Not as good as I thought....

Did a step cardio class this morning for the first time in ages.  Boy, am I ever out of shape!  I'd been doing cardio training on eliptical machines and stationary bikes, but I obviously wasn't pushing myself hard enough, because this just about killed me.  At one point I was having to do the workout off the step, just doing the actions on the floor.  Yikes!

The reason I'm pushing myself so hard is that if they let me join the team at all, I figure that with missing a practice a month I'm going to need to be able to just jump in a participate at a pretty high level of ability the times 'm able to be there.  So, more classes are definitely called for!

After the step class, I took advantage of having the day off work and did a round of weight training and then a good 20 minutes of stretching; I know that flexibility is going to be important, too.  I got a new iPod last week, which made these a lot more fun, and I ended up feeling better about myself and my general fitness level than I had at the end of the class, so that's good, I guess....

Telling the first person

Well, I told my daughter this morning that I am "thinking about" joining the parent team at her cheer gym.  She was so excited (after a moment of concern that our two teams might be competing against one another! LOL! 37 yr olds versus 7 year olds!  I wonder who'd win!!!).  I had to warn her that I might not be able to do it, with my work schedule.  But now that I've told her, not doing it for any other reason would be a real disappointment to her, and I hate doing that.  So I guess that this is another step to making it real.

Worked out yesterday (weights) and today (cardio).  I really like this new health club I'm at; the old one was dark and felt dingey and not really a pleasant place to be; this one is much brighter, more natural light.  There are an awful lot of extremely fit people, though.... a bit intimidating....

Two steps forward, one step back...

OK, so I went and worked out Friday, had a great workout.  Yesterday wasn't too bad, ate reasonably well, eschewed the muffins on offer at the morning meeting I attended.  Probably just having been at the cheer gym with my daughter yesterday morning helped.

Today I went to the zoo with my daughter, and although we did some walking, it wasn't as much as I'd anticipated when I bought each of us an ice cream bar about 30 minutes before the sky turned (almost literally) black and the heavens opened up.  Somehow, I don't think that the sprint to the car (where I'd left the umbrella) burned off all those calories.

Sigh.

I decided that something else I need to work at is my posture; I wear a G-cup bra, and I'm always hunching my shoulders over.  Not sure if that's a physical thing or a psychological thing (trying to hide what I'm carrying!), but either way, no cheerleader I've ever seen has anything but perfect posture (at least not when in uniform).  Might as well start working on it.  And hey, might help with my perpetually sore upper back in the process.....

Getting started

They say that we're more likely to follow up on our commitments when we make them in writing, and if we tell others about them.  But I'm still afraid that people in my life will laugh at me for this one, so being anonymous will be a good thing, I think.

I want to be a cheerleader.

I thought I'd given this up twenty years ago when I was cut at cheer tryouts in high school.  It was just one of those things that I simply wasn't meant to do.

But now my daughter is 8, and cheering at a cheer gym that has a parent's team.  And now I have the chance to look at doing this again.

I've always loved the sport; the athleticism, the grace, the excitement, the teamwork.  

But I'm  20 pounds overweight, not very strong, and work at least once a month on the nights the team practices.

Still, I'm going to give it a shot.  

So today, I'm off to the gym (the regular one, not the cheer one) to begin trying to get into shape for this.

Here's a video of the team I'm hoping to join in action, 2007 nationals.