All posts in category My Training and exercise

Exercise and Training

I found an interesting workout thing online (pinterest, oh how I love thee), and this is week the second of trying to start it.  It’s about an hour (for me) of doing a series of 8 exercises, all of which can be done from your own home, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  So far, I’ve made it through the Monday exercise twice.  Weeknights are busy!

I like it because the idea is to exercise based on your body shape (focus on areas that tend to gain weight, or areas that could use toning).  They explain all the body types neutrally, without insinuating that one body type is the best type.  I (and every single one of my female relatives, curse you, genetics) am in a body type called ‘pear shaped’.  I feel it in my muscles the next day, and I am going to try to incorporate it into my overall schedule.  Check it out HERE if you’re interested.  That link is also where I got all of the pictures below.

I’ve even translated the pear-shape exercises into dog-owner-ese for you.  I’m generous like that.

Exercise 1 – Lift-off lunge.

Hold intriguing objects up.  Lower into position where objects are just out of reach of standing dog.  Push off of front leg, balance on one foot while jerking intriguing objects up very high.  Attempt to maintain balance when dog punches you in the gut while leaping enthusiastically into the air, trying to catch the intriguing objects.

Exercise 2 – Scissor Jump

Crouch down in play-like position.  Jump up, flailing wildly with arms and legs, switching legs in mid-air.  Attempt to repeat jump while Dog prances and leaps enthusiastically.  Manage two more wobbly jumps before Dog decides to see if he can get a treat from performing “bow” with his thick-clawed paws on your front bent knee.  Put him in a sit-stay, get one jump in before he tries to hump you from behind.  Wonder where the hell this humpiness is coming from.

Exercise 3 – Pushup and Leg Raise on the ball

Bring out giant ball.  Feel grateful that dog doesn’t appear interested in it.  Do pushup on ball.  Attempt to lift one leg off the ball, causing full-body tremors.  Die.  Repeat exercise one-handed, as you ward off doggy kisses and attempts to jump onto your back.

Exercise 4 – Hundred on the ball

Hold a crunch position with your legs up and resting on the ball, while breathing loudly and counting to 100 – out-two-three-four-five, in-two-three-four-ten, etc.  While Dog alternates between attempting to sit on your arm or stomach for pets, and curling up in the space under your head and shoulders.  That second one actually makes the exercise much easier.

Exercise 5 – mermaid

Lie on your side, supporting arm resting on the most fascinating blanket on earth.  Swing arm above head intriguingly.  Fight off doggy kisses, attempts at blanket thievery, and attempts to curl up on the small piece of blanket directly by your head in order to get the ‘air pets’ you’ve been doing.  Get knocked over by enthusiastic bum-wag when someone comes into the room.

Exercise 6 – Boat curl and press

Done on the floor, challenge of exercise is increased by dog attempting to latch on to one of the fascinating objects you’re waving around at low and high dog-level.  Consider it ‘adding resistance’.

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Exercise 7 – Triangle Lat Raises

Perform first few iterations, causing great excitement in dog.  When he runs over to stand directly beside you, attempt to fight through the distraction (just one more exercise after this!) by deviating from direct up-and-down route of arm, wagging and dodging doggy attempts to rob you of weights.  I strongly recommend against this particular doggy modification – I think I screwed up one of my shoulders doing this.  Nothing too serious, but best avoided all around.

Exercise 8 – Dip and Knee Raise

Integrate dog training into exercise, because the only way you’re going to get through this without having your legs humped by the sexual deviant your dog has become is by convincing him it’s worth his while to sit-stay.  Suspect that sweating all over a fistful of dehydrated beef liver is both rehydrating it and causing your pores to suck up the unappetizing smell of beef liver.  Second suspicion confirmed later, give the relatively healthy bowl of air-popped popcorn to someone whose hands don’t smell of beef liver treat.

I figure this series of at-home exercises will both increase my overall strength and drastically improve Gwynn’s training at the stay command.

15 Comments
by lexy3587 on March 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Dog Stuff, My Training and exercise
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Posted by lexy3587 on March 6, 2012

http://goneforawalk.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/exercise-and-training/

Not Quite There Yet

I got a lot of flack about my post last week in which I bitched about having to jump through non-exercise-type-hoops before getting to actually do exercise at a fitness facility.  Or, well… one flack.  Is that considered flack?  Maybe.  Regardless, I’m pretty sure it’s the angriest comment I’ve gotten, and it was for a post in which I used Zumba as a verb.  I thought people who exercise a lot (and for a living!) would be happier.  And possibly better able to see that there was humor in them there complaints.

There were some valid points, though, including ‘why wouldn’t you want to be more informed about your health and well-being?’

