Aaaahh...gaaaarrghh...

"An obstacle may be either a stepping stone or a stumbling block." -Unknown

Monday morning I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for the day. I got out of bed and had a big old arms waaaay up in the air stretch...aaaaaaaah. In the blink of an eye my aaaaah... went to gaaargh! Or something like that. Something in my back, between my ribs to be exact kinda went 'ping!'. After trying to move it would appear that I had lost most of my capability to inhale and to twist.

Oh for the love of pete! This was supposed to be my first "offical" day of starting P90X. Okay, I had dabbled with it over Christmas, but I came up with a plan you see...

It all started when I realized last year that I needed to simplify my life. I needed balance. Mind, body and spiritual balance that is. I had mulled over how exactly to achieve this and came up with the following - I need a schedule.

Yes, yes. I know. Being on a schedule was rather loathsome for me last year. However, I realized it was loathsome because I had these big almighty goals and I always felt like if I strayed from the schedule that the world would end. This year though...no goals. Well, not 'no goals'. I mean I have the goal to be healthy, and there's the whole mind/body/spirit balance thing, but no goals that would cause guilt or world devastation if I faltered...

So. The plan. The plan is this... I will get up early and do P90X during the week, with the exception of some Tuesdays and Thursdays where I will swim (because I got pretty good at swimming last year and I'd hate to lose that). On Thursday nights, I shall climb! Indoor climbing that is (because I started that last year and I love how it makes one feel like wee child again).

As for the weekends...well the weekends are a free for all! As it is winter and rather snowy out, I shall xcountry ski! Or perhaps I will try some snowshoeing. Maybe even get in a little downhill. And maybe, just maybe, I will do nothing. Yep, you read that correctly. I will just chill. Read a book. Go for a walk. Nourish my soul a bit. Then when summer comes....well, we'll figure that out when the time comes.

Right. Now that that's all explained - back to the 'my official first day!' part. I tried to twist a bit, to see if anything loosened up. This movement caused a very sharp intake of air and a 'garp' sound to emerge. I was not to be discouraged though. I very carefully put on my workout gear, then went downstairs and got the DVD in. The program for the day was 'Chest and Back plus Abripper X'.

Chest and Back eh...oh my. What the heck, I thought. Maybe this would loosen things up a bit? Afterall, the twisting test did...uh...nothing. Oh well.

So I started the warmup...gingerly. So far so good. Sheesh. Lots of pushups in this workout! Chest workout indeed! Things were still ok though. I don't have the strength to do chin ups yet, so rigged my exercise band so I could do pulldowns instead. All was working quite well. In fact, it was only when I had to get up off the floor (where I sat doing the pulldowns) that caused further sharp intakes of air and garp noises. Not bad!

I managed to get through the program AND do the abripper X, although I couldn't do all of the exercises due to the back. The rest of the day I still had discomfort, and couldn't inhale deeply, but it wasn't worse than it was.

That night I was about to get into bed when I did a big arms in the air stretch and heard 'POP!' The pop noise came from the vicinity of my ribs and spine. I kind of stood there for a bit with my arms in the air afraid to take them down. Finally I did. Huh. What's this? I can move more. I can twist without making 'garp' noises! Cool!

So who knows what was going on back there, but all seems well now. Thankfully.

The next day I got through the Plyometrics DVD. I'm not a very bouncy gal I have come to realize. In fact, the term 'white girls can't jump' is really all about me. I did try my best though and my legs were burning so I had to have been doing something right. Later on in the day I started to feel Mondays workout and the mornings workout as well. It was all good though.

Today my alarm went off signalling me it was time to P90X. I was kind of sleepy though so in the name of balance and making sure all systems get equal time - I decided to skip the workout and sleep for another hour. What the heck!

I think I can really get used to not having any race plans or schedules this year! Aaaaaaah.

Peace out my lovely friends!