Abbreviated for the Long Weekend

Feel like I'm getting soft!

I turned off all my alarms last night so my son and I could catch up on our sleep. Our district has no school today and we just barely make it to the gym while there is still Child Care available. Other towns have all of next week off. We just have Monday. I can't figure out this school schedule thing. That means there's no kung fu class next week because they follow a different school calendar. Oh well...

I'm determined to whack the machine again today, only not whack quite so hard. Because we're there a tad late, I also have to cut my rounds back otherwise I won't have time to shower and change. Unlike other people, I refuse to get in my car smelly and sweaty. It's too cold to drive with the windows open. This morning our outdoor thermometer sensor decided it was too cold to register any degrees at all. Once I brought it inside the house, it matched the balmy 61F that is our "room temp". Yeah, we have a cold house, but that's what sweaters and socks are for. And a wood stove.

I don't cut back on my 10 min cardio warm up because that'd be courting trouble. Warm ups are critical for injury prevention, and to properly activate muscles, i.e., enhance your performance. I do drop two rounds from the Beginner rounds, because they are, in fact, warm ups. I also pull my power because my knuckles are still a touch tender from Tuesday. Occasionally I forget to ignore the phantom strikes, which decreases my Accuracy. The machine thinks I'm just punching randomly! I can always tell a round had phantoms because the data display shows that I've struck many more times than it requested.

I'm getting better at the Advance Level, but that doesn't mean I don't completely screw up a combination. I've finally learned to keep my eyes on the display panel while kicking or punching, relying on my peripheral vision to determine my targets. Moving my eyes off the center panel costs me a lot of time, and I lose accuracy trying to refocus on the commands that flash on the upper right screen. Because some combinations are very similar, I have to have enough time to actually read the words in those commands. Jab Jab Cross Power Kick looks a lot like Jab Cross Lead Hook Lead Sweep if you don't actually read the commands!

I don't have enough time to strip off my gloves, wraps, and tape in order to do a set of pull ups so I skip them. As it is, I barely have enough time to shower and change. My son is the only child in the room, but I'd already warned him that there probably wouldn't be anyone else there. We do a few errands, and then head home. My sciatica bothers me especially in the car but I haven't gotten around to putting a tennis ball under my right glute. I guess there's a use for old tennis balls after all.

My husband ordered a "new" refurbished laptop for my son and my son is excited to open the box and boot it up. It's Valentine's Day weekend, and President's Day weekend all rolled into one. I get a surprise package... flowers from my hubs who's suppose to be coming home tomorrow from Boston. I'm happy that he remembered this year. Not sure if we'll go out for a meal, but I like the flowers.

Friday Workout

Elliptical Training

Warm Up

Calorie :   91 CAL
Distance: 0.82 mile
Duration : 00:10:00

KickBoxing

Follow Me

Lap/Rep :  13 Lap/Rep
Duration : 00:52:00

3 rounds Beginner
10 more strikes than called for; 
Power considerably less than Tuesday's rounds

5 rounds Intermediate
Huge amount of extra strikes (677/631) due to phantoms. Data shows improved Accuracy as the % of strikes comes closer to 100.

5 rounds Advance
I completely missed a combination in the 4th round and that killed my Accuracy score. But overall, I see improvements so I'm happy.