One Foot in Front of the Other, Repeat

At this very moment, I'm waiting for the town library to open so I can take my stuff down there and pretend I really want to write this paper that's due in 2 days.

That's about where I'm at though.

I was just reading back over some of my old posts (mostly to put together a playlist for tonight), and man...I was really excited to be in fitness at one point. The thing is, I still love it. During the day it seems like just one more thing to do, but without fail, I walk out of every class feeling better about myself and life in general.

Yesterday I taught 2 classes - tabata in the AM and then subbed for Rachel in the PM. Here's the playlist (which I'm 100% in love with and could play for another 5 classes if it weren't for everyone else getting bored with it):

For Tabata, I just use whatever PowerMusic mix feels right at the time. I find that the standardized BPM mixes are working well for that class...keeps the energy up consistently and gives one less thing to focus on outside of how hard you're working.

I went to #fitsocial this weekend (a little of it anyway) and had a blast. I wish I'd had more time to attend more of the sessions, but alas...staring into space hoping this paper writes itself doesn't happen on its own. I'll have a more formal post about that later this week, hopefully. I may even put together a review post for the Soybu top I got as SWAG. It may be my new favorite, so stay tuned.

Anywho. Here's tonight's playlist:

We're going to ride the Deceptive Intervals ride, but adding 60 seconds on either end so the whole set is 11 minutes each. With 2 minutes rest between each, that's about 50 minutes of work. w00t.

Anyway, I should go stake out my desk at the library.

Yay.

Hairwell

Get it? Like farewell, but with hair? Because tonight's playlist is hair metal all the way baby.

Final count down - Europe
Nothin' But A Good Time  -  Poison
Poison  -  Alice Cooper
Rock You Like a Hurricane  -  Scorpions
Its A Long Way To The Top  -  ACDC 
Welcome To The Jungle  -  Guns 'n' Roses
Jump  -  Van Halen
Twisted Sister - Were Not Going to Take It
Mighty Wings (Album Version)  -  Cheap Trick
Feed my Frankenstein  -  Alice Cooper
Devour  -  Shinedown
Ave Maria - Hitman Soundtrack
Dreams  -  Van Halen

I had a good time finding this stuff, and there's a LOT that got cut simply because it's only a 45 minute class. I'm a little tempted to tell everyone they're welcome to stay a full 90 minutes if they want to...I'm not even sure what I'd do for that time, but I'm sure no one would like it. Worth it? Sure. But filters come down around minute 32.

The profile is going to be one of those "winging it" kind of rides. We'll see how it goes, but mostly...hills. Duh. I might actually switch Mighty Wings and Feed my Frankenstein so MW is last...that's a pretty epic final mile song, if you ask me. FmF is a solid heavy climb too, so...that works.

For the FIT class I'm teaching before spin tonight, here's what we're looking at:

That's pretty much what I do every week, by the way. Same notebook, same pink Sharpie (every week I look for a black one...never find it), same blue pen. As I put the moves in the boxes, I note what equipment we'll need up at the top, so it's easy to see what we need when I get to class. Tonight's not got a lot of toys but I don't think that's going to mean it'll be easy. It's probably not as much cardio as Karol usually does, but hey...it's my last class, so whatever. :-P

Oh, and PS for all you doubters out there (*coughLaracough*), here's as much proof as I've got that I ran Tough Mudder VT this year:

 Before

 At the end, immediately after crossing the finish line.

 With Calvin, our adopted Expendable.

 Hailing Jeremy.

 More hugging.

 Team after pic. We are fabulous.

 Monkey duck?

Pure, unabashed happiness. It was glorious.

For TM CO in a couple of weeks, I'm definitely planning on picking up a disposable waterproof camera of some variation. 

Seriously guys, I'm so with it

Just to prove that I'm totally hip with what the kids are watching these days, tonight's spin is totally topical.

Yup, we're going to the Grammys.

Now, I thought that I might just rip off the whole thing entirely and see what made the list this year. I recognize like 6 of those things, and 5 of them are Adele.

Huh.

But, since I don't want to let anyone in on my shameful secret (that I really have no idea what goes on outside my little cubicle and the gym), I made up my own Grammy list. Without further ado, the winners are....

First up, the traditional Inappropriate R&B/Rapper Appearance:

     Forever - Chris Brown
(too soon?)
Best Warm up/Pump up song: 
     I Want You To Want Me (Live)  -  Cheap Trick
Best Working/Fast Flat: 
     Drive By  -  Train
Best Standing Flat with Pickups:
     What The Hell  -  Avril Lavigne
Best Seated Moderate Hill:
     Everybody & Ray Speak No Americano  -  Mashup-Germany vs. Faroff
Best Seated Hill w/Standing Pick Ups:
     You're Gonna Gonna Go Far Kid  -  The Offspring
Best Adele Remix/Working Recovery:
     Set Fire to the Rain (House Remix)  -  Capt Kirk
Best Moderate Running with Resistance w/pick ups:
     Take It Off  -  Ke$ha
Best Standing Moderate Climb:
     Black Betty  -  Ram Jam
Best Jumps on a Hill (during chorus):
     Panic Switch  -  Silversun Pickups
Best Standing Heavy Climb:
     S&M (Come On)  -  Rihanna
Best 2-minute Redemption with Attacks: 
     I'm Shipping Up To Boston  -  Dropkick Murphys
Best Cool down:
     Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand  -  Primitive Radio Gods

Enjoy!!

Word of the Day Wednesday

Today's word is hostile.

For some reason (maybe it's the reddit blackout, I dunno), everyone seems SUPER angry today. Normally I would be joining in on the fuss, but lately I've somehow managed to master the fine art of apathetic integrity. (Translation: I'll work hard to do what I need to get done, but I'm done getting all angsty about things beyond my control that prevent me from doing my job.)

