Perseverance Gets Rewarded

Still got tape on my knuckles

Because I'm a stickler for rules and details, I can be an annoying geek about just about anything. Sometimes it pays off though. After taking my son to his last day of tae kwon do summer camp (he'll spend next week with me at the gym since school is still a week off due to Rosh Hashana coming early this year), I double back to the auto repair shop figuring that mornings are the better time to get my Safety Inspection. If my car has enough highway miles on it. Which it does! Yay! And thirty minutes later my car gets a new sticker in the windshield. I'm pretty sure the repair guys were tired of seeing me there in their waiting room all week.

I still need to take the car to the dealership repair shop for the exhaust system, but this buys me a year. When I ask about the weather strip gasket falling out of the rear passenger door, the guys point me to a body work shop down the road. Okay, it's only a few minutes to ask them what kind of glue I can use. Except that glue won't really solve the problem unless I methodically clean both the gasket and the car frame, and then apply Crazy Glue with a brush. And keep my fingers crossed. Otherwise, because the clips that hold the gasket are broken and the gasket itself is torn, I'd have to bring it in and have the gasket replaced. Which means taking the door off. That's $150 in labor minimum plus the cost of the gasket (about $60). Or I could use rubbing alcohol, Crazy Glue and a rabbit's foot. Hhmmm. It's been unsuccessfully glued before and the body work guy shows me remnants of dried yellow glue. "You have to get all this old stuff off." Must've been the previous owner. Perhaps I'll have better luck.

The gym is relatively quiet except for the 70s station blasting disco tunes for one of the classes in back. My butt is sore as I start peddling but I'm stubborn and punch in Interval 7. My lats are a tad sore which is a pleasant surprise, but my legs feel heavy and lethargic. Four and a half miles later, I'm sweaty and happy. Since I plan to box the Nexersys later, I punch in another cardio session. Instead of taking the easy route, I punch in Interval 8. I must be crazy. Ten minutes into it and I'm wondering why I'm doing it. I can't keep the same pace from the first cardio session, but I can try to maintain a decent stride. In the last two minutes, I've kicked up my speed to 240 SPM just so I can finish with acceptable mileage. It's not as good as session 1, but very satisfying.

Follow Me Avatar 3 Rounds

Meanwhile, Mo flags me and mouths something about talking to me later. I can't hear her because I've got MeatLoaf singing at the top of his lungs. I do a very abbreviated Cage Stretch (got those dayglo shorts on again) and then head to the Mat. Halfway through, while I'm in a vertical split position, Mo comes over to tell me long story short about why she quit the job she just got. After she leaves, I realize that my back leg is starting to cramp in the calf. The rest of my stretch sucks. I hate being interrupted when I'm working out. But how do you tell people that pleasantly without offending them? Luckily she's gone before I head back to the locker room to tape my knuckle and don kickboxing gloves. The gal I saw at the Nexersys yesterday has apparently upgraded her gloves to white pillowy boxing gloves. They look like giant dough balls on her hands and I wonder how you can punch anything with those. But at least she's doing it. Punching, that is.

Sparring Avatar 3 Rounds

As a creature of habit, and because I'm not quite proficient, I stick to 3 rounds of Follow Me and 3 rounds of Sparring. I'm apparently improving because my Accuracy (59% vs 46%) is better this week (I'm still confused by the Cross and inadvertently use the wrong hand to cross punch), and I've scored more points (864 vs 816). I still don't know what the points mean. I'm also landing almost double the amount of blows. I like to keep track by snapping a quick cell photo. When I'm done, sweat is dripping off my nose again. I saw R earlier but RR wasn't around to keep him company. I probably should've wished him a good weekend, but he's conveniently across the gym when I turn around with all my gear. I'm so bad with this socializing stuff.

Friday Workout:
35 min Interval 7 = 4.50  + 35 min Interval 8 = 4.46  Grand Total = 8.96 miles Wahoo!
Cage Stretch with heel dips and a few side kicks
Mat Stretch with bad splits but 10 rolling Dive Bomber Push Ups
Nexersys: 3 rounds Avatar Follow Me Beginner Female
3 rounds Avatar Sparring Beginner Female

The gym scale dances between 108.4 and 108.6 lbs before I step into the shower to wash the brine off. When I get home, my scale reads 107.2 lbs which isn't very different from yesterday (107.4). What makes me laugh is that almost everything else has changed (except for bone because it never dips below 4.6 lbs for me). Body Fat has dropped to 19.1 from 19.3%, while Total Body Water same at 52.2%, Muscle Mass increased to 38.5% from 37.9%. Overnight!

I know that if I ever want a chance to see a 6-pack on myself I'd have to drop to at least 14% BF and since I'm not competing, I don't think I could put myself through that much torture and dietary restriction. With the exception of the extra "baby belly" skin (which never quite stretched back), I think my abs look fairly decent. At least in the right light. Perseverance gets rewarded!