Awesome! How cool is that! Keep us posted how it goes.

Awesome workout, I know you can hold your own with the boys. Working out with someone is the best.

Will do!! I can't complain about the extra cuddle time either!! The sun just came out so hopefully things will clear up here. I only did 30 minutes today.

How lucky indeed are both of you! And we won't even talk about how many toads crossed my path before *my* prince charming came along! I neglected to mention that he came in to film some of my leg workout yesterday, and found me flaring instead, and I ended up with my face buried in his chest for comfort more than once. And yes, he told me to stop trying and go to bed! I'm off in a few minutes for my back workout; wish me luck! With kindest regards, Donna E. www.teklawgirl.biz

Hi folks, Well, yesterday started out kinda rough, and ended pretty much the same way, with plenty of *rough* in between! I got up flaring (fibromyalgia) but in denial, trying to fight through a *fibro flare* since about 6am right up to meeting my workout partner at the scheduled 9am workout time for, you guessed it--leg day! I especially wanted to have high energy, because this was the first true leg workout I have done in over 2 months, due to my foot surgeries. A leg workout for me is the most grueling workout of all of them, and I need to be at optimal energy to do it. I tried to convince myself that once I got into the workout, I would feel better and keep going. I wrote off the poor balance I was feeling when trying to do free weight squats, chalking it up to being out of it for 2 months (those stabilizers are complaining but they'll get over it, I kept trying to tell myself). I shifted to the smith machine for my squats to offset the balance issue. I ignored the incredible weakness in my legs when I struggled with excruciating difficulty to do the squats, even with no weight on the bar, concentrating on form. Again, I chalked this up to 2 months off the weights. But then, suddenly, the lights in the gym were unbearable, and I just stood at the smith machine, bar resting on my back, holding my hands over my eyes to try to block out the light. It was at this moment, that I could not ignore any longer that I was having a flare, and it was gonna be a doozie! I felt like I was going to throw up. I stopped doing the squats right then and there, knowing this was too intense to work through with a flare. I also knew that because my muscles were already stressed from the flare, that even the lightweight squats would leave me with muscle soreness comparable to a brutal, muscle-crushing workout by the next day! So I find myself sitting on a bench, watching my workout partner do his massive free-weight squats while I am sitting there, feeling as weak as a kitten. I thought, ok, well maybe I can do them as inverted leg presses instead. Maybe it will be easier if I get off my feet and isolate just the legs. Got on the leg press machine with half the weight I usually *start *with. Nope. I could do *one* rep and my leg**** failure. I stopped and watched my partner do a couple of sets on the 45 degree squat machine. He looked at me, saw I wasn't doing too well, and asked me if I wanted to call it a day. I was completely frustrated by this time with the weakness, but I really wanted to get that leg workout in that day. Stubborn, and not listening to my body, that was screaming, "Not today, not like this!" I decided to at least try and do some leg extension/leg curl supersets. Again, I was so weak in my quadruceps that I could barely do a set with only *one* plate. I was absolutely incredulous in the face of this degree of weakness, but hoped the flare would just pass soon. My hamstrings were not much better on the leg curl machine, but still I pushed on, hoping that the flare would subside on its own by sheer force of will. I somehow managed to stagger through 3 sets of each, all with very low weights. But it left me so weak that my knees buckled as I stepped off the machine after the last rep, so I just sat there in a stupor on the floor for a minute or so, in pain, trying to fight back tears. It was while I was sitting there that I finally bought a clue and knew that I just needed to go home and go to bed. I fixed my protein shake and couldn't get home fast enough! I went straight to bed, and in bed is where I stayed till early this morning. My leg muscles, particularly my quadriceps, started becoming sore last night, not even 12 hours after I exercised. Not a good sign. "Oh, so NOW you listen to me?" my body seems to be chiding me ! Ok, ok, I'm listening! And I'm feeling--and I've got some unbelievably sore muscles this morning! Walking downstairs, sitting down, OUCH! In all fairness to me, despite how utterly pig-headed I was yesterday in the gym, to my own detriment, usually if I get a flare I can resolve it to some degree by doing some gentle movement and a gentle workout, so the idea, at least, that exercise could help me if I worked through the pain a bit, was not a bad one. But ignored my own 5-minute rule, which is that if I am flaring and 5 minutes of gentle exercise doesn't relieve the symptoms, then I need to stop and rest, not continue. Bad girl! I spent the entire rest of the day and all night, in bed, in pain, miserably uncomfortable, having a completely awful flare, and now that I am past that flare, I now have some wicked sore muscles to soothe. I'm going to go back to the gym at lunchtime and try to do a back workout, at least, and walk *a little* and do some stretching, just to try to loosen these overtight legs a bit. And today, I promise to adhere to the 5-minute rule, really! Donna E. www.teklawgirl.biz