The Experiment Continues Part III: Revelations

Continued from here.

Again, I told you guys in the first post how this series seems to end...but I have not told you how it continues. This is just me trying to get you caught up to where we are at now!

And, as noted in the first post of this new series, this continues to be uncharted territory for me writing-wise: I don't know how to write these posts out in any other way that will be entertaining for the reader, other than including conversations so the training dynamic can be better appreciated. I think they would be mind-numbingly boring if I just talked about the exercises done and nothing else.

Onward:

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"It's good to see you struggling," Trainer said with a grin.

I was panting and having a hard time catching my breath despite my heart rate being in the 140s. It was the beginning of fall allergy season and I was definitely allergic to something in the air then: on some days that week it had felt like air wasn't reaching the bottom of my lungs when I breathed fast. I had forgotten to take my Zyrtec that morning too, which wasn't helping.

He had me doing this insane set at the end of the workout that involved sled sprints in one direction only, 20 seconds of battle ropes, and then whatever crazy ab work he could think of. No rest, and start over.

"No more sled after this one!" he finally announced as I sprinted back down the length of the gym pushing my not-nemesis-anymore. (I kind of adore the sled nowadays.) Something about the way he said it made me respond, "That isn't necessarily a good thing!" I figured it meant something even worse planned. He had just laughed...I would end up being right.

Abs were the worst part of these circuits because they involved stopping suddenly: it was really hard to concentrate on doing the movements correctly when I couldn't control my breathing. For this particular round of sets, he had me doing leg lifts: I was supposed to lie on an incline bench, legs facing the incline, and lift my legs and back off up off of the bench.

Like so.
(This is not me; photo is from the internet.)

I nearly broke my own spirit the first time he had me do these a week prior: I could not make it through more than 7 reps when I was supposed to complete 10. My problem was that I refused to give up and ended up furious with my body, who would not cooperate. At the time I just didn't have the core strength to do that many reps in one go but I continued until I got every last rep done, while raging out loud about my hatred of failure. Trainer had not been pressuring me: the pressure had come from myself. He'd been amused to discover something that I truly found difficult, and we'd had an interesting conversation about trying vs failing, especially when it comes to lifting: you lift until failure. That's the entire point of lifting. You are supposed to lift until you can't anymore, especially if you move on into a sport like powerlifting. This would be revisited later.

The conversation had revolved around this. I had not thought of it from this angle.

But I was so frustrated with the damn exercise that I took it to heart and practiced leg raises on my own until I owned them.

Now this? This IS me, practicing at home.
I was able to hold this position for 30 seconds straight, which would make reps that much easier. 

#truth

On this day, I was doing 10 reps of leg raises at a time and they would have been easy if it hadn't been for how hard I was breathing. Once done, I'd fling myself off the bench and pace as much as possible before being ordered to start over. This was usually only a handful of seconds, but #insanecardiacrecovery: that handful of seconds still did the trick to drop my heart rate just enough that it made the entire circuit tolerable.

I had just finished the battle ropes portion of this circuit and was working on the abs portion of the round when Trainer came up and deliberately knocked one of the wooden boxes by the wall onto its side. I continued what I was doing but had glanced in his direction, only my eyes moving when I saw him do that, my gaze then flickering to the box while trying to remain expressionless. Trainer snickered from somewhere behind me: he had seen me notice what he did. He is the worst with anticipation and mind games sometimes!

Box jumps. He made me do box jumps, after he had said last session that he didn't like making clients do box jumps. Which I surprised myself by being able to do just fine. I have zero faith in myself when it comes to those and that needs to stop!

He grinned as I made my way through circuit after circuit. I just assume the circuits will never end and that's how I get through them. I refuse to ask how many more because it forces me to get through the current moment without thinking of the future. I'd glance at him and laugh myself too: he had way too much fun with this. My saving grace was that, yeah, I might have been breathing hard the entire time but my heart rate monitor never went off. It was fun to challenge him right back.

When he pointed out that I was struggling for once, I responded, "You do realize you've created this, right?" I was serious. My endurance and strength and the difficulty he was having with making my body really work now were a direct result of his training. He was silent. I don't think he had thought of it that way.

