The Cleaning-Up Workout

Camping is great fun if you're prepared for it. What's not fun is the clean up afterwards. Not just washing everything you used, and didn't use because of uh, ticks and spiders. That includes sleeping bags and bag liners. We always do cold water washes, but dryer heat is more than sufficient to kill most pests. What's more problematic are the tents. I mean tents plural. Because we lent out two tents to our friend and his boys. So that's three tents set up on our lawn, plus their ground tarps, and rain covers. All set to air out and dry in the blazing 90F heat.

The lawn spiders immediately started investigating these new properties. I left everything out last night, figuring they'd be more than cooked enough by today. I hadn't counted on the myriad snail trails traced all over, like a crazy Candy Land game board. It doesn't take long for temps to go from 60 to near 80 in a heartbeat. I put away two tents before I went to the gym. And started the next load of sleeping bag laundry. So I got to the gym around noon again.

The gym is only sparsely populated at this point, although The Mayor is chatting non-stop on the treadmill. He's never on that machine if there's no one to talk to. I think it's a compulsion. I do my 10 minute cardio warm up and shoulder routine. I've already decided to use the Left machine for 7 rounds Beginner, split between Follow Me and Sparring. The Right machine is less vexing so I'll save that for the 7 rounds Intermediate, which is all Follow Me. If I get vexed enough, I'll just do all my rounds on the Right machine and ignore all the scoring because not all the sensors work anymore.

What I don't expect is the afternoon glare. The machines are now set further away from the big plate glass windows, yet the glare is markedly worse. It doesn't help that the screen on the Left machine appears to have a haze over it, but that's probably some sort of slow screen death. The images are fainter, and the glare is so bad that sometimes I miss what blows are being queued. Ugh. The Cross and Jab pads are still too high, too hard and set at bad angles for someone of my height. The Right machine still has the dead Power Dig sensor and wonky kick sensors. If you don't hit the pad exactly right, it doesn't register at all. Sigh. The afternoon glare is almost as bad on the Right, but not quite. I feel myself running out of steam by round 6 Intermediate. Well, 14 rounds is probably a lot, so I really need to work more on my stamina!

Afterwards, I do a partial mat stretch because I can already feel my shoulders stiffening. Not good. And I'm starving! I had coffee and a yogurt for breakfast, but that's never enough. Back at the car, I suck down Ensure®'s newest product, with 30 grams of protein and a kick of caffeine. It tastes pretty good, with only 150 calories. I guess their product developers finally realized that not everyone wants to drink that nasty EAS (also an Abbott labs company) RTD stuff. We're not all muscle-heads, and we're not all frail seniors who need to suck down 360 calorie shakes. It helps that suddenly there's a lot of literature stating middle-age folks need to up their protein intake to stay active. Of course, I only buy this stuff if I have a coupon. And only the mocha flavor, because otherwise, my son drinks all my RTDs when he gets home from school. They're like eating a chocolate, strawberry or vanilla liquid snack. Well, better than Pop-tarts, not that I'd ever buy any of those.

7r Intermediate

Whacking Wednesday

7r Beginner

10 elliptical
Calories 91
Miles 0.82
Average Heart Rate 146/180

T, Y & I Raises
3lbs x 15
5lbs x 15

Mid Band Pulls 15
High Band Pulls 15

Nexersys
7r Beginner 4FM 3Sp
7r Intermediate FM