Monday Aqua

Today is the last day of filling in for amazing boss lady as she is due home from China tomorrow. School swimming terms start next week when school goes back here and it's life back to normal ?? if there is such a thing.

Today we had 28 lovelies turn up for aqua so I made it a circuit class using water dumbbells, noodles and just body movements. To begin we had a warm-up that progressed into a great cardio workout for 15 mins that included some travelling up the pool and knee repeaters, down the pool for other leg knee repeaters. Up the pool with high side steps for scoopy arms and high side steps down for scoopy arms ( with white water :)). Up the pool lady leaps (front high steps) and leg curls and then the same down the pool.

After we'd run through this I broke the ladies up into 3 groups - weights for 10 swing arms, 10 bicep curls, noodles for scissor legs and knee tuck and side leg extension, movement for twists across the pool.  The second round - weights for 10 tricep kickbacks, 10 swing arm ankle touch, noodles same as first round, movement for side steps across pool. 20 mins total.

Back into group format and lady leaps down pool for knee repeaters, leg curls and rocking horses, lady leaps up pool for same thing other leg, high side steps down pool for scoopy arms and white water, walk up pool for stretches. 10 mins.

It was a good class today, I feel I got a really good mix of exercises for the whole class and snuck in their core work (abdominals). The problem I have with a large class is that core work is done on the noodles and we don't have enough for this sized class at the mo, so a bit of lateral thinking was called for. I also found that 3 groups is WAY better for me to teach in circuit format than the normal 4 groups. I will stick to this in future - it worked.

Have an amazing day :)
Cath.

Friday Aqua

Well I survived Friday :))

It started with an early bird class at a retirement village that Amazing Boss Lady usually does, however she is enjoying an exotic holiday in China this week (lucky isn't she ), so I kept the class lite and easy-ish.

Class 1 done for Friday, then scoot quickly to the other side of town to set up for the 11am aqua class, teach swimming to littlies until 11am, jump out of one little, warm pool, press play on cd player and jump in big pool to teach 2nd aqua class of the day.

I'll admit I was a bit nervous waking up on Friday morning as i'd never A) taught 2 classes in one day, B) combined swim teaching with aqua immediatly after (can't run late with either), C) taken a super lite class.

Anyhoos I did it and lived to tell the tale!!!! YAY WOOT WOOT 

The rest of the weekend was a combo of busy-ish work and gardening.....I had a great weekend to top off a great week.

Next time amazing boss lady goes out of town I won't be so nervous about teaching her classes :)

Wednesday Aqua

Woot Woot .... rocked aqua today :)

30 enthusiastic aqua fantastics for class today ( I love 'em, they're gorgeous ladies. An instructor couldn't wish for a better class).

Class format today: Conga circle walk ... that is 3 steps and kick, 3 steps and kick. No-one held anyone else for safety reasons and I seen loads of smiles. The ladies are on to me though, they know circle walks mean a change in direction. The water picks up current really quickly so you MUST keep a really close eye on how much movement the water gets. Today with a large class we walked up to the end of the pool to break the current.

Today there were a couple of new ladies with some health and mobility issues so I got the class to slow right down before the turn around and opposite direction walk. It seemed to work really well, though I still kept my eye on the ones that may potentially struggle.

Included in the warm-up phase were twists and shuffles on the spot. During the introduction I'd asked the ladies to consider whether they were Marchers or Runners ( these classes have different levels and abilities to cater for in the same class). My theory ... marchers are the low impact ladies and runners are the high impact ladies, they get to choose their intensity and can easily swap between. This is the easiest way to teach a multi-leveled large class that I've found yet. It worked for both them and me :)

At this stage I got out of the water so we could shimmy our way up and down. This is a fairly simple move. 1) take a wide step sideways, do 3 single shoulder raises (i.e left right left)  then step legs together. This is a great movement to travel with. For new participants or teaching of new move take it really slow until everyone is getting it then you can speed it up a bit if  aqua fantastics want to, and when more than half have got it suggest a cheeky butt wiggle too, they'll laugh but I did it and I'm sure a few of them did it too. You can't see that well through the water as there's too much movement happening, but everyone moved with me and those that wanted to shimmy did and those that didn't simply didn't. After the shimmy up the pool we did single leg kick front and behind, so marchers did a front heel tap and a back toe tap, where runners did a full front kick and a full back kick. Shimmy down pool and do the same front/ backs on the other leg. I then sent the runners running up the pool and into full shuffles with a tuck jump and the marchers marched up the pool after them for alternating leg front heel tap, back toe tap.

Leaping ladies were next so the marchers took as bigger step as they were comfortable with and breaststroke arms down the pool and when they were nearly there I sent the runners down doing high leaps down after them. Marchers did front heel tap/ back toe tap with the other foot leading this time whilst the runners still had full shuffles to do with the tuck jump :)

Shimmies again to bring down the heart rate a bit as I'd worked them fairly hard and marchers did side toe taps while the runners did full star jumps at the end of the pool. Runners also had 2 Jetstar jumps to do!!

'Locomotion' was playing at this stage so we locomoted our way down the other end for rocking horses, i.e. front knee lift and back leg curl, one of each in a rocking motion back and forth. Ladies love it, great to bring down the heart rate and is an awesome strengthening and flexibility movement.

Runners ran down pool then rolled fists like the disco days while turning side to side, then the marchers followed doing the same movement, runners went forst as they wanted to use more energy so they did the exercise longer while waiting for the marchers to join us.

It was almost finish time but I had one big surprise in store for todays class!! Everyone was in a circle holding hands and I had given them a number, either 1 or 2. The 1's sat on a noodle while the 2's walked in a circle. the 1's had to get their feet off the ground and got towed around. Slow the circle down, all feet down and we passed the noodle to the person on our right ( that's the way we travelled). Now it was time for the 2's to get towed, so feet up and 1's did all of the work.  We did this once more walking to our left this time and the ladies LOVED it. We'll do this again.

This was a new move for the ladies and it didn't take long for them to catch on, and the best part was all abilities felt comfortable doing this. A great cool down exercise. Then we finished with stretching.

Great class today.

Life Changes

Well since I last blogged all sorts of things have happened in my life.

The biggest is that I qualified as a group and aqua fitness instructor, AND, I picked up an awesome job teaching aqua aerobics to the loveliest bunch of ladies in a small swim centre where I also teach the young 'uns how to swim.

If someone told me 12 months ago that this is where I would be now ..... well lets just say my answer could have resembled  #!!*#> 

Not for a moment would I have imagined that I would be confident enough to teach a class, let alone one with 25+ ladies in it, and love teaching it so much.

Finally I've found a job where I can talk til I'm hoarse, use up some XSNRG and still come home and go for a jog and gym session.

Don't get me wrong though, this life change was one of the hardest things I've ever done! It was scary and confronting, many times I felt like I was in melt down mode. I hadn't simply stepped out of my comfy zone, I'd launched out of it. I had no comfy zone left, so it was sink or swim. Sinking wasn't an option so I just plodded on through one step at a time and when it all seemed to much I just tried to remember that it wasn't rocket science.

So in the end I just pulled up my big girl panties and flew by the seat of my pants, no plans. Best thing I've done in a very long time :)

So if you ever want something in life, and you've thought it through and scared yourself off, we've all been there, but sometimes you just have to fly by the seat of your pants and have no plan, just a very basic direction may help.

Routeburn Track, NZ Day 1

The Routeburn is a gorgeous track that I highly recommend if you want a do-able and beautiful experience. If you're into extreme then I guess you could run it but we were happy to take the slow road up, down and round about.

Ready to start from the Glenorchy end of the track.
 

 

5 mins into the walk and we were in love with the place!!

One of the MANY swing bridges that we crossed...one of us loved these and the other hated them

We climbed higher and higher

The scenery was truly breathtaking, the water was turquoise...gorgeous.
 

So day 1, we travelled from Queenstown to the Glenorchy end of the Routeburn, which is located in the Mt Aspiring National Park in New Zealand, and we walked up to the Routeburn Falls Hut which is ironically close to the Routeburn Falls...go figure! We walked past the Routeburn Flats hut which was about 3 hours walk in and from there it's a fairly stiff climb upto the Routeburn Falls Hut located a couple of k's away. We thought, pah...easy-ish walk. Oh HELL NO !! I personally LOVE walking but I'd had about enough by the time we seen the hut through the trees. I let out a squeal of delight when I saw the hut..truly a sight for tired legs.

