The Never-Ending Story...

Before we begin Part Two of Part Three of my story, I figured I'd post a little bit about today's fitness regimen. Since that seems to be what all the cool kids are doing. (Have I mentioned that I am a total fitness/food blog lurker? Because I am.)

5:45 am: 20 minute run. 2.58 mi. 2 min warmup and then alternating 1 min sprints/1 min recovery jog.
6:05 am: Plyometrics
      SET ONE (repeat 3x with 1 min break between each set):
             Jump rope (1 min)
             Lunge Jumps (30 s)
             Mountain Climbers (45 s)
             Squat Jumps (30 s)
       SET TWO (repeat 3x with 1 min break between each set):
             Lateral Step out Squats (1 min)
             Fairy Skips in Place (30 s)
             Step Out Plank on Swiss Ball (30 s)
             Burpees (30s)
  
I'm not sure if the fairy skips are really called just that...but that's what we called them back when I ran Cross Country in high school. (Coach used to make the boys do them whenever the football team walked past us...)

Anyway.

I was also forced to buy new training shoes yesterday. I can't afford to spend money on another pair, since I just had to go out and buy new running shoes (since I haven't run in a year), but it was time.

So now I am the proud (?) owner of a pair of Vibram KSOs...These are the geekiest things I have ever owned, and I definitely owned a pair of four inch white foam platform Spice Girls-style sandals in the fifth grade. Just sayin'.

I feel silly. 

I can't wait to see how these babies fare in the gym. I've heard that they're awesome for lifting--I was going to get another pair of Converse for the gym, but since I'm adding plyos, I needed an all-purpose shoe, and this was the one that they told me I needed. (Yes, "They." You know who "They" are. "They" live in Google and dispense good advice so long as I refine my search terms properly...)

So now that you're caught up on the immediate, here's the backstory (continued):

Over Christmas break, I made the decision to stay at Columbia. I finished my outstanding assignments (which meant writing over 50 pages of theoretical & dramaturgical analysis and the first draft of a full length play in a month) and went back up to the city. I staked out a seat at the famous Hungarian Pastry Shop, which was to become my new home for the next several months as I worked on revising my play, and I took advantage of daily bottomless cups of coffee (it tasted terrible, but refills were FREE!) since my new apartment was right next door.

But things still weren't right with the world. Although I was trying hard to go out with my incredible classmates (to sing musical theatre karaoke at Marie's Crisis with Ian or to the village for a Sweet Fix show with my fellow dramaturgs & Leslie), to see 3-4 shows (Broadway, Off-, and way-the-fuck-Off) per week, to sit through late night rehearsals for Collaboration class, and to generally find a more positive outlook on life (told you I hate periods--this whole paragraph is only two sentences long), I was still more concerned with working out, eating less, and losing weight.

Our playwriting class was a clever ruse to convert innocent dramaturgs into Sweet Fix groupies.

Celebrating a successful Collaboration.

By the end of the semester, I was spent. Emotionally, physically, and financially. I got two jobs, one at the Columbia Arts Initiative as a social media/bitch-work intern (read the articles here), and the other folding towels and swiping ID cards at the Dodge Fitness Center.

Mind you, I still wasn't making enough money to live, so even though I didn't feel like I was losing enough weight from my body, my bank account seemed to have an overactive metabolism...It was also the hottest summer I have ever experienced--which was miserable to begin with, a misery only compounded by the fact that I had no A/C in my apartment. So I was waking up at 4:30/5, running to (and from) the gym, working out, biking to work, working all day, biking to my second job, folding towels until midnight, and then packing my meals for the next day...I was over everything. I even cut off all of my hair to cut down on the time I spent getting ready after the gym in the morning.

Boy hair! (Which I actually kind of miss...)

It was over the summer that I started studying for my certification in Personal Training through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (hereinafter referred to as NASM). As a theatre/english major with next to no background in biology (outside of that awesome 10th grade AP Bio class), studying the anatomy and physiology portion was a massively intensive endeavor. But it was the first time all year that I felt like I was studying for a reason. While the rest of the world seemed like it was crashing down around me, I had my own little oasis of reason and sanity in the NASM textbook.

I attended the NASM hands-on cPT workshop on July 11-12, and on July 13, I took a medical leave of absence from Columbia.

Guess I'll leave you here for the night, since it's already 10 pm, and I need to get up early to run with my dad...Stay tuned for Part Three of Part Three!

-Kaila