day 23: the first day of my final week

this morning was my last monday at fitness ridge. how glorious is that? freedom lurks just around the corner. it is both daunting and exciting.

my assessment hike today was called "black brush". this hike is known for being one of the more boring hikes assigned at fitness ridge. i guess i had to have a boring one at some point. it wasn't as bad as i thought, but the scenery was nothing to write home about (even though, i am ironically "writing home"). it is one of the highest calorie burning hikes i can remember. maybe because i was going particularly fast. i came back to FR to find i was assigned to the fastest group for the week.

breakfast was bacon and egg sandwich but i opted out and had granola with a cut up red apple and cinnamon. it's such good granola and it's so filling.

after breakfast i opted for stretch to hopefully loosen my overly tight hip flexers. it makes running suck because i'm always afraid i'll pull something. it doesn't stop me from running however, as i took mountain next. before the class, tiffany goes around mid-warm-up and asks everyone what their goal for the class is. i told her mine was to make it up to 6.0 at the top of the mountain. (in case you've forgotten, mountain is twelve 3-minute intervals. you increase after every interval.) i got to what i thought was the last turn up and was at 6.0! reached my goal! tiffany looked at her stopwatch and decided there were two  more increases. i ended up ending mountain at 6.5. since i had been jogging for a good twenty minutes, i didn't think i was going to make it. annie and maria were on either side of me and they began to run to help me keep going. it was so inspirational! there was no way i could stop running when i saw both of them start running with me to keep me going. unbelievable. so fitness ridge.

lunch was vegetable soup and a turkey rice bowl with grilled zucchini, summer squash, red onion, and tomatoes. the rice bowl was awesome! i forgot to mention to you guys that one of my goals for the week is to begin leaving at least a bite of food on my plate. although i am only taking in 1200 calories a day, i think it's important to be okay with seeing food on your plate and still saying no. i think a lot of people struggle with this, not just myself. so, hopefully by accomplishing this goal (which i've done so far), i'll help myself stop overeating and get comfortable with looking at food without devouring it.

my afternoon consisted of volleyball for "open gym", two circuit classes and a core class. i took circuit twice instead of going to pool in attempt to finish the entire strength side of the gym. i didn't finish, but strength circuit is tomorrow so i'll try to finish then. core class was wonderful, as usual. i was pretty beat today.

overall it was a successful day and i found it to be one of the most intense calorie burns since end of week 2. last week was all in the 2ks and today i broke through to 3k. thank god!

dinner was chili and cornbread which was probably the best thing i've had while at fitness ridge. i wish i could've skipped the cornbread and gone with greek yogurt but it's fine. i'll just make my own chili when i get home. dessert was a pineapple skewer. i ate the whole piece of pineapple because, come on, it's pineapple. things like that are okay.

only 4.5 more days of exercise to go until i get a little bit of time to relax and pack and i'm back on a plane to reality. time to endulge by watching true blood. yessss.
with tons of little tiny glittery hearts filled with love,
goodnight.