Wait, you're also a chiropractor? Wow.

On the one hand, the meeting had some useful aspects.  On the other hand, I still don’t know what a chiropractor does, apart from walk around looking exactly like Uncle Jesse from Full House.  I think he might be trying to sell me orthopedic inserts, which would be fine (since my feet, as my orthopedic doctor has told me, are like jelly-fish, and roll in a bit), but I already have an orthopedic doctor, and orthopedic inserts, so I’m all set.

As I suspected, I got asked a lot of questions to which I could respond ‘no’.  Do I have diabetes, heart problems, pain in my back, arms, legs, knees or anywhere else, migraines, headaches, asthma? No.  Strangely, they didn’t ask about if any of that was in my family history, so I did actually expand on the ‘no’, making it a ‘No, but there’s a history of that in my family’, though they didn’t show any interest in that information.

I got measured.  Just to dip your toes in the information-about-my-body-in-numbers game, my neck is 12 inches in circumference.  I am pretty comfortable about how I look – hearing the number that is assigned to my thigh, bum, waist, and calf, as well as the percentage of my body that is fat (and then compared to the percentage that it should be)… it’s a downer.  I’m pretty sure its sole purpose is to convince you that you’re in dire need of full-time personal-training.  Luckily for me, my pragmatic gym-buddy reminded me that they are, in fact, really trying to sell you something, so I got out of that funk quickly.

They then actually allowed me to exercise.  Shocker, I know.

I biked for the purpose of measuring my oxygen-intake during exercise.  Apparently, despite being a much higher percentage body fat than I ought to be in their opinion, I do quite well at biking at their very low pace without actually requiring a lot of extra breathing.

I did chin-ups on a fancy machine, pushups of the girly variety, and sit-ups suspended upside down like a bat.  I really need to work on my upper body strength more.

I did plank position.  Another aspect of strength training I ought to work on.

So that was useful, can I go to classes now?

Well, no.  Not without first participating in my free personal-training.  That was scheduled for Sunday, and went pretty well.  It was useful in that I actually got exercise, and that she explained the use of a large number of weight-machines.

Then they tried to convince me to sign up for a ton of personal training sessions that would get partly charged through my health insurance plan.  I declined, what with still not being willing to give them my credit card information, and what with really just wanting to go to a few classes.

Good news, though – I can now participate in actual classes at the gym!  Huzzah!  Have I mentioned that they have bellydance classes?  I’ll be jingling all the way past the front desk, finally!

What do you mean, "no costume required"? This definitely makes the workout target more muscles and... stuff. You can't stop the beat! Or the jingle!

10 Comments
by lexy3587 on January 23, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on January 23, 2012

http://goneforawalk.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/not-quite-there-yet/

Why won’t you let me Zumba?

It’s time for more groupon shenanigans – after Christmas, after the three months I didn’t tell you about in which I was doing hot yoga (it’s awesome, I’m still doing it!), and fully time to embrace a relatively inexpensive 3 month membership at Premier Fitness.

I’m not exactly into the whole gym thing, but they have a lot of classes, including at least two spin classes each evening, so I jumped on the cheap membership.  I jumped so hard that I dragged two of my friends along for the ride.

We went last night for the first time, showed up a half-hour before the Zumba class was scheduled to start.  I figured that would be enough time.  I figured, we show up, we hand them our printed out discount sheets, we get handed a three month pass with the expiration date on it, and we go Zumba-ing.

Too bad that Premier fitness is now Physiomed fitness, and Physiomed wants to make my life complicated.

Instead of flailing to the tune of dance music and a fiercely enthusiastic instructor with a thundering voice, we spent over an hour talking, sitting, getting a tour, and then sitting some more.

class goes like this, but maybe no umbrellas.

They wanted to know our fitness goals.  They wanted us to sign up for the very low super special offer biweekly payment plan for our continued enrolment in Physiomed.  They really didn’t seem to grasp that, when this Groupon is done, we’d be moving on to the next deal, not enrolling for another three months.  The Hot Yoga classes were so enjoyable that I signed up for more, and will keep doing them – considering how pissed off I am, even the day after this waste-of-time experience, even if I fall in love with the gym and classes, I will not give them any more of my money.

When did I start considering joining a fitness club?  When I found an online deal for it that would ensure that the fitness club never ever gets ahold of my credit card information, because I know how hard it is to stop them from direct-charging you when you want to quit.

What are my fitness goals?  Get a bit more fit, do some classes.

How long is my goal-plan?  Three months.  (To which he responded that I’d need to be there 8 hours a day, every day, to achieve my goals.  My goal is to be ‘more fit’, not ‘be like Arnold’)

When can you come in for your two day fitness evaluation?  Cue screech of slammed brakes.  Never?  I don’t need one.  I just want to take classes.

