I promise I’ll stop talking about this stuff soon.  But now that I’ve opened up to actually start talking about it, something I wasn’t ready to do for a long time, I find I can’t stop thinking about it and wanting to share with ya’ll what I’m thinking about.  So you’re stuck with a little bit more about exercise.

Zumba class last night was AWESOME.  I’m trying to think of how to explain it.  The Zumba website says this about the program:

The Zumba® program fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program that will blow you away. Our goal is simple: We want you to want to work out, to love working out, to get hooked. Zumba® Fanatics achieve long-term benefits while experiencing an absolute blast in one exciting hour of calorie-burning, body-energizing, awe-inspiring movements meant to engage and captivate for life!

The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat. Add some Latin flavor and international zest into the mix and you’ve got a Zumba® class!

So basically, it was song after song of really fun music with aerobic jumping and hopping and squatting and dancing and oh, my gosh! so tired but SO MUCH FUN!  The hardest part for me wasn’t actually keeping up with the different choreography, but keeping my heart rate from jumping up so high I had a heart attack.  A lot of the moves were actually familiar to me from the Yoga Booty Ballet videos.  There were variations, but the basics were similar.  And with that in my favor, and how many other times I’ve followed choreography, I was able to pick up on a lot of the steps after a few times through.

But my heart rate!  I’m supposed to be under 153 BPMs right now, but I think I maintained somewhere in the 166 area.  And spiked up to 177 or so.  And that was with me taking things slower and lower than other people in the class!  I have a lot of work to do.

I ran into the children’s pastor from my church in the class, too!  That was fun.  She apparently has lost a significant amount of weight since she moved here a couple years ago and started coming to the gym.  She was very encouraging.

When I got home, after the hour or so it took me to actually get my core temperature back down to normal (I get so hot and my face so red!), I crashed.  I was so tired!  Justin was a hero and got me food and tucked me into bed and we cuddled watching TV (Castle!  Nathan Fillian as Richard Castle dressing up as Malcom Renolds for Halloween!  *Squee!*)

And today my hip hurts and everything aches.  But I’m feeling so good!  And I am absolutely going back to the class next Monday.  It’ll be the highlight of my Mondays and I can’t wait!