Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Off--158.5#

Our internet is still down, so I decided to steal bandwidth from a neighbor. :) The double tank dive went okay last night. People had told me that doubles were a whole new ball of wax, but I didn't truly believe them until last night. Walking them to the water was the easy part. My buoyancy was crazy, and I just couldn't quite get the feel for them. The steel 104's were a bit large, too, and I kept wacking my head on the manifold between them. That, coupled with my difficulty maintaining my buoyancy was pissing me off, and I had multiple cussing tirades underwater. The hubby says that's what everyone does their first time with doubles. I wonder if that's him just trying to make me feel better. Regardless, I'm going to give it another run in a pair of 95's as soon as I get the chance.

Here are some pics from a more serene evening we shared recently. One of my favorite things in the world is sitting round that campfire with friends.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Today was my exercise in moderation. I was feeling a little beat up, so I decided to take the day off. I almost got up and went out there anyway, but stuck to my guns for a rest day. I hope it pays off.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT: 5 2-rung assisted pistol ladders followed with 5 5-rung green band assisted pullup ladders. I didn't do the usual TGU's or Tabata because I knew I was going to be getting into the water with those doubles.

SUNDAY'S WORKOUT: As many Full-on Burpees (chest to the deck then jump up with arms in the air) as could get in 10 minutes--turned out to be 59 that day. Finished a full 75 in 14 min.
Then I ran 9 minutes. I have to figure out how far that ends up being one of these days.

SATURDAY'S WORKOUT: DOUBLE C&P / Row ladders 3 4-rung then 3 3-rung double squat ladders with the 16's
then 75 full-on burpees in 16'07"

St. Augustine

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Off--159.5#
646 Swing Challenge Points

We took a trip over to St. Augustine a few days ago, and as always, I had the camera in tow. Before we left, I had the debate about what and how much equipment to take. I decided to take only my new 24mm prime lens and make the day an opportunity to force some skill in using it. Here are a few of the images I came up with.

Aaahhhh...the beach. I'm diggin' what the 24mm does to the sky.

One man band off St. George Street.Just kinda thought this was pretty.

The still active St. Augustine lighthouse.
The lightkeeper's house which is now a museum.

WORKOUT:
Green band assisted pull-ups/pushups ladders=5 5-rung ladders. I'll be sticking with this ladder for a bit longer as it's still not feeling good and strong. I am, however, finally feeling a groove on the pullups--finally feeling my lats and triceps activate like I think they are supposed to. Pushups, however, continue to be my arch nemesis. I REALLY wish I had someone who could help me fix them. I'm quite certain it is a form flaw on my part.

20kg TGU 1/1 x 6 (one more than the last time I did this workout)--doing these outside now which SUCKS.

20kg tabata swings=112points toward the swing challenge.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT: 16kg snatch 1 min R/ 1 min L/ 1 min rest. Before the RKC I was rocking this pretty well. It was not nice yesterday, so I'm gonna throw this in the mix more frequently. Swing Challenge points=384 points

NUTRITION: I am slowly catching up with the wagon and hope to be back on it soon. The last two days have not been bad, and I definitely feel as if I'm fueling my body instead of my psyche. Undoubtedly it is a process that feeds on itself because I already feel so much more in control. Turns out, though, that I'm also going to have to break my husband back into the idea of my being back on a program other than glutinous debauchery. He pouted when my meal tonight was an apple and peanut butter. :)

Not A Flying Flip

Friday, February 6, 2009
Work 6p-8a--157#
WARNING: This is yet another gloomy post. If you've had enough of that, skip on down to the pictures.
I promise the posts will become brighter and happier soon, but that honestly might take a little while. Getting settled in at my new job and home and ridding myself of that anxiety will take a couple of weeks, and likely until that happens, the gloom and dispair may continue. I've reached the threshold of things that I can worry about and not in some way decompensate, and the decompensation has begun. For the last 2-3 nights I've eaten junk, junk and more junk, and even came home with a belly ache this morning from it. Thus far, I 've been able to nip the nutritional damage in the bud tonight, and I continue to take each minute as it comes.

I woke up a couple of days ago with yet another round of the crud. The nice side effect of this is that I have a reason to take Nyquil before bed which puts me into a coma for at least 6 hours, and I've finally been able to get some sleep. Awakening with my lungs burning and hacking coupled with just dreading another day made me feel sorry enough for myself that I took the last couple of days off from working out, though. So in addition to eating crap, I've not been working any of it off. This morning, though, I made myself get up in time for at least a 20 minute workout. My lungs burned like crazy--especially at first--and I coughed up my right lung, but I made it through and felt better emotionally for it.

