fitness

Warrior Nation

/ Ronni Jean / 5 Comments

 

IMG_0734

Warrior Dash was this past Saturday and I am not sure how to even sum it up except to say that it was the most amazing kick in the ass I have experience in such a long time! I was SUPER nervous about doing this race slash obstacle course for a couple of reasons:  I am not that much of a runner like I used to be, this course was coined “hilly” which it was. I had never done an obstacle type race before and I had no idea what to expect. I mean sure the website shows you the obstacles you might face but that is just a picture, it really doesn’t compare with being face to face with a giant mud slide. I also wasn’t sure how the atmosphere would be, some races I’ve been to are super competitive and people are kind of full of themselves.. not this one.

Warrior Dash exceeded my expectations on all accounts. I was super nervous while waiting in the gates to start but once we were set free I realized that I didn’t need to be nervous people were super friendly and also very helpful and encouraging. There was one obstacle I was having a heck of a time with and one guy finished it and waited at the end to high five me once I had finished; nice strangers.. who knew that they existed. The competitive wave was the first wave to go so each wave after felt a little more relaxed but at the same time super charged, people were there to have some good, muddy fun.

I did however expect this run to be a little more messy during the entire thing but it turns out the most muddy part didn’t come until the end when you came face to face with Goliath, an obstacle that you had to climb up and over only to have to slide down a water slide type slide with mud into a mud pit and then swim slash float your way through a mud pool that had looming barbed wire. At the end of the race I literally had mud in places mud shouldn’t be. The people putting on the race offered hoses for rinsing all of that mud off but trust me, it barely made a dent. Had I planned better I would’ve brought a towel to help clean myself off with.

I feel like I am all over the place now, so let me just say… Warrior Dash = AMAZING, and I can’t wait to do it again next year. And if I had planned better I would have brought a towel, a change of clothes, flip flops, extra water, plastic bags for my muddy clothes. The one thing I did plan ahead with was bringing trash bags for my car, I did not need all that mud in my car.

I also have to say that I am rather proud of myself for completing this race, my friend was not able to run it with me so essentially I went by myself, I did have the support of the girls from Bootcamp but I was not about to let the fact that I was running alone stop me. I might have been solo but no part of the race did I feel like I was alone because of the tons of other people that were running the race.

Oh and just an FYI days later and I still feel like someone beat the crap out of me and I have the battle scars, or bruises rather, to prove it.

IMG_0743

 

r

4/9/14

Advertisement

Up, up and away…

/ Ronni Jean / Leave a comment

 

So this year I made it a point to really get myself into shape and to start caring more about what I put in my body and the amount of activity that I participate in. Currently I work out with a group of woman in Corona at a bootcamp style class; we meet 5 days a week for one hour and our instructor pushes up. We run, we do a little strength training with dumbbells, a whole lot of jumping jacks, squats and my least favorite lunges. I have been doing this for about 3ish months now and I love it. This year is the year that I rediscover my love for exercising, and I think the love is already in full swing.

So since my love for being active is back I decided to look into a wearable device that tracks my calories, steps, sleep, water intake, etc. I wanted to make sure that on the days that I wasn’t in bootcamp that I was still being physically active and not slacking off. (I read an article recently that stated that being sedentary can lead to decline in brain activity.. and really who wants that?) Back to the wearable.. I swear I read a million different blogs comparing the Fitbit Force, Fitbit Flex, Nike Fuelband, Nike Fuelband se, Jawbone UP, Jawbone UP 24, and some other random devices that I had never really heard of. I read until I seriously couldn’t read anymore.. because really when it comes down to it they all did the same thing and ended up being a preference of brands; as my mom put it “Apple vs Android”

I initially picked up the Fitbit Force after a bunch of reading thinking that it would be the most comprehensive and Ronni friendly (not too techy, simple to use, seamless transition from iPhone app to web based information input)…. super long story short, it was not at all Ronni friendly.  First thing, it was a huge clunky piece of plastic on my wrist, it looked very manly (I wish I had taken pictures). Second, I had also recently read about Fitbit Force owners getting rashes from the device, with my luck I would end up with a rash since I have crazy sensitive skin. I was also turned off even more by the Fitbit Force when  I continued to research the rash problem to find that Fitbit was denying that their product did this to people and they were even deleting comments from concerned users on their Facebook and message boards (you can find the rash article here). Another thing that I hated about it was that I could not for the life of me get the time to be correct, I synced it, reset it, I charged it, I did everything that I read to do but the time would never read the correct time. At this point I was WAY over the Fitbit Force. So I drove over to Target and got rid of it and picked up the Jawbone UP instead.

IMG_0015

 

 

From the beginning of my wearable search the Jawbone UP was the one I had my eye set on, for reasons that I cannot even explain I went against my own gut feeling (I was more than likely swayed by bloggers..pffft) and started off with that Fitbit Force nonsense.

From the moment I put the Jawbone UP on in the parking lot it was love. The  band was significantly less bulky than the Fitbit Force, Jawbone also offers a wide variety of colors, I chose the grey because I felt that it went with more outfits than the more flashy colors that they have; blue, mint green, red, black. I also loved that I would be able to wear my watches and that the Jawbone would not draw too much attention to itself. My wrist was so happy and I hadn’t even set it up yet.

IMG_0011

So I charged the little baby up, it comes with a little USB charging device that is super easy to use. After it was all charged I set it up, it took me all of 5 minutes, if that.. super easy.. Ronni friendly. With the Jawbone there is no display to worry about and no clock to annoy me because the time is wrong. I set it up with the accompanying iPhone app and bam I was ready to try it out. The day I got it not much got tried out because it was later in the day, so the real test came when I had bootcamp the next morning.

IMG_0018

 

At bootcamp the Jawbone did not interfere with my heart rate monitor; thumbs up for that. It didn’t get in the way of my workout and it didn’t fall off or slide down my wrist like I was a little scared that it would. As soon as my workout was over I got home and plugged my Jawbone into my phone to sync and I got instant feedback of how many steps I had taken during my workout and the caloric value of the workout that I timed. I am visually motivated so instant feedback is great in my book.

IMG_0020

 

This is the first week that I am using the Jawbone UP and it already has me obsessed with trying to outdo the amount of steps I took the day prior and make sure I get more sleep than I was getting in the past. Overall I am really happy with my decision to swap the Fitbit Force for the Jawbone UP, and if Target had had the Jawbone UP 24 I probably would have gone that route instead. The 24 is bluetooth and to sync you just press a little button that shoots the info on over to the app, but really I have no problem taking the band off and plugging it into my phone in order to sync the information.. I mean how lazy is that button realllllly?

A couple of other things that I love about my Jawbone; silent alarms, the band vibrates to wake you up or for custom times.. I have mine set for every 2-3 hours so that I remember to eat and the app syncing with a handful of other apps that I use, UP syncs with My Fitness Pal to log your food into the UP app and keep all of your information in one place rather than having to use a bunch of different apps to stay on the same page.

Like I said I have only been using my band for only about a week, I am excited to see what kind of stats I have by the end of 2 weeks and again after a month. I can see this band being a very useful tool in helping to keep me on track and I am glad that I made this investment. I will update in time about my progress and how my Jawbone is performing.

 

 

This is the year that I get in shape; the year that I buy a bathing suit. This is the year that I don’t let slow results discourage me, because after all  they are results. This is the year of feeling comfortable in my own skin.

r

1/23/14