Day 7 - Sunrise, sunrise...

... in the words of Norah Jones. (Or Duran Duran, if that's what floats your boat). Another gorgeous fall morning. I know they won't last forever, so I'm trying to enjoy them while I can! It's amazing how many beautiful sunrises I've missed in my lifetime... and in reality, how many more I'll miss when I don't have to get up at 5am. But after this experience, I might just be inspired to get up a little earlier, a little more often. If you'd asked me how I felt about mornings 12 hours ago - it would have been a different story. I'll tell ya why...

Lesson of the day for me: You can't bring personal crap to the gym. Well you can try, but it just doesn't last very long. I've got a few things going on outside the gym, that are totally stressing me out. Didn't sleep well last night because of it, and was just a bit on edge when I got there this morning. By the time warm-up was over, not one of those things was on my mind. Seriously - not a single one. It's SO easy to lose yourself in a workout. Your mind is mercifully wrapped in a bubble of sweat and burn. That might not sound pleasant at all, but I'm telling you - when life is weighing heavy - come pick up a real weight, and that'll disappear pretty quickly. :-) So not only is my body feeling better, but my mind is a lot clearer and calmer too. Yay endorphins!

Physically, it feels so good to be past the point of "OMG OW!" when I try to move. My muscles are now just battling daily workout fatigue, but that's okay - because that's the purpose of FitCamp. To push your muscles to the brink of collapse, then push a little harder. There is no more disappointing feeling than getting to the end of class, when Megan or Chris call "time", and feeling like you could have done even one more crunch, squat, lunge, or press. There is something to be said for pacing yourself, but I'm getting to the point where my body can more or less recover in the 23 hours between class, so it's time to start pushing a little harder.

I'm in what feels like a 'grey zone' right now - because I don't hurt anymore, but I haven't been at this long enough to really feel my strength or cardio increasing, so I WANT to go harder and I feel like I should be able to, but my body just isn't there yet. It's frustrating, but it's also kind of a good feeling, because the fact that things don't hurt anymore means there HAS been progress. Gotta celebrate the small successes, and know that the bigger ones are in the works, day by day, even when you don't notice them. (Write that down. It's so true, and we all forget about it!) Heck, at this point - I'm celebrating the fact that I've been up at 5am for 7 days, and I'm not completely burnt out! Frankly, that's nothing short of a miracle in my books.

Bottom line for today -- not much progress to report, but generally feeling pretty awesome. Learning to love that feeling of almost stumbling when my legs are wet spaghetti after class. Looking forward to hopefully seeing some new faces in class. Hey - if you can read this blog, you can do these classes.

Okay, let's see - Joey (who was in class again today *high five Joey*) likes motivational quotes, so I gotta find a good one to end on.... Oooo here's a good one for what I was saying at the beginning: