Workout Music

Today at the gym, I saw myself in the reflection of the window and thought to myself, "I wonder what people would think if they knew the type of music I was listening to." I was wearing a very bright tye-dye t-shirt that I made at Girl Scout Camp, black shorts, my hair was up, and bright blue and green tennis shoes. From this description alone, you probably wouldn't think I was listening to rock, metal (much less heavy metal) or anything else in those genres. 

Well that is exactly what I was listening to. 

When that thought popped in my head I was listening to Judas Priest followed by Black Sabbath. I had to stop lifting at that moment because I was laughing too hard.

So what do you listen to when you work out? Is it a contradiction to what you wear too?

Dear Gym Asshole

Yeah, that's right, I'm talking to you, the dude in the red sweatshirt today.

Background: I was at they gym doing squats with the barbell and looking at the mirror to make sure I go down all the way each time. During one of my first few sets, an asshole decides to use a barbell right in front of me (minded other barbells that weren't in front of me were open) and stays there doing squats of his own, really poorly might I add. Not only was he in front of me when he was doing his squats, but he did really annoying grunts and wasn't even lifting that much to justify grunting. 

The moral of the story is, don't be an asshole at the gym. It's simple. When someone is using the mirror and you have other options on where to stand, stand elsewhere! 

Breaking Stereotypes

Thursday I went to the gym and invited my friend, Mike, to come workout with me if he wanted, not expecting to see him but to see some lame excuse via text so I plugged in my iPod and got to work. Well, normally at the gym I do around a half hour of weights (and I'm not talking 5 pound weights) and then either bike or row. On my last weight machine of the day, I got up to wipe it off and see Mike behind me. Apparently I look very intimidating when I workout and scared him slightly. We went upstairs where the track and other cardio equipment is and I start rowing and he ran around. At the end of our cardio, I ask him if he wanted to do any weights to which he declined. 

Well the stereotype that I am leading to is weight lifting and the gym. On any given day at the gym, the majority of the people in the weight room are guys. Today there were only 3 other girls besides myself (most lifting the 5 pound weights I mentioned earlier). Also, on any given day at the gym, girls usually outnumber guys on cardio equipment. So I'm here to tell you that it is ok for girls to lift weights and it's ok for guys to go for a run or something cardio along with weights. 

Playing with the Pack

So I was working out at the gym in the morning like usual and after an hour work out (which felt amazing) I see in the big open area, where people are usually playing basketball, bouncy castle things being set up. So me being a curious Sonja goes in to check it out. I ask some dude with a clip board (because dudes with clip boards usually know what's going on) what it was all about. He told me that it was the Military Experience for the week long Veteran's Day celebration and was starting at 12 people could play in the bouncy castles, try on actual military gear and do a pull up challenge. Just as I was about to leave (because it wasn't 12 yet) he tells me "And then a couple of Packers are going to be here from 1-4 playing in them and meeting people and taking pictures if people want." 

I go home to eat something, cause I worked out pretty hard and was hungry and then head back to the gym around 2. A friend and I did a bouncy castle obstacle that was timed to see which team was the fastest (we weren't even close, but it was still fun). Then we got to go in the ball wrecker bouncy castle and swing a big ball around trying to knock each other off of podiums and finally there was a knock out bouncy castle. 

So I got to play with Ryan Taylor (left) and Marshall Newhouse (right) of the Green Bay Packers and got my picture taken with them.

What's Your Quirk?

Everyone I know has a weird little quirk when it comes to working out. Some stare themselves down in the mirror, some look really pissed off while lifting, while others go in pairs or groups to the gym and everyone stands around one person while that person is lifting.

My quirk you ask? Well I have several. 

I always do 100 reps on each machine I use. I typically always do 4 sets of 25 and take a water break after my 3rd set. Sometimes I'll do more, but 100 is my minimum. 

When I'm not feeling the workout, I usually dedicate it to someone who is in the military and that pushes me harder. 

My final quirk, is music. When I'm lifting, I can't stand listening to my iPod just because the cord gets in the way, but when I do cardio, I will sing along to all of the songs...sometimes out loud.

Whatever your workout quirk is, don't worry about it, just keep lifting!

Tough Mudder #2

So we get up to EAA in Oshkosk and it starts sprinkling a little, I check my phone and see a very colorful storm coming so we park and it's thundering and lightning for a while. Obviously my mom and I decided to stay in the car and wait it out cause it was moving pretty fast. Once the lightning went away and it was just sprinkling we go out and on the way to the registration, we see a big puddle. Knowing that we are going to be soaking wet during the course, we jump in it. The little kid (maybe 5 years old) behind us decided to follow our lead and jumped in the puddle too which I found funny but at least the parents were cool about it...I mean you don't go to Tough Mudder (even just as a spectator) and expect to leave all clean and dry, that just doesn't happen.

After registration we go over to the starting line where we first have to climb a wall that was 7 to 10 feet tall (depending on where in the wall you are standing) to get to the starting line. That's right, there's an obstacle before the event even begins! But no biggie, at the other side of the wall we hear an awesome pep talk and someone sings the national anthem. Only problem with that was, it was still raining. Half way through the national anthem, the power goes out and all of the mudders pick up right where it left off. Which was unbelievable and so powerful. A cannon is fired and then we were off. 

Under the trees we went until we came to the "Kiss of Mud" where we crawled on our stomachs through mud under barbed wire. We get to the other end, stand up, and I notice that my arms are already scraped up pretty badly. Well, I'm already hurt, might as well get something out of it, so we keep going. 

The next fun obstacle that we came to (minded I'm not going to explain every obstacle, you'll have to do it if you want to know what they all are like) was the "Electric Eel". This is where we are crawling once again on our stomachs through water while live wires are hanging down on top of you. I'll repeat: LIVE WIRES! They don't hurt much, just a gentle reminder that you are alive, unless if you were me. I was going along in my lane getting the occasional zap until the guy next to me decided he wanted to be in my lane too. Well isn't that nice of him. While he was moving over (uninvited mind you) I was constantly being zapped on my ass! This quickly motivated me to encourage him to keep moving. But I got out just fine. 

The next obstacle I'll tell you about was called "Hold Your Wood." An easy task really. You simply pick up a piece of wood and carry it in a circle. No problem. Only thing, the wood wasn't little sticks. They were chunks of wood. The smallest was even too big to put in a city fire pit. Well, I hoisted one up on my shoulder and was off. Don't forget, the whole path is covered in shoe sucking mud from the rain making it extra tricky to maneuver. I get to the end, toss my wood and found out that the medical person there had to send 3 people home within the last 30 minutes because of pinched fingers and wood dropping on toes and feet. Thankfully I was unaware of this information before I did this obstacle.

I was really looking forward to "Firewalker" again because last year there were two long zig zagging rows (at least 15 meters long if not longer) of wood and straw and hay that were on fire that smoked like crazy. Well, it was nothing like that this year. Instead there were two lines of wood that were on fire that we had to hop over (one could easily walk over it) and then there was this pool (as close to a pool as you could get when it comes to Tough Mudder) where we jumped in and swam to the other side and used a cargo net to climb up. As I was almost up the cargo net, a hand appears in front of me, I grab it and a guy nearly lifts me right out of the water. That is what Tough Mudder is all about. Not the obstacles, not the distance, but the camaraderie.

I was also looking forward to the next obstacle as I loved it last year, the "Arctic Enema." This one is pretty straight forward. You climb up a small ramp, jump into water, go under a board so your head is completely submerged and then climb another small ramp to get out. Easy peasy. Oh wait, forgot one little thing. The water is freezing! They dump ice in the water and add some liquid so the water will remain really freaking cold! Oh well, it was a nice short break from the heat.

Skipping ahead, we come to the "Cage Crawl." I found this rather relaxing. One simply goes in the water floating on your back and use a cage that is inches from your face to move along. The water isn't deep and with your ears submerged in the water, it was rather pleasant. Well, unless if you were the dude in front of me. I guess I was a bit faster at cage crawling than he was and ended up in his lap basically. Never know, he might have found that relaxing too!

