brill idea today, and we are mid month, I am going to do a bit of a trial...... for the next two weeks I will break my habit of ordering a large Tim Hortons coffee on my way to work and then a second one at 11:00 break.... I can have only a medium coffee with milk at either of those two times.

Anyone want to join in? (come on it will be FUN)

One week until I climb- and last week in review

So by this time next week, I will be writing about my experience climbing the CN Tower. I feel very calm and confident about this challenge which actually is the biggest victory for me. I know I will make it, even though I know it won't be easy, I know I can do it, and this change of mind set is really amazing. This week at the gym I will be doing the stair climber on Monday, once again doing the equivalent of the tower..... Wednesday boxing (conditioning) and Friday the bike. Other than that I will make sure I am eating well this week, no eating out, no alcohol, and get lots of rest.

Last week was a disaster food wise, I think I ate out every night for a week. Luckily, my weight has not sky rocketed and I did try to make healthy choices at most of those meals.

Fitness wise, I am happy to report that I was able to actually spar with my trainer on Friday. He donned his boxing gloves and started teaching me blocking techniques. After getting clocked in the nose 2 times, I certainly understand the value of learning how to block punches. My trainer felt bad about connecting with my nose on two occasions (even though it didn't really hurt, but don't tell him that-lol) so much so that he texted me in the afternoon to see how my nose was..... I replied not to worry, I was fine...... and then added that the Dr. said the broken nose would heal nicely and the black eyes should be gone within a few days- hahaha, I am such a shit!

Personally, every thing is going well, I am enjoying the company of friends and looking forward to getting out and mingling a bit more as the warm weather approaches.

CN Tower Stair Climb - Update

Well, I climb the tower on April 17th. I have been a bit worried because of the injury to my knee I have been unable to do much in the way of weight bearing exercise- so no stair climbing for a few weeks.... Today my trainer put me on the stair climber and I actually did the equivalent of climbing the CN Tower. I did just over 1,200 steps which I believe worked out to be approximately 120 floors..... Yipee, it was such a relief to actually do this. Took about 45 - 50 minutes to complete.

Now I am going to do the same think next Monday and then next Saturday is the real thing. I will be climbing the worlds 2nd or 3rd tallest free standing structure...... AWESOME!

That day has finally come

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever" Lance Armstrong

I woke up this morning jumped out of bed and began my usual morning ritual... all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of brinks. No pain! No pain at all in my back, and even more exciting, absolutely no pain in my knee. FINALLY, I was feeling strong, my legs didn't ache, nor did my shoulders and I could not feel any inflamation in my knee.

Now this didn't last the entire day, but I am feeling so much better then I have been. It has been months since I have felt this strong. Kudo's to my personal trainer for not only helping to make me strong physically, but also for pointing me in the right direction when I needed extra help..... he has been working with me at the gym doing physio cycles and along with the osteopath, I am feeling great.

On a side note, I have been eating pretty much Gluten free for a few weeks now and I am feeling so much more energetic.... Still not 100% on track, but things are changing for the better.......

Happy Easter everyone!