But it’s free!  But I just want to take some classes… like the one we’re missing right now.  And I don’t care what my resting heart rate is.  Or the circumference of my thigh, calf or ankle.  I can tell I’m getting more toned by how well my pants fit.  And why do you have a chiropractor involved in this?

But it’s required.  Seriously?  I have to show up for two more non-exercising days before I can go to a Zumba class?

On Friday, I’ll be going in and seeing a chiropractor.  I’d imagine the conversation will go something like this (bearing in mind I’ve never been to a chiropractor, and am not really sure what they do… but it sounds ominous, and I’m not a big fan of strangers touching me, and if the google-image search for chiropractor is anything to go by, there is lots of touching… and a fascination with spinal columns.):

I’m going to move your… no, don’t do that.

Well, then let’s see how far you can bend this way.  Ok, I can do that myself.

… Meanwhile, I just keeeeeeeeeep bending (seriously, I’ve told you I’m bendy… it isn’t a lie.)

“Holy mother of god what’s wrong with you?  What are you, Gumby?!  Please stop!”

… and maybe they’ll discuss my posture.  My mom once told me that in a room full of sitting people, you could pick out the people on my dad’s side of the family by finding the people with the most upright posture.  At the church gathering after a family funeral, I saw the truth in this.

After that, I’ll be getting a base test of some sort, possibly involving a bike, and probably involving one of those peppy drill-sergeants whose classes I want to take instead of having my blood pressure taken after doing sit-ups.

And then I’ll need to come in on another day, where they might actually have me do actual exercising, the entire point of getting a deal for a gym membership.

Suffice to say – I will NOT be buying another gym membership deal… I’ll stick to the cross-fit, horseback riding and Jukari type things – all they require is a liability waiver.

All I want to do is be yelled at while flailing obediently along with the group and listening to upbeat music!  Why is this so hard to understand?!  Just let me Zumba.

8 Comments
by lexy3587 on January 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in My Training and exercise, Non-dog-related-activities
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Posted by lexy3587 on January 19, 2012

http://goneforawalk.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/why-wont-you-let-me-zumba/

A Twisty Tangential Train of Thought… on Thursday!

I went to Hot Yoga on Tuesday this week… and will be going again Tonight.  Or at least, that’s the plan.

Tuesday’s yoga was far FAR more successful than the previous week’s attempt.  The main difference?  I pre-drank.  All.  Day.  I drank so much water on Tuesday that I was on about the same pee-schedule as the girl who is 8.5 months pregnant.  It’s awkward to show up at the washroom at the same time as someone else every time you go pee.  Especially when the other person has the excuse of a large tiny-person sitting on her bladder and kicking her occasionally.  But at least she isn’t a potty-saurus, and she locks her stall-door adequately, thus preventing me from being a potty-saurus.

The yoga though – that was drastically improved by having pre-hydrated.  I didn’t have to skip any of the poses due to purple-spots-dancing, and I totally rocked the dancer-pose.

My dad bailed on the Tuesday class, initially stating that his knee was bothering him.  He then added that “Those yoga boys will never get up the nerve to chat you up if you’re there with your dad.”

To say the least, he’s worried about me dying alone, a crazy cat-and-or-dog-lady.  He also wants half-naked sweaty men to talk to me.  Awkward…

While I was away, my friend came over to use my basement as the launching point of her staining her kitchen table (hang on… there is a reason for mentioning this).  We’d spent a few days sanding it down to wood, and had bought the stain and  varnish.  Her boyfriend (also my friend)came by to pick her up at the end of this, and showed zero interest in the awesomeness of the table.  Note (and this will make more sense later in the text): He, a boy, had zero interest in the whole handiman-ness of what we had been working on.  Not the ‘oooh, fun, using a belt-sander!’ aspect, or the ‘oooh, wow, look at the grain in the wood now that the stain is on!’ aspect.

In conversation, I brought up what my dad had said.  BF of F asked me if I was sure that any of those sweaty yoga boys were likely to be straight.  *Not in any way attempting to insinuate that them being gay would be a bad thing in general… only bad for my chances of making more-than-just-friends with them.*

I think that it’s likely, considering that hot yoga is pretty tough… and hockey players do it to increase their ability to function on the ice when they’re working hard (ie, heating up a lot) and sweating a lot.  Also, my dad is straight and does yoga.

He replied that my dad doesn’t count – he’s married (*yeah… fair enough.).  And hockey players already have the necessary machismo to go to yoga – your average straight-guy-our-age might feel as though yoga wouldn’t help with his ‘manly image’.