This is foreshadowing of posts to follow :D

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This time around, as the weeks ticked on things did not get as intense workout-wise as they did last time in the sense that I didn't have to do cardio twice a day. In fact, I didn't even have to do it every day: I was only doing my 45-60 minutes of cardio five days a week with 6 days of lifting. On some weeks this actually worked out to where I had a full day off from working out a week! It was all perfectly doable with my work and sleep schedule. I was progressing at a steady moderate rate that continued to keep me from noticing daily changes, but Trainer would point them out from one week to the next. The feedback was helpful; I would have been quite frustrated otherwise. The most interesting thing to note this time around was that my clothes got looser as we got closer to the show date...but my weight remained exactly the same: a good thing! It meant I was gaining muscle while losing fat. I didn't like how thin I got at the end of last prep.

I was still on Phase 2 of carb cycling: one day of high carbs (250 grams/day), one day of moderate carbs (150 grams/day) and one day of zero carbs, in that order and then start over. This time I played the zero carb days keto style: I did not drop sources of fiber. To make a long story short, I basically started adding high-fiber (and low carb) vegetables to every main meal: cauliflower and broccoli were thrown into stir fries, kale and spinach added to scrambled eggs and egg whites, cauliflower rice was mixed into ground beef, Asian slaw was stirred into tuna, and so on and so forth. By keto diet rules, I dove into the net carbs realm. (If anyone wants an explanation about that, please feel free to ask in the comments and I'm happy to go into detail. Otherwise I'm keeping it brief for my own recollection since my previous post in this series barely got any hits.) My body's reaction to these low-carb high fiber foods was the same as if I was going truly zero carb: I still went flat on these days, and I was still lower in energy than on my days where carbs were officially allowed, but I wasn't so fucking hungry all the time because all that fiber = volume. I stayed fuller longer. In fact, during this prep I did not experience the endless ravenous hunger I had experienced the first time around, despite calorie counts being slightly lower throughout. It was a breeze this time around: once I figured it out, I had no cravings, no random desire to sink my teeth into cardboard or dry dog food (I really did get this type of urge on zero carb days during my first prep! And no, I did NOT follow through on those urges! I would just laugh and shake my head because it was so crazy.) However, I was more vascular than ever even on the "zero" carb days, and despite feeling sluggish on the "zero" carb days, I never did get to the point where I started to lose my strength like I did during my first prep. Remember that: it will be important for later.

Double dosing BCAAs 3-4 times a day really did do the trick in terms of my formerly skyrocketing soreness levels. I had added l-glutamine at Trainer's advice when I was initially so sore after workouts I didn't even want to move two days later, but the additional BCAAs worked much better. I discontinued the l-glutamine once I finished the jar and continued with doubled BCAAs only, confirming that the improvement had been from the BCAA changes. I was still sore after hard workouts, yes, but it was now very tolerable and I think this also contributed to my continuously improving recoveries. In case anyone is curious about the BCAAs that I use: I had originally started on Dymatize's MPS but it was discontinued entirely by the company so I ultimately switched to Optimum Nutrition's BCAA powder, which I can purchase with Amazon Prime at a reasonable price for the amount of servings I get in the jar: one jar will last me two months. I get the unflavored variety, which allows me to throw a scoop into my pre-workout drink (always) and into my post-workout and evening protein shakes (also always). ("Unflavored" still has a slightly bitter flavor, but it is easily masked when mixed with other flavored products.)

As for my T-walk struggles...I had relaxed considerably about it at this point. I had two songs as possibilities:

1. TroyBoi's Mantra:

I initially really liked this song because it forced me to slow the eff down while going through my poses and walking across the "stage" at home. The problem was that as I became more confident about what I wanted to do, this song started to seem too slow!

2. J Balvin's Tranquila:

This song still qualified as slow, but the beat was better suited for what I wanted to do. I had a lot more fun once I started practicing to this song. Once I put this one on the roster of possibilities, it became hard to imagine using any other song. Plus "tranquila" when used as a verb basically means, "Calm down, girl." Appropriate for a solo walk in almost your birthday suit while strutting in stilettos across a stage. ;) My routine was very basic: I was not going to freestyle; I was simply going to incorporate the model poses at the required points while moving to the music.

At four weeks out, Trainer switched up the quad sets that I described in my previous post: the first two exercises in the quad set would be upper body, with the second two exercises being legs, and one of those leg exercises involving plyometrics. In other words: I was now working legs every day I did strength training, and my strength workouts were doubling as cardio workouts thanks to the intensity of plyo. This is what finally started to really make a difference in the developing definition of my lower body.

