Nail Biter

Google Images continues its magic streak. This came from "tell me shake".  I was looking for something more like this:

Anyway. 


So the grade became visible at midnight. I got an 87.5 at first, then saw that one of the questions hadn't given me the credit I should have gotten, so I ended up with an 89.1. I needed an 89.667 to guarantee an A. 

I'm 0.567 points shy of an A at this point. 

But then the professor announced something about getting ONE extra credit point for turning in assignments on time? So...I might be 0.443 above an A? I emailed the prof about it, and she said I'd know by the end of the day what my unofficial grade is. 

I'm dying here. I know it's only an A- if I don't get that extra point, but dammit...I took 6 classes in the last 12 weeks, worked full time, put in over 80 hours of PT observation, and got A's in 5 classes. An A- isn't the end of the world, but it just looks so much more impressive if I get straight A's. 


UPDATE: Long story short, after some minor drama about being 0.01 points shy of an A, I politely pointed out a couple of rounding errors and she gave me the A. :-)

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In other news, I have to teach spin again tonight at 6:45 and I'm thinking  about just going early and taking the strength class before it at 5:45. I realized last night how much I miss going right from work and just working my butt off until I'm too tired to move. 


I also realized last night that I'm doing ok. Bear with me on here, we're going down the rabbit hole a little. 


I know everyone has a fear of public speaking to some degree, and that's not something from which I am exempt. However, my fear of public stupidity FAR outweighs the general fear of talking to a group of people. The major source of anxiety for me when getting up in front of a group and doing something I haven't done before is fear of fraud - that everyone in the audience will suddenly realize I don't know what the heck I'm doing and either laugh or (worse) drop and shake their heads and leave, never to trust me or my judgement again. 


Yes, seriously. 

The funny thing is, I screw up in class all the time. I flub wording and mix up exercises and forget stuff completely, and in the end...no one walks out. No one laughs unless I make it funny, and there's yet to be a class that I didn't get some kind of thanks at the end. It turns out, I'm actually pretty good at this. I still don't know 100% what I'm doing, but I'm having fun and I'm becoming comfortable in my own skin a little more each day, and that rocks. 


And on that note, Rose, this one's for you: 

Between workouts, in the bathroom, sweaty and happy. Enjoy. :-D 

Spin Therapy (Caution: Gets Deep)

I've been 'sick' (read: unable to breathe through my nose) all week (read: since the sun came out), which has made me a bit foggy at work. Which makes me defensive when I screw up (and I do) at work. Which leads to bad things when dealing with coworkers.

Summary: yesterday was a pretty crap day at work.

Around 3:30 I got a call asking if I could sub for spin and I (still in the throes of cutting onions) said yes absolutely. I'd planned on an outside ride, but spin is just...cathartic for me. I was afraid I'd get up in front of the class and just whine about my day, but something about stepping into that room and taking a deep breath of hot, humid air (the 'room' is a mezzanine above the cardio area...HOT)...it's just healing. Thursday nights are great, because I know everyone there. It's a good, established group, and everyone has fun and is there to work. I used the Sawtooth profile, but made it a strength ride, and a playlist I've already forgotten.

After that I promptly went home and threw a temper tantrum for anyone who'd listen (read: my ever-patient husband) and had a couple beers. By beer 1.5, I decided to man up and take the high road...this particular coworker and I may never see eye to eye, but guess what? That's life. All I can do about it is upgrade my reaction and move on.

How about you?  
How do you get (emotionally) when you're sick at work? 
What do you do when you know you're wrong (but the other person is too)? 
How much self-doubt is too much self-doubt? (And, honestly, how much do you have?) 

Strength Heart Rates

Last week, one of my regulars (not to mention one of my inspirations), Dan, came up to me asking what he should do if he's already at 85% during a strength ride.  He said he was at 85%, but felt comfortable.  I mumbled stuff about maybe his calculated heart rate wasn't right and all that, but truth be told...I didn't know what to tell him.  I wasn't comfortable telling him to go beyond 85%, without knowing that doing so would be effective for him.  So I pawned him off on the personal trainers, hoping they'd have better info, and went home to do some reading.

Turns out, I was right...I was missing the point of strength training.

Aerobic base building is VERY heart-rate centric, and when you're training strictly aerobically, it's very important to keep tabs on your heart rate and keep it below 80% of your max (whatever that is...bearing in mind that if 85% is an invalid number for you, 80% very well may be as well, so it's worth poking around and finding out your true values, for more effective training).  However, the point of strength training is to improve your anaerobic threshold which you can't do if you're aiming for a number that has no meaning for you.

So going into this week, I'm going to teach my strength classes using RPE (rate of perceived exertion) rather than a number.  Around your threshold, you should be breathing in and out through your mouth (because you have to, not because you want to - and allergies don't count! :-}) but should not be breathless.  At threshold, you should be able to maintain a heavy (for you) load for a while (which is also dependent on you and your fitness level), but wouldn't want to stay there all day.  What we're going for is extending both how heavy that load is and how long you can stand it.  This week, I think I'll ask students to gear up to a level they think they can stand for 15 minutes, then settle in to that load, then check their heart rates after a minute or two.  Then I'll add gear challenges as I see fit.  :-)