So, I ask you, blogland – is Hot Yoga hardcore/manly enough to qualify as something your average straight-20-something-male can participate in without feeling as though he’s bringing his straight-manliness into question?

"I am macho enough to do hot yoga...right?"

Also, yet again, please don’t take this to mean anything negative about gay men, because that isn’t my intention.  I do get that there are things that a lot of guys wouldn’t be into, partly due to the lack of ‘manliness’ (ie, why most guys aren’t into watching romantic comedies).  I know my main logic for ‘yeah, sure they could be straight’ basically went straight to ‘it can be manly, look – hockey players!‘…but I also think it’s kind of silly to not-do something not because you don’t enjoy it, but because you’re worried about your rep as an ‘eligible straight man’.  Which leads to the question – why is it easier (or so it seems) for gay guys to do these ‘less manly’ things?  Is it just that the requirements for maintaining your rep as an ‘eligible gay man’ are different?  Why is it that straight guys seem to assume that things they don’t do because of the manliness factor must be things that gay guys do?  Also, since we’re on the subject… wrestlers are half-naked and sweaty too – just… more huggy than in yoga.  How is that more ‘straight-manly’?  It’s the possibility of maiming, isn’t it?  I’m right, aren’t I?

You may now step off the Tangential Train, please stand still and wait for the disorientation to pass before continuing on your way.

8 Comments
by lexy3587 on October 6, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on October 6, 2011

http://goneforawalk.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/a-twisty-tangential-train-of-thought-on-thursday/

Soon, I’ll be Ready to go off and join Robin!

What do sharp objects, giant elastics, a well trained Vizsla, aim and a bit of girl power have in common?

Archery.  I did it.  It was awesome!

Saturday started off overcast and miserable, but by the time we got out to the archery range, it was a beautiful (if chilly) blue-skied autumn day.  We were at the York County Bowmen for Warrior Princess Archery, an event organized by a group dedicated to women doing activities that don’t fall into the ‘typical female roles’.

We got a quick run-through of archery terms and safety from a nice old man.  He was corrected partway through his explanation, though, because apparently ‘cock feather’ is no longer the accepted term for the different-coloured ‘feather’ on the arrow (which is supposed to be the one that faces you when you’re shooting).

“I’ve been doing archery for over 40 years, are you going to make a liar of me?” he asked jokingly.  For the rest of the day, whenever he made any mention of that particular feather, he said ‘index feather’ in the most mocking voice ever.  Hilarious!

The day went fabulously, it was a ton of fun, and I learned a lot.  Both about archery and about the fact that I really
want to do it again.

It is much harder to hit the target than it seems in the Wii game.  I finally got to the point where most of my arrows hit the board (which required me to aim about two feet below the board)… then I tried to focus on most of them hitting and sticking.  That was helped greatly after I switched from a 16 lb bow to a 25 lb bow.

There are some really really cool bows out there.  Some of the instructors out helping us brought their own bows, and they are INTENSE.  Both the competition and hunting style bows (very long vs quite short), completely unlike the basic bows we were provided with.  Ours looked a bit like a cross between Robin Hood and Ikea.  Their bows looked more like a cross between Robin Hood and the Terminator.

the archery-yoda correcting my technique!

The sound of over 20 bows all firing at once: Kind of scary.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like in medieval wars – 20000 bows all firing at once! The image of over 20 arrows on and around the same board… surrounding but not bursting the balloon we were aiming for:  hilarious.  We did at least 6 group shots attempting to kill that balloon, and failed completely.  If this were a real firing squad, our prisoner should have been allowed to go free… isn’t that the rule?

The old man who gave us our preliminary instructions explained to me how I should hold my bow.  He said, “Not everyone holds it this way, but all the good archers do.”  That translates to “you can shoot the arrow any way you want…but if you want to hit the target, do it this way”

A man brought his gorgeous and well-trained Vizsla to the range.  I can’t imagine how hard it would be to train a dog to stay on ‘this side’ of an imaginary line until the go-ahead for going to retrieve your arrows has been given.  Gwynn would have been off chasing every arrow, probably skewered in the process.  Also, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  I love Vizslas!  They’re so soft and elegant and sleek looking!  And this one just became a dad to a litter of Vizsla/Catahoula Leopard Dog pups.  They’re going to grow up looking like white Vizslas with leopard spots, and their current 3 weeks pictures were the most adorable thing.  The owner of the Vizsla was basically offering to give me a chance to buy one of the pups, I think(we had a long talk about dogs before he brought up the puppies).  It was ridiculously tempting, but Vizslas make my sister allergic, and their energy level would make me either a dead dog-owner or a bad one.  I’d be exercised to death or the dog would be under-exercised to obesity.  *Sigh*  Maybe in my next life, I’ll be a high-energy marathon-training type person… or at least live somewhere with lots of open area for running around… then I’ll get a Vizsla!

By the end of the day, I was nearly always hitting the target, and my arrows were sticking about half the time.  My friends and I rounded out the evening by going to a Chinese-Italian eatery decorated in a vaguely old-West theme for dinner.  Who could resist the temptation of finding out just what constitutes Chinese-Italian?  Turns out, it was
pretty much an American-Chinese food place with the option of getting pizza.

16 Comments
by lexy3587 on October 4, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on October 4, 2011

http://goneforawalk.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/soon-ill-be-ready-to-go-off-and-join-robin/

Serenity in a Sauna

Last week, my dad and I had some father-daughter bonding-time.  I bet your first thought for father-daughter bonding is something like fishing or playing hockey… possibly something involving beer.  Well, I like fish, but fishing seems dull.  Doodle fulfils the ‘sports-son’ role to my dad – I have zero interest in any sports.  And I don’t like beer.

Instead we went to a hot yoga class.  The first one, in a groupon-deal of 20 classes!  My mom intends to come as well, but as of this moment, she’s 100% incapacitated by a mysterious neck-ailment.  Until she can shake her head ‘no’ and nod ‘yes’ without whimpering, and until she can sneeze without crying on the floor in the foetal position, no downward dog for her.

A fellow first timer tried to find out the temperature in the room – the teacher would only reply, “It doesn’t matter,  don’t worry about it.”  That’s not ominous at all…

kind of like this... though he claims his beer belly acts as a fulcrum to help him.

There was a huge age and fitness range in the class.  And there were men!  I know this seems like a silly thing to point out about a class, but there are far fewer men in yoga than women.  My dad’s been doing yoga for nearly 15
years.  You should see his Locust Pose.  Even now, in non-hot-yoga classes, he’s very likely to be the only guy, which almost ensures that whatever woman ends up in front of him or behind him feel very self conscious.  So, it was really great that he wasn’t the only guy in the class, and that he wasn’t the only guy over 40 there.

Let me just say, I failed entirely at the pre-class-prep necessary for hot yoga.  The instructions were simple:  drink LOTS of water the day of, and don’t eat in the three hours before class.  Well, don’t-eat, I could follow, but in the afternoon, in my prime serious-hydration timeslot, I was out on a construction site.  It isn’t the ideal place to super-hydrate yourself.  I got home less than half an hour before we had to leave for the class, and drank as much (ie, not enough) water as I could without over-doing it.

The class was excellent and exhausting.

None of the yoga moves were particularly difficult, in and of themselves, but there is such a HUGE difference between doing them at a standard room-temperature and doing them in a sauna-like environment. There was a huge focus on breathing and the poses were split up into multiple shorter durations.

I had to sit out a few standing poses.  I recognised those little black/purple specks in my visionfor what they are, and didn’t really want my first class at this studio to be the one that traumatizes the teachers.

My dad sat out a few poses nearer the end, and modified some of the poses to suit his injured knee.  The way he explains it:  Every morning, I wake up and think, ‘yup, I was in a serious motorcycle accident in my 20’s’.  However, he commented that he was able to do a lot more poses in the hot yoga class than he’d been able to do in his regular-temperature class this fall.

By the end of the class, I was slippery as a greased pig, beet red, and my entire gym outfit was completely soaked through.  It was soaked in the same way it would have been if I had stood fully dressed in the shower for 10 minutes.

Hopefully we’ll do better adjusting to the heat when we go again on Tuesday.  Even after just one class, I recommend trying it out.  Just… drink lots of water throughout the day ahead of time.  And if you aren’t planning on showering at the studio, bring a towel to cover your car seats on the ride home!

9 Comments
by lexy3587 on October 3, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on October 3, 2011

http://goneforawalk.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/serenity-in-a-sauna/

The Rona MS Bike Tour

I feel like I ought to have written about this last week, as a reminder of the ride, but I was feeling a bit nervous about the whole thing.  I figured, just in case I failed miserably, no-one in blogland would know to ask about it.

The Ride for MS was this weekend.  I got out on a few rides in the past months, but the temperatures here have meant that even going out at 8 or 9pm, I was biking through pretty heavy humidity – so I hadn’t done any very long rides since going on the winery tour trip in the early spring.

On Saturday, we started in Acton, Ontario.  We biked about 100 km to Waterloo, including a 25 km optional loop near the beginning of the ride.  I did the optional loop… perhaps not my wisest choice, considering my qualms about my ability to complete the 75(ish) km to Waterloo.

The Team - four average sized people and a giant.

I made it to Waterloo, though, with a total time from Acton to Waterloo of somewhere between 5.5 and 6 hours.  Pretty good, considering we stopped at every rest-stop for a quick drink and a piece of fruit.  We averaged about 20 km/hr.  Just to give you an idea of how… average… that is, one of my friend/teammates finished the ride in under 4 hours… he averaged a bit over 30 km/hr.

We stayed in residence at the University of Waterloo, got free massages (glorious), relaxed and ate lots of corn before dinner (glorious-er), partook of some beverage, and sat down outside to listen to the speeches and awards ceremony.

I had been getting gradually more and more tired as the post-biking events of the day progressed.  When we sat down to listen to the awards, my legs hurt so much it felt like there were bees crawling around under my skin.  Gotta say – I’ve never felt that much pain-soreness in my legs before.

my legs were like this... but it was under the skin...

I went to bed with the fear that, by morning, my legs would be the equivalent of petrified wood – not useful for walking or biking.  I woke up, rolled out of bed, and felt… nothing.  It was like I hadn’t spent the entire previous day either biking or trying to massage the bees-under-skin feeling away.

The second day of biking came out to about 65 km of riding. I skipped the 25 km loop, not willing to risk having to drive home with the same leg pain I’d felt before.  It was a surprisingly easy ride, although I did notice that my speed was a bit reduced from the day before.  My teammate I rode with the day before was nice enough to slow her pace to keep company with me, and would wait for me at the top of many of the tougher hills.

The same teammate who finished a few hours before us the previous day did so again on Saturday.  He hung out and grabbed some food at the finish line, then biked out about 10 km to meet us along the trail.  He generously let us draft behind him for the last few uphills, and it is amazing how much easier the last little bit of biking is, when there’s someone there cheering you on and telling you exactly how many blocks you have to go still.

All in all, it was a successful event – the weather was great (cloudy and not as warm as it could have been), they had plenty of rest stops to break up the ride, and everyone was really encouraging throughout the ride.

My donations page will continue to be open (link on the side of my blog) for the next month or so – if you’re interested in supporting the MS Society of Canada, feel free to follow the link and donate to my ride, or go straight to the MS Society page and donate there.  There are also still opportunities to participate in rides this year (including a one-day ride in Toronto) - go to this link to find a ride near you, if you’re in Canada.  You can also help out by volunteering during a ride.

My heavy mountain-bike and I at the starting-line - at least I have road tires!

Thank you again to everyone who supported my ride, I really appreciate it, and the MS Society will be putting that money to good use in the search for a cure.  In the past twenty years, the radical changes in treatment and diagnosis have helped increase lifespans and improve quality of life, and the MS Society plays an important role in this.

22 Comments
by lexy3587 on August 16, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on August 16, 2011

http://goneforawalk.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/the-rona-ms-bike-tour/

I am a Frog… Do I Inspire You?

An update was asked for in the comments from this post here, and will, of course, be provided…

This morning I woke up feeling… tired.  SO tired.  SO tired that I stumbled across my room, turned off my alarm, and reset it for 6 minutes later, and ACUTALLY fell asleep in that time.  Like, dead-asleep.  Asleep enough that I was shocked out of my slumber by the noise of the alarm, and kind of confused about where I was, and why I had set my alarm for 5:03 am.  Satan’s hour.

Sore?  Actually, not really.  My legs and hiney felt only the slightest bit like I’d been doing exercise in the recent past – a feeling that could equally as easily been described as “I was hiking for an hour or two yesterday”, instead of “I tortured my body two days ago in the morning, and then went on a bike ride in the evening, I am a moron”

… just now, I caught myself staring deep into the screen of my computer, entirely absorbed by the desktop image (I have two screens…this document is open on the other screen) of my dog in his muddy, long haired glory.  I’m not sure how much time had passed since I last typed, but I think it might have been in the five-minute range.  The tiredness hasn’t gone away yet. I think I’ll be tucked away in bed tonight by 9 at the latest.

Since yesterday’s post/update: I didn’t do anything specifically for physical activity yesterday.  I went for a two-ish hour walk with Gwynn and Sadie.  Kind of a big deal, since it’s officially the first walk I’ve done solo in a really long time.  Doodle is up at her new job, working at a Provincial Park on their maintenance crew – my walk buddy has vacated the city for the summer.  And she’ll be back for less than a week at the end of the summer before heading off to Ottawa for University.  Proud/jealous/happy for
her/sad for me/overall sappy and sentimental… my emotional turmoil about this whole Doodle-growing-up is more like a pogo-stick I can’t get off than like a roller-coaster.

Sadie and Gwynn were shockingly well-behaved, walked them both like a champ.  We found a good place on the lakeshore to wade, and I joined them, in an attempt to lure them out to actual-swimming.  As a reward for this, I got punched in the bum by Gwynn’s giant soggy paws, narrowly avoiding being pushed face-first into the water I only wanted to go into up to my knees.  To comfort me, Sadie jumped up to get a hug, smacking her soggy paws against my chest.  Classy Gal that I am, it didn’t prevent me from going to the dog-park after we finished wading in the gorgeously clear water, wet bum and boob-paw-prints and all.

Off to obedience class, where Gwynn was relatively well behaved, and I didn’t get home for dinner and prepping for Wednesday until about 9:30 pm.  Make lunch, trim dog’s
nails, clean dog’s ears (yes, stupid to do both in one sitting… but I was already a bit brain-dead from tiredness), pack gym stuff, and barely make it to bed (or so it felt) before my alarm was going off.

We got to Cross-fit in good time, only to discover that the doors were locked.  Apparently, without updating it anywhere, they had changed the opening time from 5:30 to 5:45, just for the summer.  This didn’t improve my already zombie-like mood, standing outside in the chilly air at 5:40 in the morning, while the instructors arrive EXACTLY on (new, unknown) time.

Crossfit Summary:

Front squat/deadlift combination thing (there are no adequate words in my repertoire… this ‘title’ is derived from what a weight-lifting friend replied when I gave her a detailed explanation of what I had done)+ elbow-to-knee + squats –>21, then 18, then 15, then 12, then 9, then 6, then 3… of each.  I die.

My elbow to knee is more like hanging from a pull-up bar and trying to curl into fetal position.  My knees and elbows don’t even do a hover-near-each-other type kiss, not even a nod-in-passing.  I probably looked like a frog hanging from a tree branch in a motivational poster – “Hang in there!”

21 minutes later (well, according to the generous instructor, 20:59) I finished the exercises, palms bright red and bruised from the hanging-fetal-crunch, legs wobbly from the massive number of squats I’d had to do.

How do I feel now:
TIRED.  Like a zombie.  But not with the urge to eat people.  Maybe chocolate-people (does Nestle make those?  I feel like it’d be a good way to vent frustrations, being able to actually ‘bite someone’s head off’… like a delicious voodoo-doll of frustration venting)… or people standing between me and a soft bed in a quiet room (and the purpose of that would more be to maim them and get them out of my way… not the actual eating of them…)

While I predict a return of the oh-so-sexy cowboy-walk, my foggy brain doesn’t give two hoots about a future past sleeping.

Will I ride my bike tonight in hopes of helping fight off the cowboy walk?  Hells NO.  I am le tired.

Next crossfit – Monday… at which point I will show up a minute or two past 5:45, so that I can just go into the building, no delays.  Hopefully that will prevent me from being as grumpy as this morning’s 15 minute delay made me.

A Reminder – Mark from The Idiot Speaketh and Pedaleth is doing a fundraising bike-ride to help the people of Minot tomorrow!  He is asking for people to donate to the
Red Cross chapter that covers this severely flooded region.  Go check out his blog and make sure to stop by to cheer him on tomorrow!

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by lexy3587 on June 29, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on June 29, 2011

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Back in the Saddle

I felt fine yesterday as I wrote a post about Crossfit… understandably, since that post was done less than 5 hours after having done the class.

I felt fine yesterday, after work, as I took the dog on a long walk.  Understandably, since the walk was less than 10 hours after crossfit

I felt so fine, and A was with me on this, that we decided to go for a bike ride.  I’ll admit, we might not have made the best choice there, but I do actually think it helped a bit.  We went a bit over 20 km, with a brief pause in the middle to establish that, yes, A had a bug in her eye, and yes, I could see it, and yes, I tried to help.  You know you’re good friends when you’re willing to poke them in the eye… and they’re willing to let you.  That bike-ride was followed by a bout of stretching, which might not have happened, otherwise.  I’d have probably snuggled down on the couch for the remainder of the evening, not moving except to retrieve food or find a new book.  I think that the ride loosened up my muscles a bit, and let me do some nice stretches, which let me wake up this morning NOT feeling like I was beaten in my sleep.  As it is, my legs hurt when I’m standing…. but that didn’t kick in until sometime around 3pm, an 8 hour improvement from the effects of last Wednesday’s class.  I am pretty sure I’m not walking like John Wayne, but I haven’t had to do much walking since I discovered that straight-legs are painful legs.

I’m off to walk the dog (hoping for less of the walking like a cowboy), then go to dog training class… this should, I think, ensure that I sleep like the dead tonight, only to be woken, zombie-like, at an unholy hour, and head out to Crossfit.

How long after exercise does the muscle pain hit you?  Apart from “not exercising”, what do you do to avoid it?