I mean, seriously. Photo on the left: end of last prep. Photo on the right: end of this prep.
There is 3 months of training between these two pics.

I got to choose the exercises themselves when I worked on my own; I just had to follow this format. But OMG did I struggle with this type of workout on my own! Enough that I asked Trainer if I should add a third day a week of training with him in the hopes that he would say yes...except that he was happy enough with how I was doing that he said it wasn't necessary.

But a week later I asked to add the third day anyway: it was one less day of me having to think how the hell I was going to complete an entire quad set workout without interruption so the desired intensity could be maintained throughout. At this point it was easier to follow orders than to have to dig within myself to find the will to finish whatever combination of exercises I had chosen for the workout. My on call schedule for work was crazy during this time as well, so Trainer workouts would also ensure that I wouldn't slack when working on my own while exhausted from lack of sleep.

During this phase of prep, I also had the opportunity of training simultaneously with Trainer. He had mentioned at one point that he was having trouble fitting in the amount of workouts required for a proper show prep (he normally trains with the group but the group doesn't meet every day) and I had suggested it: "Train with me then!" We were supposed to be going as a team, after all.

It only happened twice but these were my favorite sessions of the entire prep. Why? Because I got to watch my mentor in action.

When I took jumping and later dressage lessons, I had a habit of dropping everything I was doing whenever my trainers were going to ride so I could watch them do their thing. I always learned something from observing them in action, and this was no different.

I trained with this woman. Her riding resume included competing in the Pan American Games, representing Puerto Rico. Diana took over Ron's lesson program in PR after he moved back to the US mainland; I loved watching her ride. She now co-owns Wisdom Equestrian Farm near Melbourne, FL.

In fact, the first time Trainer worked out with me, I kept feeling the inclination to sit down and watch during my breaks...he had to prompt me to move on to the next thing! I don't usually pay attention to what other people do in the gym when it comes to lifting because I don't want to start involuntarily imitating something that might be incorrect. It was a good learning experience: I don't really get to observe the technique of anyone else whom I know competes in this sport.

Cleans on the 90 seconds followed by Triple CJs on the two minutes 😷👌🏽... Thankful to be taken out of my comfort zone. --- ⋅3's @188 ⋅2's @198 ⋅Singles @ 210.5 ⋅1.1.1. CJs @208 ---- @dannyxsoul #teamsoul

A post shared by Dani Horan (@_danihoran) on Dec 13, 2016 at 12:51pm PST

So what is Trainer's lifting style like? No video of him, but his style actually reminds me of the great Dani Horan's: clean, efficient, and powerful. She is a former gymnast and equestrian jumper (!!!) who has successfully finished in the top 20 in the CrossFit Games three times. The video above is from her IG page. I discovered her thanks to this article, a completely random stumble on the interwebz. She might be my new girl crush. God, she's a beast!

One of my favorite moments of these tandem trainings was the time he had me do leg extension drop sets at the end of a quad set. "I'm going to make you cry!" he had joked in a sing-song tone as he stacked 100 lbs of plates on the machine. I had mock glared at him. He's not that type of trainer.

5 reps with 100 lbs; remove a 25 lb plate; continue straight into 10 reps with 75 lbs; remove a plate; continue right into 20 reps with 50 lbs; remove a plate; finish with 30 reps at 25 lbs. I had my eyes squeezed shut as I powered through the last 30 reps: it felt like someone had poured gasoline over my legs and lit them on fire. Drop sets suuuuuuck, guys! I was SO relieved to be done...so I audibly gasped when he told me I couldn't drop the moving portion of the machine at the end of the 30 reps. He was adding a burnout at the end of a drop set! This didn't surprise me but it still horrified me: I had to hold the moving portion of the machine out and away with my legs, in full extension. (You know, after that most painful type of exercise known as a drop set.)

With legs even straighter than this. Unlike this dude, I was not smiling.

He wanted me to hold that position for 30 seconds.

He didn't make me cry...but by 15 seconds the fire in my quads was so intense I wanted to scream.

"5 more seconds..." he said when I couldn't anymore. I scrinched up my face, eyes squeezed shut, and counted to 5 in my head, trying to slow down my breathing. And then, before I could drop the weight he joyfully sang, "5 more seconds!"

