Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I Hear You Knockin' But You Can't Come In

My sister's tumors have all shrunk or disappeared, and her markers are way way down. Fwoosh.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Roundhead

The next question in my mind was How many more pushups than thirty I can do in a set, and the answer is one. Or, thirty-one pushups in a set. I just couldn't eke out fifty pushups this morning, just the thirty, so that left me with four more sets of thirty for the day. Which means four sets of thirty to do between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM, because I'm too self-conscious to do pushups at work. It's tough, but it's doable spaced out every hour. To my mind, also, it's less daunting to do five sets of thirty rather than six sets of twenty-five. Anyway. I did the thirty-one at six, and then couldn't get past thirty at seven.

"Thirty more for a hundred and twenty," I say to pit crew at eight, who's in charge of telling me when it's time to do another set.

"Actually you only have to do twenty-nine," he says.

"I can't think like that," I say, getting down on the floor. "Losers think like that!"

I barely bust out thirty, by the skin of my teeth. Surely twenty-nine would be acceptable for the last set, absolutely not!

On the other hand, I can't do just one extra pushup for the day. Wait, let me think if I can—

ETA 2/24/10: You knew that I couldn't, right? I rounded it up to five extra pushups. By the way, I can do thirty-five pushups in a set now—

Friday, February 19, 2010

300s

Same as Good Night Stretches, with 100 squats, 100 pushups, and 100 crunches added. I know, who would do that to perfectly nice stretches? But at the end, you get to yell THIS IS SPARTA!

Hold all stretches for 10 seconds or longer.

Standing
arm circles

PUSHUPS x 35

Standing
forward bend
...right foot crossed over left
...left foot crossed
over right

SQUATS
hold x 10
pulse x 10
shift x 10
cross out & over x 20 R
cross under & in x 20 R
cross under & in x 20 L
cross out & over x 20 L
shift x 10
pulse x 10
hold x 10

Step into
pigeon with right leg
...left quad stretch
pigeon with left leg
...right quad stretch

PUSHUPS x 35

Drop to hands and knees for
child
cat
cow

Sit back into
c-curve

CRUNCHES x 10
one-eighty straight
forty-five bent
ninety bent
ninety straight
ninety twist
ninety twist
ninety straight
ninety bent
forty-five bent
one-eighty straight

Roll over for
cobra

Sit up and back into
hero
camel

Lie back into
doll stretches
...right leg up
...right ankle over left knee
...right knee over left knee
...spinal twist to the left
...left leg up
...left ankle over right knee
...left knee over right knee
...spinal twist to the right

Sit up again into:
split leg stretches
...right side over right leg
...right front over right leg
...left side over left leg
...left front over left leg
...front over center
butterfly stretch
arm stretches
...right arm across chest
...left arm across chest
...right arm over shoulder
...left arm over shoulder
...arms clasped behind back
...arms clasped in front and overhead

PUSHUPS x 30

Entire sequence Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

What's Going On the shiznit

But with regard to wanting to add VO2 max training to Tuesday and Thursdays, it's very nice to sleep in every other day. Like how you can deal with three months of winter if you get little thirty-two degree breaks between the really bitter cold.

Or like how in the beginning the earth was without form and void and God divided the light from the darkness, not saying that I'm God. Just saying that if it's good enough for God, it's gotta be good enough for me. It works better to divide the days that I do pushups from the days that I don't, instead of pushups being without form all over my shiz. And sleep is probably a better divider between pushups than, you know, suicides. Because sleep is more different from pushups than suicides are different from pushups.

I think I will do six weeks of 300s, and then switch them out for suicides. By then, I will be bored with 300s and it will be spring...

I'll tell you the best thing I did was to quit Monday Orbit derby skates, as much as I loved them. I mean, I quit because they were wiping me out period. But since then, I'm actually seeing an increased positive energy difference—not just a decreased negative difference— mostly from the earlier bedtime. I'm still out of the house and on my skates every other week teaching the derby lite park district ladies, but in bed by ten-thirty.

If I were an ideal Buddha, I would enjoy sleep for itself. But truthfully, it took seeing sleep as an active part of my fitness program to motivate myself to go to bed.

Which is why I haven't been stretching at night, but that's being covered by the 300s. I get home and finish any pushups that I have left, and get in bed. There's a little place in pit crew's underarm that I like to lie in and watch the ten minutes of terrible movie that I'm going to last for. It's going to take the rest of the month to finish The Omen II...

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

What's Going On staying in the lines

I really want to focus on recovery to start this round, but I have to chalk out some training guidelines to make myself feel calm about working out enough:

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
MORNING
sleep in
MORNING
300s
MORNING
sleep in
MORNING
300s
MORNING
sleep in
MORNING
300s
MORNING
Fleetwood speed
PLAY
WCR Rioters
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
PLAY
KRU boot camp starting 3/6/10
HOBBY
 
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
HOBBY
 
HOBBY
 
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
HOBBY
 
PASTIME
 
PLAY
teach DLPD
or HOBBY
PLAY
USA speed
PLAY
WCR circuit
PLAY
WCR speed/agility
or HOBBY
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
EVENING
tv
EVENING
pushups to finish
EVENING
tv
EVENING
pushups to finish
EVENING
tv
EVENING
pushups to finish
EVENING
tv

Would like to add back in some kind of VO2 max training on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. More about 300s later, they are my new favorite thing...

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Abandon Hoppin All Ye Who Enter Here

"Something in here smells bad," I say, pulling the plastic bag of collard greens out of the refrigerator. "Like sour milk." A few days earlier, I had thrown out a several month old carton of chocolate silk that had turned solid like a brick. What. I've been busy!

"I'm not the best person to ask about smells," pit crew says, sniffing supportively, "especially not this week," because he's getting over a cold.

"Oh well." I close the refrigerator, which is how I've been dealing with the smell. I take the collard greens out of the plastic bag. Or rather, the collard yellows covered with slimy white mold. "Nevermind, I found out what smelled!"

Pit crew says from his room, "Yay."

"Only that was supposed to our dinner."

"Oh."

Anyway I tried to improvise a hoppin john with what I had left: an onion, some celery, two Grampa Simpson jalapenos, a can of black-eyed peas, and a can of broth. It was going all right until I added the bag of frozen spinach. It probably would have been all right, if a bag of frozen spinach wasn't twice as much green as a bunch of collard greens and if I didn't always feel compelled to use an entire package of everything; and also I don't know why I didn't put in rice, which I usually do with hoppin john. Instead it turned out like Swamp Thing, so I have no recipe for you this week—

Monday, February 15, 2010

What's Going On the shambles

These days, my schedule is looking more like this:

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
MORNING
sleep in
MORNING
sleep in
MORNING
300s
MORNING
sleep in
MORNING
sleep in
MORNING
300s
MORNING
Fleetwood speed
PLAY
WCR Rioters
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
HOBBY
whatever I got roped into this week
HOBBY
nap
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
HOBBY
nap
HOBBY
whack-a-mole
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
WORK
Office
HOBBY
whack-a-mole
PASTIME
Choppers
PLAY
teach DLPD
or HOBBY
PLAY
USA speed
PLAY
WCR circuit
PLAY
WCR speed/agility
or HOBBY
(mostly HOBBY)
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
EVENING
tv
maybe pushups
EVENING
tv
maybe pushups
EVENING
tv
maybe pushups
EVENING
tv
maybe pushups
EVENING
tv
maybe pushups
EVENING
tv
maybe pushups
EVENING
tv
maybe pushups

LOL, what a mess.

Two data points:

  • five skate practices were doable when I was pretty much getting a day off work every week in December, and
  • this weekend was the first weekend since the new year I haven't had plans.

My Valentine's night: eating Choppers and watching The Omen.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

I'm All Messed Up ha ha

So I'm really believing in this training/recovery paradigm, it's totally eye-opening and gives you hope to see recovery as an active part of your fitness program. Because sometimes you're not sure if you can train harder, but eating and sleeping better I can get down with. Anyway we had a grueling, great strength circuit led by USARS-certified speed coach and former competitive cyclist and hockey player Larry Kaufman, a.k.a. Mr. Pom, and then I walked a mile and a half home with Zombea, and then I had toast with butter and jelly (simple carbohydrate snack with a little bit of protein within 45 minutes of working out), and then watched Zombieland in bed. Which is a really funny movie, I love zombie movies. But for some reason I was stressed out through the whole movie, but I wasn't about to admit that I couldn't take a little mild zombie rom com. So I sank down into the pillows and blankets worrying that I wasn't building my muscle back.

I know better than to say that sort of stuff out loud, but not better than to blog about it—

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

IT'S ALIVE

I am reading a new book! It is called THRIVE: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life, and I'm very excited. Something new to experiment with, I will report how it goes...

But to start:

As I found, there are only two prime components that make up an athlete's routine: training and recovery. Often referred to as stress and rest, both elements are of equal importance, yet usually only one gets attention— the training.

This makes total sense to me: what you're doing in training, after all, is breaking down your body. It's in recovery when you're building it back up. If you don't do recovery, you're not closing the deal on your training. This is just what I was saying about gettting sick being my body's way of getting rest and fluids, except that I want to not get sick. Training is stress; and look here, you get sick when you follow stress with more stress like horcruxes. Seriously!

I am going to be thinking about this over the upcoming weeks: a time for driving myself into the ground, a time for digging myself out of the ground...

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Veganly Italian Cannellini Bean Soup

A whole jar of peppers makes a pretty spicy soup, adjust as you like.

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 potato
1 jar pepperoncini peppers
1 tsp thyme
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cans broth
1 cup short pasta
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

Gently heat oil over low heat as you dice the onion and potato, adding them to the pan as they are diced. Stem, slice, rinse, and drain peppers & add them to the pot. Turn up the heat to medium high and saute until golden, about ten minutes. Add thyme and stir until fragrant. Add tomatoes and broth, and bring pretty much to a boil. Add pasta, beans, and a bit more water if it seems too thick & boil for ten minutes or until pasta and potatoes are done.

Per 1/4 recipe, 337 calories

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Veganly Cowboy Kidney Beans

baking potatoes

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 red bell pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cups coffee
1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained

Put the potatoes in the oven at 375 degrees.

Gently heat oil over low heat as you finely chop the onion, garlic, and red bell, adding vegetables to the pan as they are chopped. Turn up the heat to medium high and saute aromatics until golden, about ten minutes. Add chili powder and stir until fragrant. Add tomatoes and coffee, and bring to a strong simmer. Add beans and a bit more water if it seems too thick, and simmer about twenty minutes or until potatoes are done.

Per 1/4 recipe on a baked potato, 496 calories