Solstice in the mud

Last night it rained and I need to clarify.  What Californians call a rain, I call a sprinkle.  I'd like to see their reaction to a Houston downpour or a hurricane.  Anyway, this morning the program director informs us that the hikes had to be adjusted so we are all hiking on trails that are not muddy.

Let's see if I understand this.  All of the hiking trails are similar in composition and close by each other.  It rained or sprinkled all night and I'm supposed to believe that some trails are muddy and others are not.  It's almost like being in a hurricane where your house gets rain and your next door neighbor doesn't get any rain.

So as you can see, I started the day being cynical and it set the tone for the entire day.  My van was assigned to Solstice and guess what, there was a lot of mud.  We did what we could and I spent the hike trying to keep my footing.  We were sliding around in the mud and I went slow to make sure I didn't get injured.

This is the third time that I hiked Solstice and didn't get as far as the other times.  I only took one picture on the hike because I spent my time looking at the ground and not the mountains.  As you can see from the picture, we had fog at the top of the mountains, but for some reason the sun was shining only on this one rock.  It think its pretty cool.

I mentioned the other day that one of the afternoon classes is total toning.  This class requires a lot of set up in the aerobics room, so its not one that can be easily duplicated back home.  The trainer sets up a series of stations and everyone selects a partner.  The number of stations is based on the number of pairs. This week we had 30 people in the class, which means 15 pairs and 15 stations.  I'll try to describe the stations without pictures.  Note that the stations vary depending on the instructor.

The structure of the class is that everyone starts at their station for 1 minute, followed by a 30 second rest period, and another one minute interval.  After that, everyone rotates to the next station and repeats the process.  The stations listed below are in random order.

1.  Hold an elastic band in your hand with your arms straight out and wrists together.  When the clock starts, move your wrists away from each other and the elastic of the band will work the shoulders.  Bring the wrists together and repeat very fast.
2.  Get a stability ball from the gym and one heavy weight.  Sit on the ball, walk yourself out where your head and shoulders are on the ball.  Your body should be parallel to the ground.  The movement with the weight is a triceps extension.  Have your arms out past your shoulders, lower the weight by bending the elbow, and use the triceps to bring the weight back up.
3.  Spin bikes.  The first set is a resistance sprint.  Turn up the resistance on the bike to maximum and go all out.  The second set is a speed sprint.  Change the resistance to nothing and go all out.
4.  Kickboxing.  Hit the bag any way you want for both sets.
5.  Stationary lunges.  Go down with one leg, bring it back, repeat with the other leg.
6.  Cleans with dumbbells.  Get a set of heavy weights, start in a squating position with the weights almost on the floor, do a squat to bring the weights to the waist, move the arms to bring the weights to the shoulders, do a shoulder press, bring the weights back to the shoulders, lower the weights back to the starting position.
7.  Standing biceps curl.
8.  Get another stability ball and a set of heavy weights, see #2 above for the starting position.  Instead of doing triceps extensions, this time do chest press with the heavy weights.
9.  You and your partner stand back to back.  One person gets a weighted ball from the gym that almost looks likes a small basketball.  Note this is not the same thing as a stability ball.  When the clock starts, you pass the ball to your partner then take it from your partner on the other side.  You rotate in the core, pass the ball off, rotate to the other side, get the ball from your partner, and repeat.
10.  If you've taken a stepping class at the gym, you know about those stepping platform things with the small stackable inserts that go underneath.  I'll take a picture this weekend to show you exactly what I'm talking about.  Get three of these stepping platforms and a lot of the stackable inserts.  For the first stepping platform, put one insert on each side, for the second one put three inserts per side, and for the last one, but 4 or 5 inserts per side.  When the clock starts, start in front of the first stepping platform, jump over it, then jump over the middle platform, and then the third platform.  Walk back to the beginning and repeat.
11.  Get a mat and lay it on the floor.  One partner lays flat on the mat with their hands holding onto the back of the shoes of the other partner.  This set up is to work the lower abs, so the partner on the floor will use the other person's shoes as an anchor.  When the clock starts, the person on the floor raises their legs up the in air, the partner standing throws the legs down, the person on the floor makes sure their legs don't hit the floor, and use their lower abs to raise their legs back to starting position.  At the 30 second break, switch places.

This is all that I can remember off the top of my head.  I'll get some pictures this weekend and will take better notes next Tuesday to report more stations, but you get the idea of the class.

Closing thought for the day:  Mud or no mud, Solstice is still a great hike.  I survived without any injures and pushed myself very hard in treading.  I can't believe that Thursday of this week is over and tomorrow is cardio disco.