My eyes flew open. "OH MY GOD I'm going to punch you!!" I blurted, making direct eye contact because the burning in my legs was so awful by then that I could. not. even. That made him laugh and he let me release the weight. (Obviously I didn't mean what I said and he knew it.)

I collapsed forward with a groan, my forehead on my knees, which made him giggle. And then I just sat there waiting for my heart to stop pounding and the blood to flow below my knees again. "C'mon," he prodded with a grin, "I want to see you try to get out of that seat!"

I laughed, accepting the challenge and managing to extricate myself with a fair amount of grace. I proceeded to pace to stretch my legs out...and then he took a seat: he was going to do the same thing himself.

Now THIS I wanted to see.

I was pleased to see he started out with the same weight: 100 lbs. (My legs are hard core!) He made no pause through the drop set: he'd lean forward, quickly remove a plate, toss it aside and continue into the next set of reps. He then jumped into the burnout at the end, eyes squeezed shut tight and breathing just as hard as I had when it had been my turn. It was amusing to see him make himself suffer as much as he did me. I might have been smirking the entire time.

Some trainers don't train. They can be really good trainers and have the knowledge to take you safely to the next level, but they don't train themselves (the #1 reason is often old injuries). A lot of people are okay with that: the knowledge and its correct application are the most important things after all. By the same token, there are a lot of uber-fit trainers out there that might not be as competent at safely training clients. When presented with those two scenarios, most clients will obviously go for the first. In my case though, I do find it tremendously motivating to know that my trainer both has the knowledge and wouldn't have me do anything he wouldn't do himself.

He finally dropped the weighted portion of the machine with a bang, and slowly got off of it, grumbling about his quads now not working. I had to hold back the snicker: someone was walking funny and this time it was not me!

He came over and tried to explain the next exercise we would be doing...but he was having a hard time stringing sentences together. He finally gave up, "You know what I mean." I had been able to keep a straight face up until that point but I finally burst out laughing. "I do. But it's good to know I'm not the only one that struggles with words after a drop set!" He had just grinned sheepishly. He's human too. And that was the other cool thing about training with him: I got to see that side of him, the side that struggled with a workout too, but that also kept going out of sheer will.

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On September 20, I walked into the gym an emotional trainwreck. I had woken up that morning shaking in a cold sweat, startled awake by dreams of battering relentless rain and roaring winds that were ripping apart everything in their path like The Nothing. 

Puerto Rico has been hit by its fair share of hurricanes over the last 13 years since I left the island and I had never worried much. The island was always protected. The old taino god, Yukiyu (also known as Yokahu), who resides in the sacred mountain of El Yunque, always made sure my island and its people were safe during storms. He protected us from the evil god of chaos Juracan...the word from which "hurricane" comes from (yup, it comes from a Taino god! Betcha didn't know that.) It had been this way for centuries and centuries, despite the island being a prime hurricane target due to its central location in the Atlantic. From the times of the Taino Indians, we always came out fairly unscathed, especially when compared to the neighboring islands facing the same storms. I know talking like this is why I have lost readers this past year but this is me and I really don't give a shit what anyone thinks. Part of me deciding to openly embrace my Spanish roots is accepting that my perception of reality is not the same as yours. Roll your eyes all you want, but watching enormous destructive storms veer away from us at the last second year after year after year is the #1 reason why most of us that have lived on the island believe in this legend to this day. *shrug* What can I say? Magic realism is alive and well in the Caribbean.

"In El Yunque we are ready." - Yokahu

This time...this time the fear in the pit of my stomach that morning made me nauseated. I had never felt this way about a storm. The updates on Facebook that morning from friends and family on the island were not one bit comforting: every single person I knew that still lived on the island was writing hair-raising descriptions of the winds' destruction while they still had phone signal and internet...and the eye of the storm hadn't even made landfall yet.

I had not been dreaming: in my sleep I had been experiencing what they were living.

I had been able to speak with my mom at 6:00 am that morning while getting ready. There wasn't much to say overall: she was fine, rain water was being pushed into the house through the boarded-up windows by the force of the wind, but all they could do was sit tight and wait for the storm to pass. There was nothing else that could be done. It was a very slow-moving storm and people were afraid of how bad the damage would be: Maria was going to take its sweet time doing its absolute best to make the island unrecognizable. We knew it would be bad. We had no idea just how bad it would be. 

It's not a good feeling knowing that you are talking to your mom for the last time in what will probably be days, if not weeks. If not ever.