So to that end, tonight's mix is a little grunge rocky, a little poppy, and totally fun.


Dog Days Are Over - Florence + The Machine
Natural Blues  -  Moby
La Grange  -  ZZ Top
Mondo '77  -  Film Dialogue
Dressed To Kill  -  A New Found Glory
We Found Love -  (feat. Calvin Harris) Rihanna
Leave It All Behind (UK Radio Edit)- September
Howlin' For You  -  The Black Keys
My Hero  -  Foo Fighters
* Plowed  -  Sponge
Are You Gonna Be My Girl  -  JET
Tobacco Island -  Flogging Molly
Dance, Dance  -  Fall Out Boy
Blackout  -  Breathe Carolina
(If You Are Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To  -  Weezer
Sexy & I Know It - (SR) LMFAO
If I Had You  -   Lambert
Papi (www.DenFlow.Net)  -  Jennifer Lopez
Machinehead  -  Bush
Walk  -  Foo Fighters
Here's To The Night  -  Eve 6
Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand  -  Primitive Radio Gods
Mad World  -  Donnie Darko

*ride starts here


The profile is simple...we're going up a hill. A really big one. I may even bring in some markers to draw on the mirror, but it's going to look vaguely like this:

4 segments of high resistance with 3 segments of "pedal fast to get your momentum up" resistance. The 3 shallow parts will be recovery for newbies and "less hard" for the vets. The hard parts will be the same number of minutes as the level of awful - so the first part will be 6 minutes long, etc. The easy parts will be 2 minutes each. Total working part of the ride is therefore 36 minutes - practically a gimme ride, right? :-) I'll throw in some pickups and gear ups as we go too, I'm sure.

A little explanation on why this playlist is longer than usual, with a few more "mild" songs preloaded to the front...

We got new bikes!! Last Friday, every bike in the EHSC network got upgraded to one of these beauties:

I'm expecting to spend a while helping folks verify setups, so I'm going to have music playing while I run around and do that, but officially start class at 7 instead of 6:45 like usual. It'll go until 7:45 though, to make sure we all get our workout in.

And sorry to cut this short, but the pup needs her shots before I can run off and hang out with my best good friend this weekend, so I'm off to be a responsible pet owner. w00t.

Wednesday Night Strength Plan and Spin Playlist

Good news is, since none of the Wednesday night regulars have come to my Monday night class (except one I guess...5 weeks ago), I can reuse the best moves from previous weeks. I'm only picking the hardest ones because that's what they expect when they come to Leanne's class...gotta live up to that reputation! :-)

So to that end, we're going to be doing sets of 3 exercises tonight, with sets of 5 push ups at the end of each set. Should be awful.

Equipment needed:

Medicine ball, mat, 2x body bar, heavy weights, resistance band, light/medium weights

Single leg squats
4 squats w/arm lifts
Twist & touch balance
Side planks w/dumbbells

Windshield wipers

Donkey kicks w/resistance bands
Skiers
Warrior lift with body bar
Body bar side lunge w/bicep curl (touch body bar to floor w/each lunge)
Medicine ball or body bar surrenders
Medicine ball throws (onto mat)
Static squat w/dumbbell halo
Superman
Hollow man w/scissor kicks
Russian twists w/medicine ball

---

Anyway, that's tonight's workout. 20 or so of each, per set, depending on how I'm feeling and how everyone else looks.

The playlist for the spin class is this:


Fela Kuti - Zombie   
She's Not There - The Zombies
Disturbia - Rihanna
Shake Senora - Pitbull Ft. T-Pain
Living Dead Girl - Rob Zombie
The Time Warp - Rocky Horror Picture Show
Candyman - Christina Aguilera
Beautiful Monster - Ne-Yo
Kernkraft 400 - Zombie Nation
Paint It Black - Vanessa Carlton
Glee - Thriller-Heads Will Roll HQ   
No More Gas - DJ Earworm
Arrogant Worms - The Last Saskatchewan Pirate
Pink Elephants - Daladubz
Somebodys Watching Me - Rockwell
Monster - Paramore

Tabata Saturday

I won't lie, I was a little bit hoping not to have to teach today. It's low 70s and not a cloud in the sky, and my class was at 10 am. No one was going to come. But as it turned out, 5 people were crazy enough to come anyway, so we did a pretty great ride that ended with one of the participants telling me "usually I have some reserves left at the end of class...not today."

So this awesome ride (which I'm sad to say I won't be able to ride again until next week since I'm not teaching Wednesday night...stupid day job) went like this:

5 minutes warm up
3 minutes 30s in saddle/30 s out
3 minutes 15 in 15 out
1 minute contemplate the Tabata
2 minutes TABATA
2 minutes recovery

3 minutes 30s in saddle/30 s out
3 minutes 15 in 15 out
1 minute contemplate the Tabata
3 minutes TABATA
2 minutes recovery

3 minutes 30s in saddle/30 s out
3 minutes 15 in 15 out
1 minute contemplate the Tabata
4 minutes TABATA
5 minutes cool down

In case you haven't heard of them, Tabata intervals go like this: 8 intervals of 20 seconds all-out intensity exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. Sounds simple enough right? You can do them using any exercise you want, you just need to make sure you're out of breath by the end of each 20 seconds.

It's crazy hard. By the end of the last 4 minutes, we were all dying, but it was WONDERFUL.

I'm gonna go eat now.

Sneak preview

Sunday's ride is called the Inception Ride. It's not finalized yet, but it's a strength ride. It'll start your Sunday off right, promise. Will post tomorrow.