Self Challenges Are the Best

It's been over 80F for the past two days so I'm surprised that there's not a crowd at the gym today. Of course, I'm arriving a bit later than usual. Dogs went to the park, then I logged into a zoom presentation about the national power grid and efforts to expand it to allow greater electric use for transportation, residential and commercial buildings, etc. It starts at 9:30 and I'm able to pay attention for the first hour while I'm packing my gym gear and sorting other household items. 

The bathroom is 95% done, but there's a few really stubborn spots that elude my ability to scrub off. I might have to resort to general all-purpose baking soda but only after I rinse off the dried cleaning gel. And an 80+ degree day is not the day I want to spend scrubbing the tub. At least my house feels cooler than outside and I haven't resorted to flipping the a/c on...

I stop off at the Job Lot to pick up a new tarp to drape over the outside basement doors which are weathered and irreplaceable because they were custom-made to fit the odd angle. Then off to the gym! It's nearly noon and I need to get done before the local HS lets out and the gym is swamped with kids. Cardio is decent enough, and pull-ups are only a struggle at the end, where once again, I resort to a few kipping reps. Not proud, but it's done.

There's one person already in the Aerobics Room when I enter. The room isn't super cold so I assume that the Boot Camp class held a few hours earlier might've been held in the gym proper. Usually the classroom is nicely cold after class full of sweaty, chatty senior women. I'm doing my basic routine and it feels routine. Until I get to push-ups. Today is my challenge to myself: how many sets can I do and not spend all day at the gym? Cuz it's possible to keep doing sets of push-ups for a long time if I rest enough in between. I call it "low-strength stamina" and women have loads of it.

I'm curious enough to mark the time on my phone every time I finish a set. The first two sets of 25 reps were relatively easy. (I often find myself going over my 25 rep limit to 26 or 27 as a part of my core routine.) The 3rd set is harder and I slow down. The next set [third] ends at 20 reps and that is a relatively easy number of reps to handle, so much so that I question myself after the sixth set. The only way to check is to do a seventh set and see how hard or easy it is to get to 20. I can see from the time that I am spending more time between sets than I had estimated, but part of that time is also the performance of the actual push-ups.

I'm having trouble doing math at that point, but easily guess I've achieved my goal of more than 150 reps today. Yaaay me! Yes, this is the result of boredom and exercise limitations. I mean, what do you do if you're not supposed to lift weights and cardio just isn't enough? (Cuz it's not.)

As I'm sitting in my car waiting for the a/c to kick in and sucking down a cold strawberry-flavored protein (30 gms whey) beverage, I see swarms of kids descend from the sidewalk down into the parking area. It's 2 pm and they're all headed to the gym. I got out just in time! But that was a close call and I need to get to the gym earlier in the day.

I am annoyed though that freaking Microsoft's updated Windows system now requires a HEIF extension to convert HEIC files to jpgs. The extension costs $0.99 which isn't a lot. It's the principle of the matter! Because now my carefully adjusted and cropped images on my iPhone show up on my desktop in their original un-cropped form, so I have to edit this all over again, and the image enhancements for color/light aren't nearly as good as those on the phone. Ugh. It's a lot of extra work for no perceivable benefits. 

4 October 2023 11:53-1:22
Sunny Hot Wednesday & I still have more to clean

Precor elliptical #1
Program 2
Time: 30+5 (5574)
Distance: 2.83
Cal: 314
Avg Hr: 148, 179-94

HGPU 17 w/ some kipping last 3 reps

20 Hip Bridges
Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
20 Hip Bridges
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat stretch 12
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2
Push-Up Challenge: time 1:05; 1:06; 1:09; 1:12; 1:13; 1:15; 1:17
   25, 25, 25, 20, 20, 20, 20 = 155!
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga