Do Your Best

Our Cub Scout pack motto has always been "Do Your Best" (compared to the Boy Scout's "Be Prepared"). So I stayed up late, way past my bedtime to complete a qualifying test for a potential online employer. I still got up this morning to take my son to school and get to the gym. I check my emails and find that I have not qualified. I'm not surprised since I've had some disagreements with the potential employer about terms. But a second email says I'm close enough to qualify for a second chance, that I can complete a second qualification test before Tuesday and maybe I'll get assigned to an actual paying project. I'm doing the best I can muster.

The gym is surprisingly crowded for a Friday morning. It's warmer at 28 degrees, and pleasantly sunny. But because temps are below 32, there's the danger of black ice on the road. I'm worried that eventually the Nexersys machines will be damaged beyond repair, so I aim to whack the machine at least once a week until I can't. Today's a Whack the Kickboxing Machine routine and starts with a 10 minute warm up on the elliptical. I'm cold so I keep my hoodie on until I'm standing in front of the Nexersys. Then I put on moleskin pieces, white tape, cotton wraps and finally, kickboxing gloves.

The 7 Beginner rounds are always a good warm up. But I'm barely breaking a sweat. My right shoulder feels a bit off when I throw a cross as I arc my arm up slightly to clear the central Body pad in the middle of the machine. It's not until I encounter the frenetic Intermediate program that I actually blank the screen at least twice and get a Hitting Too Hard Warning once. I'm surprised it's only once. And in spite of all my precautions with moleskin, white tape, and cotton wraps, I've still bruised my knuckles.

I see a lot of regulars from M who comes in late to greet Lazy Pedals, to Ballet, Pissed Off Goatee, Frankenstein, Big Tank, Tasmanian Devil, and CF Dad. Sometimes I think I see Big Tank or Pissed Off Goatee staring at me, but they could be staring past me, or just staring at nothing at all. Since I don't talk to any of them anyway, it doesn't really matter, does it?

My lungs start to burn as I work through 7 rounds of Intermediate level Follow Me kickboxing. I've gotten used to the fact that the machine doesn't always register the Power Sweep or Dig. Sometimes the program runs so erratically that it skips the first blow of a two-blow combination. Still, after 7 rounds I'm happy, and sweaty. After I strip off all my hand protection, I do a quick stretch at the Cage (again), and then, do another set of pull ups just to prove that 1) I can still do pull ups even though I'm totally exhausted and 2) I need to make up for only doing 2 sets of pull ups yesterday. Considering that I'm not going to work out at all this weekend, I think I'm safe just doing one set today. Also, I'm reinforcing the fact that pull ups rely on actual body strength and not something as fleeting as energy (because 14 total rounds of kickboxing will burn through your carb reserves pretty dam quick). I'm burnt, but I can still hoist myself up because the punching (push) muscles aren't the same as the pulling ones.

My son's birthday is tomorrow and he's having a few school friends over to play video games. Of course, I'll need to buy a small cake and chips, and pizza and beverages. Today is going to be a long day because I've got so much to do after I leave the gym...


Pre-Birthday Friday

10 min elliptical
Calories 90
Miles 0.81
HR 149-182 (89)

T, Y & I Raises
5lbs x 15 x 2

Mid Band Pulls 15
High Band Pulls 15

Nexersys FM
Beginner 7r
Intermediate 7r

Quick Cage Stretch
HGPU 20

A Difference Between Towels and Other Comparisons

Today I let my son sleep in and I went to the gym by myself. The gym doesn't allow anyone younger than 17 years of age to use the kickboxing machines so he'd just be bored anyway. I'm not really sure why you have to be at least 17 years old, but I haven't been curious enough to ask either. The gym seems crowded, but of course, it's been raining all week, sometimes sideways.

I got on my home scale this morning just to determine what I'd suspected: I'm losing control of my meal portions and I'm putting on weight. And the not the good kind. To make matters more confusing, I bought myself a new bath towel at the grocery because it was on sale for $3.99. All cotton, solid colors and not horrible ones either. The towel is a lot thicker than my regular gym towels. Admittedly, my gym towels are so old and threadbare that they barely weigh anything and are almost sheer. This new towel actually has some heft to it. But enough to tilt the scale? I get on my home scale with and without said towel to check. And yes, the towel weighs in at 1.4 lbs and it's not even wet yet. 

Yesterday the gym was playing music from the 70s and 80s. I guess it was Throwback Wednesday. Today it's Country Western Thursday. It used to be the other way around. I guess they're mixing it up for the seniors? Ugh. I turn my tunes up higher. While I'm warming up, I catch snippets of conversation between Little R and a guy on the other side of my bench. All I hear is something about American Psycho and Christian Bale. I'm a little surprised actually because that's not what I expect guys to talk about at the gym. I got to listen to HS girls the other day when I was with my son. Wow, I wonder if I sounded that vacuous back then? I try really hard not to listen to other people's conversations even though we're in a "public space" and there's no expectations of privacy. Still, I'd rather not listen in...