One thing I learnt quickly on day 1 was that one walkers idea of not far is my idea of far. Every person we'd meet going in the opposite direction would ask - a) how far to their exit (our entrance) and b) tell us that the hut wasn't far.

Not far meant 3 hours still.

We had a few stops along the way and had pre-agreed to take our time and enjoy the journey...which we did. Hence the track notes had a walking time of 3-4 hours for this leg of the journey and we took 5-6 hours.

The first non-swing bridge and Miss 16 loved it

Lunch time, this was the only part of the track that looked like this, the rest was all rainforest or ferns.

OMG guess what that is between the trees...YIP the Routeburn Falls Hut.



This was the uber comfy bunk bed inside the sleeping quaters. We loved these beds.
 

2 Glorious Weeks In N.Z.

I was stocked !! In January 2012 I ran away to N.Z. with Miss 16 to go hike 'n' bike for 2 weeks.

We had a FAT time !!

This is the view from the plane going across from Brisbane to Christchurch. This is sunset as we had an evening flight. The sunset was incredible and to say I felt like a kid in a candy store is a HUGE understatement. I snapped away mid flight but really the orange horison line was more burgundy, it was the best sunset I've seen yet.

NEVER EVER SELF PORTRAIT (guess who took the photo)

We slept-ish in Christchurh airport as we only had 6 hours between landing and getting picked up by bus, it just happened to be between the hours of 1:30am and 7:30 am. Sleeping wasn't really possible as we were so cold and an airport floor isn't really the most comfortable. At 4:30am security came around and woke everyone up so the cleaners could vacuum (we were part of about 60 people staying in the airport that night), so we moved across to the departures terminal where, much to our delight, it was heated with lots of food (and noise) so we wandered around for a couple of hours enjoying the warmth before heading to the cold, windy bus-stop.

We went up to Queenstown on the Newmans Coach Service which we booked online and were easy to deal with. The driver was fantastic and the bus had a pick-up in Christchurch city also so we drove around in a large circle to avoid the city centre, which is still closed due to their devastating earthquake, and arrived at the pick-up point. It was sad to see all of the earthquake damage, it must have been a terrible event.

Anyhoos, after leaving Christchurch we stopped in a town called Geraldine, and holy cow it was cold!! Pretty but freakin cold. We were glad it was only a 10 min quick stop then we went up non-stop to Lake Tekapo for lunch.

See how good a photo can be when one DOESN"T self-portrait.

This place is seriously amazing. The colours of the lake were a quilters/painters dream. There isn't much here that we could see except the lake and some accomodation, oh yeah, acres of lupin flowers.

These flowers were gorgeous,

From here we then headed up to Queenstown but I'll blog that next time.

Shh...

I'm sneeking onto the computer instead of doing housework so don't tell ANYONE or else it'll be back to the salt mine for me.

Finished day 1 workout (on day 3 but that's due to international time delay and life being busy with farm duties on day 2 when the workout came through)

THESE ARE NOT MY EXERCISES, I TAKE NO CREDIT FOR THEM. CLICK ON THIS LINK TO ACCESS THEM http://www.sixpackfactory.com/

I'm keeping score of the exercise repititions so I can see any improvements:

Day 1 - weight training, all exercises are performed for 5 rounds of  30 secs exercising & 30 secs rest.

After warm up:

Double arm snatch 13 12 12 12 12

Renegade rows + close grip push-up 5.5 5 4 4 5

Squat & press ups 10 12 12 13 13

Inch worm + wide push up 5 4 4 4 4

Reverse lunge + bicep curl 14 15 16 16 16

Gorilla swings 40 42 44 44 44

Up For A Challenge !?!

I'm up for a challenge how 'bout you???

While googling ab exercises I came across this challenge and so in my infinate wisdom I signed up (free).  Why??  Well just cos my middle would like some maintenance work carried out and perhaps my derrier will benefit also.

Here's the link if yir interested http://www.sixpackfactory.com/tools6weeksixpack/

Ironically I've taken some 'before' photos but no-ones allowed to see them until there's a decent 'after' photo. 

The photos are a little CONFRONTING and I'm working up to sharing them.

