12 Week Challenge: Day1... plus some irony

Joe and I started the 12 Week Challenge (now 12WC) with BCS Fitness yesterday (Tuesday). It's basically personal trainers working with small groups (I think we have 2 trainers and 8 people) on both cardio and weight training. The other 3 people who were there yesterday (3 were out of town) have all completed at least one 12WC directly before this one. We've got tons of friends (well, more than 10, I'm sure) who have done it and loved it. Our friends who didn't stay on for additional 12 weeks are still working out on their own, too!

We were on a wait list to get into a class, so we just found out on Monday that we could start Tuesday. We met with Brad (the owner / a personal trainer / a guy at our church) during the day Tuesday to fill out the paperwork and talk about our goals. He said specifically that we needed to eat a snack about 30 minutes before our workout and gave us a list of things that made good snacks. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to get any snacks before the training (it started at 5:30, so we drove there from work and changed clothes once we got there) and all I had to snack on at work was popcorn. So I ate that during the car ride. (Yes, that is obvious foreshadowing.)

I liked the trainers, and the other people (all women - there may be men who just weren't there yesterday) also doing the 12WC were really, really nice. Everyone was super-encouraging, which was great for me because I REALLY SUCKED. I knew I was in very bad shape (and that was one of my two major goals - to improve cardiovascular-wise), and yesterday proved it to everyone else. I did push myself (and received much pushing from the trainers), so I don't feel bad about the effort I put forth. But at the end I got dizzy and kept shaking and couldn't finish the workout (I missed the leg press and most of the stretching at the end). So, that's why you don't just snack on popcorn when you are about to work out! I think I was trying not to cry for about 40% of the time. Last night, I talked to a friend who did the last challenge and is doing it again (and has gone down 3 sizes in clothes while losing only 3.5 pounds, that's some serious muscle she's got!) and she said that she cries almost every time in the weight room, so that made me feel better.

This is already much longer than I intended, so I'll skip over the details (like how painful it was to reach for the shampoo in the shower). I would like to get to the irony, however... this should reward all of you who are still actually reading this!

As I tried to ignore the screams of my muscles last night, I told Joe I needed to remind myself of all the things I'll be able to do once I start getting in better shape. So I started to sing a (made up) motivational song. The first verse went like this:

Liftin' a mountain,
Swimmin' in jelly,
Runnin' around the block
without gettin' smelly!

Now, Joe did not understand the swimming in jelly line. For the record, I made it up before I thought of smelly to rhyme with it, so that was not my motivation. I like to swim, and if I were really strong I could swim through jelly (at least as much as I could lift a mountain). We continued to make up verses, and I was being silly and kept putting the weakest syllable on the longest note and that sort of thing. I asked Joe why he was laughing so much, and and he said "You have unique syllabic stress," to which I replied, "Mmmm... that makes me hungry for sausage. What is that word, salobic?" (I thought at the time that it sounded like Slovacek, a brand of sausage around here.) Joe said "Sill-LAH-bic." It took me a minute, and then I said, "Oh! SILL-uh-bic stress!" And Joe broke into laughter in which the only intelligible words were "the... irony."