Working Hard at Working Out

For those of you who know me even a little, you will know that I am an ultra-competitive person by nature. In high school and college, I exercised this crazy competitiveness through the avenue of organized sports. Since college, I've tried to find my outlet of that energy through coaching, but I'm always looking for opportunities to be competitive in other areas (just ask anyone who has ever played a board game with me).

Each summer, my sisters and I gather with our families for a week at Houghton Lake up in Michigan. Each summer, the competition is on (though it is mostly unspoken) to NOT be the heaviest/chunkiest sister at the lake. Some of you who live in a perpetual state of tiny being might not understand this. So, the beginning of June always tends to sneak up on me and then suddenly I'm in a frenzy over the fact that I have less than 4 weeks until the event. By the way, I think that although we've been married almost 5 years now, this never ceases to drive my husband crazy. His attitude is that whatever I do should be for myself and not out of some crazy "I-don't-want-to-be-the-heaviest-sister" competition. He does have a valid point and yet somehow it always happens like this.

So, this year I lucked out. My gym started a contest on May 12 that would run until this Friday (which happens to be the day before we leave). PERFECT! The competitive side of me jumped at this idea and the opportunity. I went in and weighed and was measured at the start of the contest. The contest was set up to give points for attending the group classes as well as points for pounds lost, inches lost, attendance at an 1.5 hour aerobathon and more. I had never been to one of the group classes, so I decided to give it a try. The first 3-4 weeks I was going to about 3 classes a week, but not really going crazy about the whole thing. I enjoyed the spinning and liked having someone push me. It was much more exciting than trying not to be bored spending a long time on a cardio machine.

With each day drawing closer to vacation, I began starting to step up the exercise and being more careful about my eating. Last Saturday I had a cold. It was the same day as the aerobathon and I was determined to make it through anyway because you got a bunch of points for going and more points for finishing the torture session. Then on Saturday they announced that since this week was the last week, all points would be doubled. WHOHOO! I checked the class schedule and figured out that between Monday and Friday I could make it to 9 classes if I worked really hard at it. I thought it was a good plan.

On Monday, Ashley (one of the trainers), told me that I was currently in third place and had the potential to win it if I could make it to several of the classes this week. Exhilaration and the thrill of the competition raced through me as I told her that I was trying for 9 classes and I suddenly had a determination that if there was a chance I could win it, I was going to make it to every single one of those classes.

Then, I proceeded to go to two classes on Monday (boxing and whole body), one class on Tuesday (Yoga - yuck!) and three classes today (whole body, spin express and step express). Tomorrow I have two evening classes and then one morning class on Friday and then I'm done and gone on vacation.

I'm doing everything I can to finish strong. I'll find out Friday how I ended in the competition. I will find out Saturday how I did in the sister competition. No matter what the results of those events, I know that my body feels better right now. More than that, my mind does so much better and I feel so much better about myself when I'm exercising, so I'm thankful for the competition.

So, are any of you crazy competitive like I am?