8 Comments
by lexy3587 on June 28, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on June 28, 2011

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Walk Like A Cowboy

There has been a speed-bump in the training process… but never fear – just because I’m not talking about it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  It just hurt too much for me to mention for most of last week, and it hasn’t started hurting too much this week… yet.

I completed my THIRD Crossfit class this morning.  Yup… morning.  6am to 7am.  Which means, I woke up at 5am… otherwise known as Satan’s hour.  Having packed my breakfast, lunch, work clothes, towel, sweat-towel, water bottle, and running shoes the night before, I stumbled out of bed at 5 am.  I stumbled, bleary-eyed, to the washroom, brushed my teeth with my eyes closed and leaning against the bathroom counter, considered brushing my hair, and instead pulled the mass up into a ponytail without brushing it, and then snuck quietly downstairs.  All of my things piled at the side-door (at the bottom of the staircase), I stealthily opened that door, piled my arms with my things, and dashed off into the pre-dawn darkness.  5:12 am.  Why?  Because the dog would freak out if he realized that I was up, and not letting him out of his crate to take
him for a walk.  I’ve enlisted Peanut to walk him on Crossfit mornings… that means, there have already been two mornings of unhappy, sleepy Peanut walking baffled-dog at 7am, and there will be 9 more (the first crossfit was in the evening, the second was last Wednesday morning, the third was this morning)… she is only dragging her sleepy butt out of bed for the love of her sister and the furriest member of our family.  Also for the love of cold, hard cash.  Of course.

5:15 am, I was picking A up from her apartment, and we were off… gym-bound and already weary.  This morning, the instructor summarized my weights at the end of it.  I stared at her blankly, unsure why she was telling me this, and she said, “You’ve been keeping track… right?”

Um… sure.  Yes.  Yes I have. In my head.  I bet it’s somewhere in there.

So, with the new information in tow, I’ve figured out approximately what I’ve done, and it is summarized here:

June 16

Introduction to equipment and activities of the day

Four rounds of:

  • 15 Box Jumps
  • 15 Push-ups
  • 15 Pull-ups (first 2.5 rounds with one green band, remaining
    with one green  band and a black band)

Time: 16.5 minutes, ish

The days after: My arms were like noodles.  I could actually physically NOT pull the van trunk closed that weekend.  The dog hurt me every time he tried to drag on the leash.

June 22

Intro to dead-lifts – I got switched to a slightly lower weight of bar than A, and, with that 22.5 lb (junior) bar, and the weights on it, I dead-lifted 52.5 lb.  (to contrast, A lifted at least 70 lb total).  We did five sets of three reps.

Then, timed, we did:

Kettle Bell Swings:Pushups:Squats

21:21:42 + 15:15:30 + 9:9:18

Time: 12:34 ish

The Days After: I spent the following two days walking like a cowboy.  My legs hurt so much, I was bending to reach things on the ground like a decrepit 150 year old with joint problems, and lowering my bum down to the toilet seat was … a process…  This distracted me from my arms, however, which weren’t all that bothered except when I lifted them past shoulder height.

June 27, 2011

5×5 Squats with a bar loaded with weight on our shoulders.  I did about 47.5 lb (including the bar), and A made it up to about 82.5 lb.

Then, we had to do as many sets in 7 minutes of:

10 push-press (just the bar… 22.5 lb.  You start it at your chest, and lift it up until your arms are straight over your head, then return it to your chest)

75 skips

Reps:  I made it three full cycles, and 5 push-presses, while A made it over 4 full.

The Days After: Well… I feel fine now.  But we’ll see.  Also, I really need to practice my skipping, because right now, I do two jumps for every loop of the rope… one big jump, and a second ‘slow my landing’ type baby-hop right after it.  It’s like JUMP-ump.

The Plan:  Mondays and Wednesdays they offer a Groupon class at 6am… we will be there those days until we finish the last of the 12 classes.  If you don’t hear from me again soon, know that I died, or that my arms fell off.  I am not likely to be proficient at
toe-typing.  I think my big toe would interfere a lot in the process, as it is very large, and the rest of my toes, while move-able, aren’t all that strong.

Also part of the plan – get proficient/strong enough to keep up with A in the realm of weight-lifting.  I don’t really foresee this as being possible… but one can dream!  And until then, hopefully the teacher will stop apologizing when she says I shouldn’t add any more weight to my bar while A is adding more to hers.  Really… I’m ok with it!  If I tried to keep up with A, I would be squashed like a bug.  And, hopefully, we’ll do more pull-ups… because I can definitely do that more proficiently than things with weighted bars.

11 Comments
by lexy3587 on June 27, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by lexy3587 on June 27, 2011

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