My wonderful 'Gymboss Trainer' broke........after I dropped it on the ground for the third time, boo hoo boo hoo whah whah whah

DEVO I was and maybe still am a little but I use the interval timer on my Garmin watch but just between you and me the Gymboss is better.

I've started looking into heart rate training - more out of curiosity than anything.  I'm jogging on the treadmill and my foot is fairly good.  I managed 6kms yesterday and my foots okay today even in bare feet all day (that;s when it niggles the most is in bare feet or thongs, and who in Oz doesn't wear thongs ??).
Just to give my foot a rest I did some intense cardio heart-rate training on the exercise bike and boy-oh-boy I was puffed but still did some cross training exercises.

I'm still holding onto a thread of hope that I'll be able to do the 'North Face 100' in May next year but if not then I'll try for the following year.

HUGE News !!!

BIG news.........HUGE!!!!


I bought a treadmill !!!

YIPEE !!!!

Jelly Body Workout

Ever seen jelly wobble???

Yeah, well that's how I'm feeling ALL over today after making a workout that I hope to stick to for the next 7 days.

[notice the hope in that statement]

Anyhoos.......workout:

Thigh byes - thats where you do a squat with your legs shoulder width apart and feet at about a 45* angle pointing out and go down as far as comfortable and come slowly up to about half way and go back down before coming up to full standing position again.  Really important to watch that your knees don't extend past your toe line as it stresses knees WAY too much - no fun in that.  Any way that's one rep

Hamstring raises - stand on a step and hold onto a rail or balance if you're clever, stand on one foot and simply raise the other foot behind yourself slowlyish and then lower it again.  I choose to use a weighted bag for this [it's really only a plastic shopping bag with some old curtains in it and weighs @ 3kg] and it's important for this exercise that your knees stay nearly in alignment.  Your moving leg will naturally try to pull your knee backwards but that moves the hip joint, streeses the lower back and doesn't exercise the hamstrings very well.  I don't try to touch my butt with my heel I just try to get to about a 90* angle.

Tricep dips - yip those yucky things.  I just get 2 kitchen chairs and put my heels on one and my hands on the other with nothing supporting my body except sheer will power.  Lower yourself to hopefully half way and then come back up.  I haven't found a way to cheat in this exercise.

Reverse push-ups - this one's really hard to describe. Basically it's kinda like a pull up but acheivable-ish.  I have a mobile clothes hanger bar thing but I've also used the broomstick between two chairs and hubby's ute bull bar and you lay on your back on the ground and hold onto the bar.  Tuck your feet underneath yourself so that you can  raise your butt off the ground while you're still an arms lenght away from the bar and kinda crab like [remember crab soccer? Same principle] and then just pull yourself towards the bar and then down again just like a push up but flipped over.

My abilities and my goals are worlds apart so I'll start with my goals

3 sets of 12 with no jelly feeling.

My abilities: thigh-byes - 2 sets 12 and jellied
                   ham raises - 2 sets 12 and jellied
                   tri dips -       1 set 10 and jellied
                   reverse push ups - 1 set 10 and jellied

Hmm...I've some work to do. 

Maybe running in the rain would be easier. 

No, no, no mustn't think like that.

My personal mantra:

THIS BETTER FRIGGIN WORK.

Ditto 4 Last Week

Some days not much changes.  This week has been WET !!!  Not nearly as wet as Proserpine but wet enough for me.  The roads have fallen apart which has made driving more of a sport than usual.

Gee, I'm glad I drive a cab with horse power not giraffe power

  My mummy 5km track has been over flowing with water all week and unusable.  I can't seem to get out of bed before 6:30 am now-I think that has something to do with me finally using my brain for more than head stuffing-and by the time I've dropped the kids at school and done some body weight exercises like chair dips, push-ups and lunges it's time to park my backside in the cab and drive....again!!

And this folks is why I jog and not ride bicycles !

Summer rains are over rated !!!

Humph !!!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Went for a jog in the rain.....it's over rated.

All I know for sure is it's wet!!!!!

On the other hand I've figured out why electricity and phones were invented.  I reckon I know why the mobile phone was invented also.

