Nine Minutes, Fifty Seconds

With one week behind me, today was the starting point for new achievements. Whether it's an exercise class, stretch or the hikes, my goal is to improve on everything.

Following breakfast, we headed off for our Monday Stop Sign Hike. After a much deserved day of rest on Sunday, culminating in the deep tissue massage, I'm not sure what else I could have done to prepare for today's hike. With iPod in place, I assumed the lead position for a short time, knowing I needed to start strong and continue strong to improve on my time. Eventually ten or so others passed me on the trail, but I was able to generate the momentum to bump it up to an occasional jog, which I had not done on my previous tries. With God watching over me, some great tunes on the iPod and some strong momentum, I am very happy to say I shaved off nine minutes and fifty seconds from my Saturday hike, bringing my time to one hour, fifteen minutes and five seconds. My original hike last Monday averaged a 21.62 minute mile, while today's averaged 17.44, a result I was definitely pleased with. With the adrenaline flowing, I was able to walk another 2.3 miles back down the course to meet one of our shuttles. I'm actually looking forward to returning to Stop Sign on Saturday to see if I can better today's time.

One of the benefits I have found of moving beyond the first week is I have the knowledge of what awaits me in each class, which buys a significant psychological advantage over being a newcomer. As much as I loved the Circuit Training last week, I enjoyed it even more this week and pushed myself harder on both the cardio and the strength training. Step and Pump was much more fun this week than last, likely because I didn't feel as clumsy and I knew what to expect. The Pool Class before dinner is a great way to end the afternoon class series, until you come out of the water and meet the chill of an early evening breeze.

After classes we were off to dinner, which tonight was Chicken with Wasabi Mashed Potatoes and Asparagus, which was quite tasty and at only 286 calories was surprisingly filling. The evening closed out with a class of Tai Chai and some chillin' in our rest area with the main topic of discussing being food. I've had a great time meeting some of the guests here and hope to stay in contact with many of them. It'll be great to see what components of The Ridge works for them at home.

I'm still debating on whether I'll join the optional 6:00 a.m. class tomorrow since it's scheduled to be Hard Core (appropriately named), which relies heavily on the exercise ball for core training. It's an extremely tough class (it killed me last week) to get through at 6:00 a.m., but I may push myself out of bed in the morning to keep my record going. If it doesn't kill me, it must make me stronger, right?

Don't forget, The Biggest Loser starts tomorrow night.