After the "Funky Monkey" which is basically a monkey bar on steroids, we come to the pull up challenge. If all of the mudders between the two days reached a total of (I believe) 3,000 pull ups, then they would donate and extra amount to some charity (which unfortunately I can't remember but I wanna say to Wounded Warrior which is what Tough Mudder supports). I get to the bar and give it a shot. Remember, this is after 11 miles and over 20 obstacles by this time. I grab on and unfortunately I can't even do one at this point. I hope they reached the goal even though I wasn't able to help.

The last obstacle is called "ElectroShock Therapy" where like the "Electric Eel" before, live wires are hanging down. Only difference is that you have to run (or walk) through them and over stacks of hay to get to the other side. I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I can tell you that ever mudder crosses the "ElectroShock Therapy" to get their hard earned headband and that cup of cold beer!

It was a fun 11.87 miles and the scrapes, cuts and bruises are slowly healing. My mom and I already have our third and forth Tough Mudders planned out and I can hardly wait!

150

150. A simple enough number. Divisible by 3 to make three even stacks of 50. A good round number. Not scary at all. Unless...they are days.

Do you know what you are going to be doing in 150 days from today? I bet over half of you don't even know what day that is. Well I'll help ya out. It is going to be September 7th, 2013. It'll be a Saturday. Now most of you are thinking, school has begun again and it's the first weekend off for the semester. Sleeping in, then hanging out with friends during the day and maybe hitting a few bars at night to watch some bands play and catch up with old friends, or hanging out with the family. It doesn't sound scary at all. 

Thankfully, that will not be how I will spend my Saturday, September 7th of 2013. I imagine to spend my day something like this: wake up early and get in the car with my mom to drive for an hour or two to a still unknown location. There we will eat our oatmeal as the excitement builds up within us as we duct-tape our shoes to our feet. We will hear the roar of the crowd and the music blaring getting us pumped. Then, it will be our turn. We will scale walls, crawl under barbed wire in thick mud that will pull at our shoes, go swimming (not the leisurely kind with noodles and other floating toys), run through a thick white smoke from a straw fire where we can barely see the ground beneath our feet, go swimming in what feels to be water from the arctic with ice cubes covering the surface, climb cargo nets, jump over and crawl under logs of wood, and make our way through a mile of mud that eats shoes for breakfast, all to end with getting shocked all over the body by 10,000 volts. 

In 150 days, I will be doing the Tough Mudder. What will you be doing?

 






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuxQgOgVEG0

Hi, my name is Sonja, and I'm addicted.

When most people think about being addicted to something, it's usually to drugs, or cigarettes  or caffeine. Not me. I'm addicted to pain. I'm addicted to the pain of working out.
Let me explain. Two days ago I attended my first "Core Crunch" class here at UW-Milwaukee. It was 30 minutes of hell. All I could see in my minds eye was Jillian Michaels telling me that yes it is going to be hell, but yes I am going to get through it, and yes I will be better because of it. At the end of class, I was begging the instructor for more (and got some dirty looks from the others) but got another song in because of it. Yesterday I attended "Boot Camp." It is an hour long class that worked pretty much every muscle in my body and looked like crap at the end of class. This morning I woke up and yes my muscles are sore, but that tells me that I actually did something. I earned that soreness. I didn't just sit on the couch and watched the world go by, I'm living it.  

I have 219 days to get ready, and I'll be damned if I won't be. 

I can.

