Day 12 - "Jessica, You Were Right"

Last night my roommate, Jessica, read my blog and said "I haven't been in the blog in the last two days. I need to step it up." And she did.
She woke me up by saying "Good morning sunshine" and "wakey, wakey" in a singsong voice. I tried to cover my head with my blanket. Jessica has more energy at 5:30 am than most people have after an entire pot of coffee. My back was killing me and I said no way am I going to Yogalates. She said it would help and I argued for a few minutes but finally got up.
Jessica was writing a goal for herself for the day and stuck it on one of the pictures.

I told her good luck with that. Everyone looks like a fool in Zumba. Here's Jessica about 5 minutes after waking up. Ridiculously happy.


We went to Yoga and I was thinking how miserable it was going to be with my back hurting so badly. Magically, by the end of class the pain was basically gone. Leaving the class I mumbled "You were right." Jessica said "What? Can you say that louder?" She had me tell her several times today that she was right.
After Yoga it was time for breakfast.


Breakfast was "pancakes" with sausage and eggs. It was fine. Still not crazy about breakfast here. Still LOVE everything else.
While I was eating John came over to say goodbye to me. He left this morning so he could get home in time to spend Easter with his family. I cried while I hugged him goodbye. I really bonded with him in the 2 weeks while I was here. He's been so supportive and sweet to me. John, I miss you already!


Breakfast:


After breakfast it was time for the hike. Yesterday I begged for the guides to change our Friday hike. We were scheduled for Scout Cave and I desperately wanted to do Camelback. It's a harder hike and is climbing rocks most of the way. Finally the guides agreed and I was thrilled. So this morning I got on the van first and was waiting for the other people in my van to get there. This was also my last hike with my favorite guide and new friend, Lauren. We waited...and waited...and waited...no one else came. Every single person in my van decided to go on an easier hike and went on other vans. I was afraid that they'd make me go with another group since my van was empty except for me.
I couldn't believe it when the three guides (Lauren, Brent and Kim) got in the van and said "Well, since we only have one hiker, we better not lose her". So I got to do the hike I wanted to do this whole two weeks with three guides of my own! It was incredible. We went at my pace. We climbed every rock I wanted to and when it was time to turn around and I hadn't climbed to the top of the camel's hump yet, they let me finish it anyway. I had the most amazing time.
Some pictures of the hike:
Cool plant:


Camelback. (because there are two humps) I climbed to the very top of the left hump.

Dragon's Tail. I just thought it was cool.

Looking down into "The Vortex" you can make shadow people. From left to right: Brent, Lauren, Me, Kim. (I think)


Me at the top of the hump. Brent climbed it with me.

This is me trying to get down. I never really think about the process of getting down when I want to climb up things. I employed the Slide on my Butt method. It worked.

My personal guides. Kim, Lauren and Brent.

In the last 2 weeks I've fallen twice on hikes. Lauren says I'm a graceful faller. I've not hurt myself and I just get up and laugh. On the way back from the hike today I was looking around because it was beautiful and tripped. I face planted into the rocks and fell right onto my camera. It hurt really bad but I was mainly worried about my camera, which had jabbed really hard into my sternum. Once I tested out the camera and found that it was fine, I checked out myself. I had fallen on my hand so that my pinkie finger was bent back all the way. It looked funny at first but is fine now. I skinned my knees and my sternum still hurts if I touch it. After all three guides made sure I was okay Lauren said "I guess you're not that graceful of a faller". I laughed and got up. They said they failed because the three of them only had one hiker and they couldn't keep me from hurting myself. Totally not their fault though that I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking. I laughed at my guides the entire time. Here we are by the bus.


On the way back to the resort we pulled to the side of the road so I could take a picture of a waterfall. There were a couple of cars stopped there and people on the side of the road looking. They were obviously tourists and they got really excited when they saw the van that said "The Biggest Loser". They started shouting "Rulon! Rulon!" Kim rolled down the window and said "I lost 400 pounds" and they all started cheering for him. Then we drove off laughing. This was my best day for hiking by far and I'm very grateful to those guides for making it amazing for me.
After the hike I went to a pool class which was hard, but nice.
Lunch today was Tomatillo Soup (so good) and a turkey club pita with a little salad. Lunch was so good and I was hungry!
Afterwards we had a lecture on Planning Strategies for when we go home. Just starting to make plans for how to keep up our progress.
Zumba class was next and it was a lot more fun than last week but I still looked like a dork doing it. This was an especially good instructor so it was fun.
Next I went to circuit, where I worked so hard that I was dripping sweat for most of the class. I set a new personal record today for running for the longest I've run straight in the last decade. I ran at 5 mph for 2.5 minutes.
My last class of the day was a pool class and it was the hardest pool class I've done so far. My body was just aching by the time it was all over.
Dinner tonight was a salmon burger (really good) and dessert was a fruit skewer. Allie and Jessica posing with a fruit skewer:


Sophia and Kim at dinner. I met Kim on the Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge Alumni page on Facebook before I came.

Jennifer and Laurie. I met Laurie on Facebook too and I love her. She's the sweetest lady and so understanding and caring.

Jessica had this picture taken by the pool of her, Allie and Jordan. Jordan is this cute little 14 year old girl who is here for the week with her Mom.


I tried to get an appointment to get my hair cut tonight and originally couldn't get an appointment but now I've got one. It's in 40 minutes so I had to get my blog done early so I don't have to do it when my haircut is over.
Now I'm going to get some tea and hang out for a while before my appointment.
I love it here so much that I don't want to leave but I also really miss everyone. I can't wait to hike with my puppy, cuddle with Kitten and finally see Chris again.
Thanks for reading everyone.