We still said normal good-byes, like it was any other day. I had to pretend to be okay, that I wasn't worried sick about the endless "what-ifs." I had a hard time eating my breakfast. Carlos was already at work so I had no one to talk to, to vent to. And then I ran out the door for my training session. 

I was literally arriving at Trainer's gym right as the eye of Hurricane Maria was beginning to ravage its way across my island. Someone else would have not gone. Not me. I needed to work out so I could mentally check out. 

Even so, I have one of those annoying faces that literally shows everything I'm thinking. Elsa from the group session was gathering up her stuff to leave when I walked in and she saw that something was off. 

"How are you?" she asked. 

"My family is being hit by a Category 4 hurricane as we speak," I blurted, as Trainer walked in from getting something in his car. He looked up when I said that. 

"Puerto Rico?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. He didn't know prior that that's where I'm from. I liked that everyone seemed to know about the hurricane though. More things that I love about living in this region: people are both educated and informed.

Elsa looked at me with sad sympathy. "I have a friend that lives there," she said quietly. She was on her way out so her and I said good-bye and I started to warm up for my session. 

Trainer asked me a few questions about my family and the island and then went silent as he set equipment up. There really wasn't anything that could be said. Nothing that could be done that would change anything. 

He had me start with shoulder work, a new exercise that involved me sitting down. He circled around me as I was pressing the dumbbells up into the air and said, "Starting next week, I want you to come in a sweat suit so we can start sweating the fat out." He was dead serious. "And then there will be a test," he added. 

That came so out of left field that I had to stop what I was doing because I snorted with laughter and almost dropped the 25 lb dumbbells. 

He was quoting Coach. Coach had been insistent on me wearing a sweat suit to work out while still 4 months out from my show so I could "sweat the fat out." Those had been her exact words, and she really did mean them. If you've been following this blog through my endurance adventures, you already know that sweat is comprised of water and electrolytes, especially sodium, chloride and potassium. This applies to people as much as horses. You don't sweat fat; it's physiologically impossible. If that were the case, you'd get oil stains on your clothes after a tough workout, not powdery white stains (if you've been elyting yourself correctly). I had gotten into an epic verbal fight with Coach over that one: sweat suits for weight loss are 1980s outmoded exercise garbage that is in fact tremendously dangerous. You might lose water weight through sweat...but you'll gain it right back the second you rehydrate! Trainer had been horrified when I had told him that story. 

The last thing I was expecting was for him to bring that up right now, but it worked: it took me a second to be able to resume the exercise because I was laughing so hard.

"Are you calling me fat??" I retorted. I was quoting him right back at him now: anytime I had even remotely suggested that the difference in him was noticeable since he had started training for this show himself, he would bring up that question, "Are you saying I was fat before?" He was joking...maybe. 

He started laughing now too.

"What kind of test?" I asked him. 

He drew a blank. "I'm joking," he said. I knew that. I just wanted to see what he would come up with in jest. He's a college professor too, after all. 

He said he had to think about it. I don't know why I found that so funny but I did. I had just really needed to laugh that day and I got it. It didn't stop there. 

Remember when I told you guys that Trainer had always wanted to win a sword at a bodybuilding competition? Well, I had stumbled upon an NPC show held on the same weekend as our OCB one...and the awards were swords. It's a long-standing end-of-season show held in Charlottesville, VA and the classes tend to be small. In other words: it was almost guaranteed that he would finally take a sword home. I had excitedly sent him the information. An NPC show meant I wouldn't have to plan the damn T-walk.

He brought it up during this session while he was having me do box step-ups with a 15 lb dumbbell in each hand. 

"Why are they holding that show in Charlottesville?" he asked me in an accusatory tone, like I knew.

"I dunno! But they've been holding it there for a few years now. Hey, the awards are swords. You wanted a sword. I got you swords! Plus there were only two guys in the men's Masters Physique last year. That's a guaranteed sword for you. You're welcome."

He went on and on about cost and I refuted every single complaint: yes, NPC is more expensive but not so much more than OCB. I was disregarding the fact that this particular show was a 3-hour drive one-way that would require an overnight stay for all of us going (his family, Carlos and Shanna) because check-in was on Friday and the show itself on Saturday. I didn't really think he would do it, and I didn't think I would do it either, but it was an option. 

"You should do the NPC show," he finally said. 

