Can you tell I’m super excited? Now, let me tell you what I did …

I walked all the stairs at the Duke Football Stadium (what? Duke has a football team?). It’s a large stadium in a horseshoe shape and has those stairs that are close together. There’s a track going around the football field, and then a practice field over in the trees to the right. Of course, none of that matters — because I did the stairs! I did the stairs! I did the stairs!

See, this is huge for me. Going down one set, walking across, then coming back up the next set — well, that’s hard work. My trainer, Lamont says it’s a gut check. So when he told me he was taking a group this morning, I figured I’d try and go again. This is the third time I’ve tried to go — the first time we couldn’t use the stadium because of a track meet; the second time I overslept.

I think I’m allergic to Thursdays too. Every Thursday before I was supposed to go — including yesterday — my allergies act up and I feel like poo. Then I don’t sleep very well. But I did it! I did it! I did it! Sorry I’m just excited

Several years ago Duck and I worked at Duke and would go to the stadium — he to run, me to walk. I tried walking those stairs before, but always gave up after maybe 4 sets (that’s 2 down, 2 up). Wuss. All my working out has been paying off Did I mention I did it?

My buddy Lisa 1 asked the other day on my post what my workout is like. Lamont says that muscle confusion is the best kind of training. If you go to the gym and lift the same weights the same way, your muscles get used to it and don’t grow. If you do different exercises that target the same muscles, your muscles grow. Now for me being an athlete, I needed to train my muscles to react quickly then rest. So lifting a lighter weight, quicker and less of a break in between sets, helps me to train my muscles to react quickly.

It’ll help me in softball tremendously. I’ve already seen the benefits and we haven’t even started the fall season yet (Monday’s the day!). When a ball is hit, I have to move my body quickly, get the ball in and then rest. It’s like running sprints with very short breaks in between. Lamont says it’s like going from 0-60 in 2.3 seconds. So that’s what I’ve been training my body to do the past 5 months.

The absolute hardest thing Lamont has had me do in the gym involves the treadmill. Now, I never knew those suckers would run turned off. He sets it at a level 15 which means I’m running uphill and powers it off. So I make the belt move as fast as I can for 20 seconds then rest 10 seconds. I can only do this for about 5 minutes (10 reps). Usually I’m falling all over the bar, holding myself up and trying to just keep my legs moving. Let me just share that the stadium stairs are 10x worse than doing the treadmill It’s like doing the treadmill for 30 minutes which would be like 60 reps.

Lamont told me when I started the goal for me was 28 minutes, but he was excited to see me finish the whole stadium and not give up. I did the whole stadium in 33 minutes, so I have a good goal now. Being that this is the first time I’ve done it, I think that’s awesome. Did I mention that I did it? I’m just so stinkin’ excited that I completed the stadium, I don’t think I would’ve cared if it had taken me an hour to do

Imagine me doing a happy dance with my arms — because my legs are noodles right now I told the others I was never so happy to live in a 1-story house as I was at that moment. I could really do without seeing any more stairs — at least for the weekend!