Wanna know how I figured it out......well Newton's wife looked out her window and realised the washing wasn't getting dry anytime soon outside not point in having a clothers dryer without electricity to run it VIOLA electricity is invented.  Maybe Bell's wifes dryer blew up and she needed to get another one but they were flooded in......VIOLA her hubby invents the telephone.......fast forward a few more years and Martin Coopers phone stopped working 'cos the rain got into the underground lines and the phone company counldn't fix it until the rain cleared up cos of the flooding VIOLA mobile phones.

See how simple history is.

All ya gotta know is what the catalyst was for all this.

Want me to whisper it ???  Huh ???  Do ya ???

(rain)

Still Here

Still here, still going, but now I'm walking as much as jogging.

When I say walking it's not just strolling idly it's power walking up and down hills.  I have a set walk that takes me up the lookout and then up some gentler hills before I tackle the steeper side of the lookout to get back home.  It is a bit of a killer walk but it only takes one hour so long as you walk fast. 

I've jogged a bit also but now believe I may need to finally see a doctor about my foot.  It's sore after jogging but not so much after walking so I'm thinking it's an impact injury but it's accross the whole bridge of my foot on the underneath.

Funny thing happened the other day whilst out for a jog along my favourite 5km track.  On one part of the track I get off the pathway and jog alongside guardrails, well because we've had so much rain and the weeds have loved it the guardrail track is very overgrown.  Normal people would follow the path and then find a way back too the road but being me I decided against that and tackled the weeds head on.  All was going well until the last guardrail support lent out and grabbed my shorts and tried to stop me....hence I stopped but not before I got some extra cooling vents in both my shorts and leggings. Ha ha ha...it was kinda funny especially after I'd readjusted my shorts so that the front wasn't around with the back.  If only there wasn't sooooo many cars around to witness it.  I would like to blame the weeds but unfortunatly there were no weeds in this part of the track and full view for the passing cars.  Ohh how embarrassing !!!! mumble mumble mumble....

Time to dust off the sewing machine.....

Happy New Year

Ohhhh baby it's a happy one too.  It hasn't rained here as much as anywhere else in Queensland and we're not affected by floods so that just leaves fun times.  YAY !! 

Hopefully your new year has started off on the right foot and if not well.....there's still a bit more of the year left so it has hope of getting better.

Do you believe in NYR's ........... I don't really but it does seem like a great starting point if motivation is an issue. 

Out for my jog this morning I passed quite a few newbies - just like I was last year.  I can hardly believe it's been a whole year and I'm still loving it - perhaps even more now than last year.

Confidence must play a large part of that.  That is, the confidence to take a break for a few days or weeks and get up out of bed again and go for a jog  knowing it's not give up time just recoop time.

As you may or may not know I've had a niggly left foot for a few months now and I'm still baby-ing it but I'm not ready to give up and become a couch potato.  It's not that I don't have other things to do with my time, it's just ...... maybe just about priorities.   I enjoy jogging as much as I enjoy every other activity that fills my waking hours.....and I REALLY enjoy sleeping ha ha ha ........but I find I don't enjoy jogging for any sort of runners high [ I don't get that ] or weight loss [that hasn't happened] but I LOVE being out and about early in the morning while the birds ae all starting to wake up and sing to the rising sun, I LOVE watching the sun rise and all the different colours in the sky or how the light is reflected off different clouds or dappled shade under a tree.  I LOVE seeing the roads and streets that bustle with life, noise and excitment during the day all calm and sedate, I LOVE MOST feeling the possibility of a whole entire day.  The humidity is low, the world is calm and if world peace exists then I believe it exists in the early hours of dawn.

I hope your year is as wonderful as I find the early dawn to be.

Eureka !!!!

Sounds weird but today I had a eureka !!!! moment.  My left foot is still aching but it's coming from the big toe joint so I googled 'running with bunions' and VOILA there it was on my screen.

No not why my foot hurt but advice on relacing shoes to cope with bunions. 

Now I'm not saying I have a bunion but the pain is in the same area so ergo same solution.

Anyhoos have relaced shoes to only lace from half way up and all pressure is taken off the big toe joint and amazingly comfortable. 

I guess the true proof will come tomorrow morning with a short slow jog. 

Haven't jogged for a couple of weeks coz my foot hurt and christmas make and do was in full swing in my house which usually means lots of late nights.

