Moody Weather

Honeysuckle Bee

The weather is unsettled and shifts between hot rain with thunder and lightning, and blistering sun. I think I see steam rising up off the asphalt when the clouds part. My hubs came home on Friday and we celebrated on Saturday by going to a German restaurant. I'm not much of a beer fan, but the place had a decent German pinot noir. My hubs is all into "bier", although he can't quite remember the difference between ales and pilsners. He's more of an IPA guy. I prefer fruitier things, like hard cider and sangria with frozen strawberries.

Because my hubs is into all the newly discovered Polish kielbasas (there are two Polish delis in our town now, and a Polish restaurant/bar), he grilled two of the three types of sausages he bought. He also tried to cook Polish dumplings and pirogies out on our lawn to avoid heating up the kitchen, but the camp stove lacks subtle heat control and he wound up scorching most of the other foods. I like cooking pirogies in a bit of butter in a big fry pan. There's a lot of salt in the food and today I look like I've put on weight. Hopefully it's just water weight. I'm not happy with how plump and smooth my arms look. Yuck. Later the gym scale confirms my fears by telling me 112.0 lbs. Ugh.

I save my old Asics for Pull Days when I need better foot stability. Today I wear my Rykas which are squishier. I've decided to change the lacing pattern for these shoes because using the very last eyelet puts too much pressure on the front of my ankle. Plus the tongue of the right foot keeps sliding right. I pull out the laces and re-loop them through the tongue a second time and tie them from there. The shoes seem to fit much better now. I wish I'd thought of doing this sooner. Ah, the mysteries and science to athletic shoe lacing!

Today's a Push Day so I keep warm up for a mere 15 minutes, do some pull ups and push ups. I should've skipped the push ups because I lose my chance to claim the Smith. First a big guy doing shoulder presses and inclined presses there. Then a smaller Latin guy also doing inclined presses there. Then some kid... Ugh. I resign myself to using the Olympic breaker bench that seems a tad shorter than the other two. My feet mostly sit flat, but not comfortably. Benching just the bar seems easy. I don't warm up my shoulder with any bands or baby bells either. I add a some light plates and do a few sets. Lately, the meaty part of my palms at the base of my thumbs have been sensitive to weighted pressure. I have tiny hands and the only comfortable way to use an Olympic bar is with the infamous thumbless grip, aka suicide grip. I only venture as heavy as 95 lbs. I'm worried that either my hands or wrists will give out if I go heavier. It's not an issue on the Smith, but there's no hope of me getting to use it today.

Privet in bloom

Japanese honeysuckles

From the flat bench, I move onto the breaker inclined bench. I'm just barely tall enough to grab the bar from the lower rest. Knowing that using the Olympic benches is way harder than the Smith, I'm perfectly happy to do less. Less weight, less sets. There are a lot of guys and a few girls today. HS is done. This is the last week of school for my son's middle school as well. I keep my gear on the Inclined bench and use it for my DB shoulder supersets. Those feel a bit heavy today, probably because benching was a lot more whole body than I'm normally used to. Rip Skulls are good though. And I enjoy my time on the elliptical afterwards. 20 minutes is way more manageable than 30. I debate doing wide grip pull ups, because the left elbow has been sore. Screw it, let's do it. It doesn't actually feel bad today.

Milkweed

All this rain means my hedges are out of control. They're also in bloom with tiny white flowers and faint perfume. Not as heady and luscious as the Japanese honeysuckles that are entwined in the driveway, but still, the entire length of hedges along the roadway hum happily with bees. It makes me smile. I'm also happy to see that the milkweeds that escaped the town mower have started to bud. There'll be flowers soon, and that means butterflies. Mostly fritillary, but hopefully some monarchs too.

Monday
3.56 miles

15 min x-trainer
Calories 71
Miles 1.88

HGPU 31
Push Ups 50
Crunches 3 x 50
Bird Dogs 2 x 60s
Side Planks 2 x 60

Breaker Flat Bench
(Sore Palms)
Oly bar (45) x 15
65 x 12
85 x 12
95 x 12
75 x 25

Breaker Inclined Bench
Oly bar (45) x 15
65 x 13
75 x 12 x 3

DB Laterals s/s Rev Incl Flyes
20/25lbs x 12/15reps x 3

Rip Skulls
40lbs x 12reps x 3sets

20 min elliptical
Program 1
Calories 199
Miles 1.75
Average Heart Rate 135

WHGPU 20