I've been working out and losing weight for a while. I walked with my mom picking up trash on our street (a total of 3 miles per walk) and then started walking more. 2 years ago I took a self-defense course here at University Wisconsin-Milwaukee and I loved it. The punching and kicking was fun and a great stress re-leaver  for me. Last summer I trained with my mom for our half marathon that we did in August. This whole school year I've been taking kick boxing classes at school, which like the self-defense course, was fun, a great stress re-leaver and has built up my muscles. Along with kick boxing I sometimes go for a jog or walk in preparation for my mom's and my marathon in (yikes) roughly 75 days. But it's not just about the distance (26.2 miles!) but also the strength because in August my mom and I are enrolled in the Dirty Girl Mud Run (a 3 mile course with 11 obstacles) and in September a Tough Mudder (10-12 mile course with 26 obstacles). With all of this working out, and shrinking in jean size (now down to a size 10!), I still didn't see what others were seeing, that is until I looked at old pictures. 
Here I am (tye-dye shirt) in 2008 (I pushed my friend's pudding into her face, so much fun):

Now here I was a month ago on the cruise celebrating my mom's 50th and my 22nd birthday (the one in the pool): 

I never would have allowed a picture of me in a swim suit - much less a bikini - be on the internet. But now I feel great and am much more confident. 

I've already lost 45 pounds.

 

Awesome Day

Yesterday I had an awesome day. It started out rough as I had to get up early for my morning class but I woke up before the alarm rang in annoyingly so that was a plus. I had yogurt with granola and a cup of tea for breakfast which tasted really good and then off to class with another cup of tea. 
On my way to my class, Criminal Justice, I ran into this guy

Who always tries to hand out pamphlets to help stop animal cruelty with pictures of pigs and chickens in line to be slaughtered. The real thing about him that is funny is the way he says "Help stop animal CRUELty?" with his voice going up and down. 

I arrived in my class early and there was only one other person there who was reading Harry Potter, which I spotted from several rows back without even passing her and we had a long talk about how totally awesome Harry Potter is and she has a remote control wand for her TV and another one that turns on a candle. 

During class which was easy I got a phone call and didn't answer it, because for one, I was in class and two, it was a restricted call so I thought it was a telemarketer or something. 

On the way to my German class (after lunch) I remembered the message the 'restricted' person left and listened to it. Turned out to be from the Milwaukee ATF about a speaker coming out to speak to a club I belong to, the Criminal Justice Student Association (CJSA). (Side note that makes it so much funnier: I emailed the ATF thinking that would be easier on their part. They sent back an email with a phone number that turned out to be to headquarters in DC. The guy that answered headed me in the right direction finally ending up in the Milwaukee office.)

During German class (where I am learning old German Script) I was the only one who recognized the short hand by putting a line over an 'm' or 'n' to symbolize doubling that letter. Professor said good job to me. That class ended early so I had plenty of time to go and change for kick boxing which kicked my butt and felt so good. 

After kick boxing, came home and showered and then made a perfect egg (the yolk all runny and the white really soft). Ended the night with some reading of Hell House by Richard Matheson which got significantly better after the first 100 pages. 

Hopefully today will be awesome too!

Kick Boxing

A few semesters ago I signed up for a Self Defense course here at UW-Milwaukee. We learned punches, kicks, blocks and how to properly fall when shoved down. It was awesome. A semester went by and I missed it, so last semester I decided to go to the gym here at UWM and found a kick boxing class. I went there with an open mind (hoping that it would be similar to the self defense class) and it was a blast. At the beginning of the semester we learned basic punches and how to always keep our elbows in to protect our sides and to protect our head when we duck out of a punch. We slowly incorporated kicks into the work out such as round house kicks, side kicks and snap kicks (yes at times I felt like Chuck Norris). Soon the semester came to an end (one of the classes I was solo so the instructor, Arthur, gave me a private lesson that really kicked my ass). 

Today was the first day of kick boxing this semester and we had roughly 22 people in the class with a max of 20. Only three of us came back from last semester meaning 19 people were new. Usually we have about 8 or 10 people and Arthur makes us really sweat. Today, with 22, it was no different. The sweat was running down my forehead before long and muscles started to ache in that glorious pain that can only come from a good work out. Hopefully next class people decide not to come so Arthur can work us out even more, incorporating more kicks and more complex moves like we did back in December. 

Basically, I love kick boxing as a work out. Go out and find a work out that you love and can't wait for your next class. For me, I have 1 day 19 hours and 27 minutes until my next kick boxing class.