I spend a lot of time wondering how it is that those people who have figured out how not to worry about anybody else actually do it. Life would be so much better if I could just cruise through not giving a flying flip about anyone or anything else but myself. 95% of my angst is self-induced by worrying about things out of my control, or trying to control things that are at the mercy of others. If someone won't take my advice or do what they know to be the right thing for themselves, I cannot force them to do so. Slowly, I am also beginning to understand that I, therefore, have no obligation to continue to worry about them and their choices--and the repercussions of those choices. Understanding that I have no obligation to worry and actually stopping the worrying are two ideas lying with a chasm between them. That chasm is making my reconciling the two very difficult. Sometimes I think life would be easier in isolation. Though there would be no one to love and no one with whom to interact, there also would be no one to worry about.

I took this pic the last time I was at Mom and Dad's. These first ones are taken with my new 24mm lens with which I was playing.

Yes, this cat is this evil.

These next pics are with the 85mm.

WORKOUT: Squat-thrust/Swings

20/5

18/10

16/15

And so on down to 2/50 for time which was 20min, 30 sec.

Playlists and Progress Reports

Super Bowl Sunday, February 1, 2009
Off--157#

I've been wanting to make a mix for my VO2 max workout since ideally it would have a nice fast-paced group of songs, and I've gotten a little tired of the same ol' stuff, so I went on a search and came up with some stuff. Workout music is difficult for me to find because I don't listen to the radio much, and when I do, I try to listen to more mellow stuff to chill me out some. (I tend to be a little stressed all the time). Mostly, though, it's just my iPod and some of the couple thousand or so songs I've accumulated. So I Googled workout music and found some suggestions. Here's what I'm going to be working with. Keep in mind it's a work in progress. If anyone had ever told me I'd have Ashlee Simpson on my iPod, I think I would have smacked 'em. Never say never, I guess.

Lady Marmalade, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & P!nk Moulin Rouge
Learn The Hard Way, Nickelback Daredevil The Album
Pump It, Danzel
Trouble, P!nk
Switch, Will Smith
Maggie's Farm, Silvertide
I Like to Move It, Madagascar 5
This Moment, Disturbed Transformers (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)
Paralyzer, Finger Eleven
So What, P!nk
Black Horse and the Cherry Tree
Everybody Wants You. Billy Squier
T.N.T., AC/DC
La La, Ashlee Simpson
Pretty Vegas, INXS
Let's Get Loud, Jennifer Lopez
SOS, Rihanna

Now for the ugly part, the progress report. As I've said before, I guess I should just be happy that I'm not completely off the deep end given my current stressors. One good note is that my groove on the pull ups is getting better. Not so much the pushups, but definitely the pull ups. Might actually be able to do one by the time I'm eighty. :(
Weight 157# (up 2.5#)
Waist 30.5" (down .25" since January 1)
Belly Button 36.5" (up 1")
Hips 38.5" (up .75")

TGU's up to 5 sets of 1/1 with the 20kg.

VO2 Max is up to 25 sets of 7-8 reps with the 12kg.

For a baseline, I ran an 11.5 min mile a couple of weeks ago (no heckling allowed here). I post this here so it's easy for me to find in a month or so when I'm trying to see if the sprints are doing any good (they start when I get back to FL).

Now for some more fun stuff...

I can remember my grandmother having a 5 gallon bucket of Reelfoot lard in the floor in her kitchen. She cooked EVERYTHING with it. (And lived to be 94. Lived by herself until she was 87). They are tearing down the old meat-packing building, but this smoke stack always draws my eye. I'm fascinated by it for some reason, so I decided to get it in some of the daytime pictures of the ice storm.

I wish I could have captured the way the light hit the melting ice. It was dazzling. Here's one of my attempts anyway. If you even remotely like it, click on it to enlarge it and see the reflection of the light in the ice.

On the way to Mom and Dad's Friday, I took the above pictures and as I was driving south the ice went away. The sky stayed pretty spectacular, though, so I decided to try out my new 24mm lens. It's amazing how wide a view it gets. The pic below is in NO way doctored. That's how it looked in person.

WORKOUT: NONE-- Today was an off day.