Mini Grant - my experience at the gym Part 2

I am training for a triathlon.  My first ever.  For those of you not familiar...there are three parts to a triathlon.  Swim. Bike. Run.  In that order.

A little secret...

Barb doesn't know how to swim.  Most friends say I was abused as a child.  "Your mom didn't teach you how to swim?"  

"You didn't take swimming lessons?"

"Didn't your grandparents own a cabin on Diamond Lake?"

Yes..yes and yes.

So, I am now 41 and am getting ready to take swimming lessons for the first time.  I signed up for a triathlon so I would learn how to swim.  Because really...it is unsafe.  I love the water.  I love to doggy paddle.  I love the idea of feeling muck and seaweed in between my toes while getting hit on top of the head and body by other swimmers all while racing to some point in the lake where I then turn around to swim back and do it all over again.  

It is a sprint triathlon.  In fact today, I did a brick - I did the bike and run portion of the race for the first time.

The reason I can do this is two fold:

1.  I have a best friend (Angela Brown) who signs me up for these things.

2.  I have a person trainer (Grant Smith) who places me in situations like this one.

Allow me to explain my leg day at the gym on Friday.

I love to get my trainer up real early.  Even though I pay him for his services, he complains he loses beauty sleep so he pays me back by placing me in urban exercise routines.

Step 1:  It's called the sled.  I get on a treadmill which is unplugged.  He places his foot on the back while burning his toe (yes, I look like a Clydesdale running up hill).  In fact, at one point, I sounded like a horse.

Step 2:  Proceed to the stationary bike.  I think the resistance goes to 25.  Well, he started me on 25 and then to 20, back to 25, oh wait, or was that 20.  Grant decided my quads needed to "lean out."  I inherited by father's thighs.  

Step 3:  Tire turns outside:  My gym is next to a day care.  You ask, "what does this have anything to do with tire turning."  The children decided to be voyeurs through the fence.

"What is she doing?"

"She's playing with a tire."

Mind you, it was a 200 lb tire...squat, lift, turn.  While the dirt destroyed my manicure...HELLO. 

Children:

"Go faster."

"She needs to bring it all the way over here."

"Hurry."

And, hence mini Grants.  Those children are mini Grants - they all want to be personal trainers.  Throwing about verbal demands, motivating me to obtain my goals and stating the obvious.

Grant was so proud...I think what would have made him even more proud had one of the little 6 year olds said, "squat lady!"

Lastly, the new name of an exercise I did to lean out my body.  It's called the hot mess.  Yes, the hot mess.  You can only imagine but here is what it looks like post hot mess...

Thank you to those five days at the gym and to those who have helped me along the way.  My triathlon is August 21.  I promise to begin my swimming classes next week.

I ask myself, do I have those muscles?

Just a little check in to share with you a bit about my first 30 days with Grant Smith.

Remember, Grant?

My personal trainer.

Yes, the man or psycho who inspires me to get up every morning and go the gym.

I've found muscles in my body that I am quite sure do not exist or haven't until now.  One of them.  The rhomboids.  Do you have them?  Do you know where they are?  I didn't up until recently. Yes, they in your back. They may actually keep my shoulders from shrugging or they may help them shrug.  I'm not quite sure but yesterday I did shrugs. Successfully.  

It's about form, he says, it's about pace. 

It's about time I remember I am woman. I don't have rhomboids.  Men, do.  

I love it that he counts my reps for me.  I love it that he hands me my weights. I love it that he racks them, stacks them and makes me play patty cake with them.  

I have quite a bit of fun at the gym. Grant believes it's because of his workouts he creates for me, the way he screams out "BOOM" at the end of my reps and his motivational skills.  Quite the contrary.

My mind is in training mode. I love cardio.  I am learning how to lift. I signed up for my first triathlon.  I have another century next month.  But that's not the fun of it.  It's because I EAT CARBS!

Yes, I eat carbs.  Many tell me, including Grant, "Carbs bad!"  Not me, "Carbs good...in moderation."

I am in love with pasta, brown rice, all things potato (could be the Irish in me) and I was just given the go ahead to eat them BUT not after 4 pm.  

A little known fact...they are fat.  What's not to love about fat.  Yum.  Fat creates smartness.  Do you know that if you cut out carbohydrates all together, your brain can't function?  You have a difficult time remembering things? Your body wants to move but your mind is slow? Some people have been terminated from their jobs because they aren't productive.  All because they quit eating those little carbs.  

So, I say, eat carbs.  Just remember, you have to use muscles you never thought you had and you have to increase your lifting weight so your body doesn't get used to it.  Don't be like me and say, "lower the weight."  In personal training circles, that means, "increase weight."  I like to cheat every once in awhile.  Grant doesn't let me. On a scale of 1-10 (10 meaning - STOP), I'm usually at an 8.  

Call him for a good time - Grant Smith, 509-863-4343

And, for women who think lifting weights will make you bulky or it costs too much- that is simply not true. Do you really want to end up looking like this too early? (PS, that's osteoporosis - or another term:  lack of rhomboids!)