A Perpetual State of Sore

Lately, I've been living in a perpetual state of sore muscles.

We have been lucky enough to have a volunteer come and work with us for a couple of months as our PE and Health instructor at our school. Andrea Elizondo recently graduated with her Bachelor's degree in Community Health and Physical Education. She came just wanting to work with our kids and she is amazing. Not only am I seeing our students more active, but I have seen how quickly she has been adopted into our teacher's hearts and how encouraging she is to our own children (like Dora and Mary) who are just beginning to learn English.

I have found her encouragement to be extremely helpful to me as well! Not only has her beautiful spirit sought answers for how God is moving in her life, but she is also extremely encouraging to Stacy, Rosemary, and I as far as our own personal goals.

Over Christmas, Stacy emailed me about wanting to start to work together to lose weight. We both got fitness balls, resistance bands, jumpropes, and mats to prepare for our weight loss journey. The problem came when we both arrived and never figured out a time to work out together...whether from lack of desire or lack of timing. Good intentions...but nothing ever happened.

Well, our friend Andrea put an end to our procrastination. The first day of workouts began a couple of weeks ago with circuit training. It was 2:00 pm and after about 25 minutes, the heat was getting to me and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to finish. But I survived the 45 minute workout session to find myself pretty sore the next day.

This week, we've finally gotten our schedule together. 5:00 pm workout sessions (one day cardio and one day circuit training) Monday through Saturday. It's not easy and everyday I wonder if I'll make it through. Our cardio training has been these run walk sessions (30 seconds running, 30 seconds walking) and near the end, it is extremely hard to finish well. I keep having to command my legs to keep going! And the circuit training--well, that's where my muscles have been experiencing the most work!!

But all in all, even amidst the crazy sore muscles, I am so thankful for Andrea. This is something I've needed to do for a long time and have just never had the motivation to do it. Without her pushing us, especially Stacy and me, we wouldn't have even started it to begin with. She's been incredibly encouraging and supportive in trying to help us reach, or at least get the foundations to be able to reach, our goals.

My hope is that we can continue this all, even after she leaves.

I wonder how long it will take for the soreness to just turn into some powerful muscles...until then, I'm afraid I'm stuck in this perpetual state of soreness!