Christmas is finished and now life can get back to what is loosly termed 'normal'

Even relaced the Asics that I reckon gave me the trouble to begin with and I'm thinking that it actually comes from the 'uber fantastic' asymetrical lacing system and WOOHOO all of the pressure is off the toe joint and the shoe is actually not too bad. 

Whodda thunk it huh !!

Day out with Inspirational Uncle

Well..............Wednesday saw us all up early and out to the marina to boat across to Keswick Island to do some mowing.  Wish it was as easy as it sounds.  It took us 7 hours and 4 people operating 2 lawn mowers and 2 brush cutters or whipper snippers to clear 1600 sqm of 45* slopping ground.  YIP the view was amazing looking across the channel to St Bees island where there is a large colony of koalas [no we couldn't see any]  and the breeze was soooo wonderful but the novelty had worn off before the work was half way through.

 Mr I.U and I decided to miss our much anticipated jog around the national park in favour of a cool drink and a trip back across the ditch to home [it was getting late].  He joked that running 250 kms through the desert is easier than all the mowing and clearing we did. 

His block is incredible though.  It's on top of the hill overlooking Horseshoe Bay and WOW is about how I'd sum it up.    The boy kids came with us and spent the day swimming in Basil Bay [it was a long hilly walk ha ha ha so we didn't see much of them], they were welcome to stay with us and help clear damn rocks - OMG was there some rocks.  Girl kid went to grannies for the day and was leisurely lounging around eating and sleeping like a queen. 

Humph...............she HATES boats and completely refused to come with us!!!!  Bring back the little cherub who didn't argue and then find alternative arrangements.

....MMMMMMmmmmm........

Yay !!!!

Welcome home my old friend. 

Nike Pegasus 27

These were by far the best shoes my feet ran in when I was a younger and more energetic version of me and so like all great things I returned to my favs after sampling nearly every other brand on the market and finding that the advertised hype is not appreciated by my footsies.  After all I do ask alot of my feet and have so many more plans in store for them......

I had my first run in these lil babies this morning and WOW KAPOW it's like coming home after being stuck in the rain in winter on the side of the road all by my lil lonesome !?!

The tread is more than a road shoe and less than a trail shoe, which suits me just fine.  Not over cushioned, GREAT price, no hype and not what the salesperson wanted to sell me !!  He, he, he.

Hmmmmm......my guilty pleasure !!! : D

What's yours.

Luv 'em with coffee

Luv 'em on their own

LUV 'EM LUV 'EM LUV 'EM

This should be how they are packaged so kiddy-monsters don't sneak them...

[only mummy-monsters]

p.s - have I mentioned how much I LURVE tim tams.

YAY for the inventor : D

Sooky Me !!!

I'm such a sook !!!

I went to bed last night all fired up and ready to run in the rain this morning - had a little personal pep-talk about being slack.

This morning it was raining cats and dogs and so I snuggled down deeper under the covers and went back to sleep :}

It was fabulous too...mwah, ha, ha.

I may have to go up to the 24 hour gym and go on their treadmill just to get my compulsory brain-taming jog. Otherwise I'll drive everyone nuts in my cave - erm house I meant.

I must, I must, I must learn to run in the rain first thing in the morning - yuck, yuck, yuck - oh, erm I meant YAY, YAY, YAY !!! I guess I don't REALLY need to stay in my nice, comfy warm bed with big fluffy pillows. It's soooo much more fun in the cold, cold, heartless rain, dripping down on my once warm body. Yeah,yeah toughen up me - but it's just so wet and drippy and super unfun.

Does anyone ACTUALLY like running in the rain ???

Hmmm......I'm sure there are special doctors that treat problems like that.

Not a doctor I'm ever gunna see for that problem - I may trot slowly in the gentle showers but I AINT EVER,NEVER,EVER gunna enjoy it, no siree, definatly not me !!!!


[disclaimer:this author is in no way responsible for any enjoyment brought about by running in the rain and splashing in puddles like a 5 year old. Stay posted as it's been heavy showers consistently here for a few weeks and the wet season hasn't started. If the author so chooses in the future to run in the rain and jump in puddles and finds it immensely enjoyable then she is in no way responsible for the silly grin as she jogs along the streets soaking wet and splashing mud on days when not even the neighbourhood mongel dogs will chase her and try their darnedest to enhance her use of interval training or at least try to bite her beckoning backside.]