"Maybe I will! I'll bring another sword home and I'll have more swords than I have hands to hold them with! And I won't even have to make up a T-walk for it." I grinned.

"The T-walk is easy! It doesn't count. You can do whatever you want." He was laughing.

"Sure I can," I said sarcastically. "Except you made fun of the girl that twerked her way through it. So I can't really do whatever I want, can I?" He had shared this anecdote from a past show. I was arguing for the sake of arguing now: I had not had any intention of twerking onstage whatsoever.

"I'm just going to do a stripper routine. Like a Chippendale," he said then. 

I had not seen that one coming. I had to stop the box step-ups at this point because I was roaring with laughter. The mental picture was so outrageous that once I started laughing I couldn't stop. 

He continued, "And then people will ask you, 'Isn't that your trainer?' And you'll be like, 'I have no idea who that guy is.'"

That just made it all even better. Trainer was amused that I found all of this so hysterically funny. I finally got ahold of myself and continued the exercise.

I completely forgot about everything else going on in the world and just focused on the workout after that.

We finished with the now-standard ab work. By this point Trainer had moved me into doing more Pilates-type exercises at the end of the quad sets (like every variety of plank imaginable), so I was surprised when he wanted me to start with Russian twists with a 15 lb kettlebell. It's the ab exercise I love to hate the most, and the one you're most likely to find me doing on my own, usually while suspended from the incline bench at my gym at a ridiculous angle.

This time I was to do them while sitting on the Astroturf carpet with my feet elevated off the floor, which was a new challenge. And I was to do 20 reps on each side (40 total), which seemed like an ungodly number.

Like so. But I had to touch the kettlebell to the floor on each side.

I started out with my ankles crossed, but he reached over and uncrossed them.

"That doesn't do anything," he said.

"It does in my head!" I responded with a grin.

I realized halfway through the first set that Taylor Swift's Look What You Made Me Do was playing over the Bluetooth speakers. It was appropriate since the number of Russian twists I was being made to do was tortuous. I finished the first set, rested, and did the second one at his prompting. My obliques felt like bands of fiery red hot metal under my skin.

I was finishing the set right as Taylor sang,
"I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now.
Why?
Oh...'cause she's dead!"

I fell flat back onto the floor with my last rep, cackling like a madwoman. "'She's dead!' Sounds about right!" Yup: death by abs. That made Trainer laugh too.

I wasn't allowed to just lie on the floor laughing though. He got my attention and demonstrated the next exercise without ever saying a word. It was the Pilates V...while moving feet like a bicycle to the beat of the music. OMG.

This, while moving legs in a pedaling motion. Yes, with arms stretched overhead like that.
The woman in the pic is way too cheery about this exercise.
Even the basic form like this sucks.

I started as the song continued.

"Ooh, look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
Look what you made me do
Look what you just made me do..."

"You know what?" I managed to say while pedaling on my imaginary bike, my butt the only thing touching the floor, "The entire song is appropriate right now." He laughed at that too, as I figured he would.

A month later, the damn song still makes me think of ab work every time it plays on the radio. :D

The world came crashing back down around me when I got back in the car later, but it was okay: I had been able to have a reprieve. I will never know if Trainer really went out of his way to make me laugh that day because it was what I needed, or if it was just a coincidence. It wasn't an easy workout but what stood out about it wasn't that, it was the fact that for an hour that day I was able to completely forget about the one thing that was troubling me the most right then. And it's what has continued to keep me coming back for more, even when I haven't felt like it or my mind has been elsewhere or I've been exhausted or functioning on less than a handful of hours of sleep from working late the night before. I always do my best to come in as the client I would like to train myself.

Which isn't hard when your trainer is the type of trainer that you would have wanted to be.

And so this post is not so much about my own strengths but about the strengths of the person I've been training with. And I'm having a hard time wrapping all of this up because I don't know how to summarize it in a way that hits the nail on the head without turning it into a list of "Qualities you should look for in a trainer." Those lists already exist. (<- That's a pretty good list right there, in case you're wondering.)

You learn a lot about yourself when you train alone, be it at the gym or running or while participating in an equestrian sport. The truth is, however, that you learn a whole lot more about what you can and can't do when you have someone that not only sees the potential that you don't, but that also shows you how to get there. You become more than you thought possible.

And so this leads into what I'm truly excited about sharing with you guys in this particular series of posts! :)

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To be continued...