Again, I decide to just to 7 rounds, Beginner level, Follow Me program on the right-side machine with the dead Power Dig sensor. It's going to ruin my Accuracy and Power scores because those blows will count as zeros in the total. I don't care. It also discounts combos that involve the Power Dig, like the Jab/Power Dig. So even though I hit the Jab fine, because the Power Dig doesn't register I lose the whole point for the combo. Sigh. Well, it's not like I didn't know this would happen. The glare is really bad today because the sun is blazing now, but it's still raining.

I don't do my customary pull ups afterwards because I did 50+ yesterday, and might do the same tomorrow. I'm starting to feel a little stress in my forearms close to the elbows and I don't want that to progress. Instead, I do a few basic core moves with a quick lower back stretch and then I'm done. Since my son isn't waiting for me (he doesn't shower at the gym because he says the locker room smells like yeast and is gross), I can take a bit more time in the shower to exfoliate and slather on the alpha hydroxy cream I need to keep the scales at bay. I'm finding rough patches in weird places now, like along the edge of my jawline just below the ears. Ugh.

Tomorrow my son and I will go to the gym and do some fun things. He'll roll his eyes at the pull ups and walking lunges, but hopefully he'll enjoy the Expresso bike. I know I will!

I watched the entire season of 9-11 with Angela Bassett and Peter Krause. I haven't seen him since Six Feet Under, before Michael C Hall rose to mesmerizing stardom as Dexter Morgan. Maybe since I've pretty much run through all the decent shows on Hulu, I'll actually get more stuff done. Hoarders only goes to Season 12 and Hulu hasn't aired the series 2-hour finale filmed last March. Prison Break just got too silly, and there's no more episodes of The Incredible Dr. Pol to watch. I've been viewing Glee intermittently, and the current shows So You Think You Can Dance as well as Gordon Ramsey's 24 Hours: To Hell and Back. I miss Robert Irvine's Restaurant Impossible! However, I did wander into the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, since I've never actually seen it. The first thing I thought was, hey, isn't that theme music the same as The Offspring's The Kids Aren't Alright. Me and about a thousand others thought the same thing, and it's not them. The 1997 Nerf Herder song predates Kids (1998) by at least a year. I've never heard of Nerf Herder before.




Yeah, weird, right?

Thursday

10 elliptical
Calories 88
Miles 0.80
Average Heart Rate 143 (85%) / max hr 162 Oops!

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

Mid Band Pulls 15
High Band Pulls 15

Nexersys FM 7r Beginner

Crunches 30/20
Bicycles 50
Stretch

Time to Get Serious. Again.

As far as we're all concerned up here, Nor'easter Toby was a bust. No snow until 7 pm which meant a loss of a school day for no good reason. There was a 2-hr delay this morning, which gave me ample time to clear the 4-6 inches of overnight snow off my car, driveway and walkway. Of course, with temps rising to the mid-40s, most of that snow is melted now. The delay did not, however, give me enough time to eat breakfast because once I had driven my son down the hill to the school bus stop, I figure I'd just keep going, and get to the gym early. The roads were clear, but slushy, and my son was wearing sneakers because gym class today, wearing his backpack with the school-issued chrome book and assorted textbooks, and carrying both his viola and binder.

The gym was relatively empty and I was surprised. I heard other parents complain about 3-hr delays this morning, causing them to miss their exercise classes. It doesn't actually register with me what missing breakfast means until later in the day when I'm having trouble focusing on my workout. It's not that I'm tired, but I feel less energetic, as if there'd been no caffeine in my morning brew. My day already sucks because the Tire Pressure sensor lit up as I drove to the gym. Ugh. Now I'm forced to make a pit stop at the Valvoline just to get my pressures checked. I'll do that later...

Three out of four ellipticals are occupied by a very chatty group of women, so I opt not to ascend that last machine. Even with music at full blast, I'd still be able to hear every word of their inane conversation. I get on the new cross-trainer instead. It's okay. I only dislike it now because neither my phone nor my water bottle fit into the assigned spaces. Ironic that I, one of the smallest people here at the gym, probably have the biggest damn phone (6+) and water bottle (1.5 liters). Warm up completed and I'm standing in front of the Nexersys debating whether to go with 3 rounds of Sparring or not. I go with Not. Because I don't have the energy. Ugh. This is the last time I skip breakfast!

Instead, I do the old routine of 7 rounds Beginner Follow Me, then 7 rounds of Intermediate Follow Me. I don't actually get sweaty until round 7 of the first set. I do blank the machine several times, and decide to randomly punch and jab anyway, because honestly, what do I have to lose? Before the last round of the last set is over, my headphones start to sputter. And then they die. Ugh. I hit the button and the lovely lady voice purrs, "Power off." My iPod works fine. It's the bluetooth headphones that have suddenly lost their bluetooth ability. They still power on and off, but don't connect to anything. It's too late in my workout to retrieve wired headphones so I do my pull ups and Mat Stretch to the ambient gym music which is called Throwback Thursdays. Still, some nice tunes. I catch Billy Idol's Catch My Fall in the background. But I feel very weak doing pull ups, and can only count 23 full ones. The last 3 reps are a struggle just to get my nose past the bar. Ugh.

The gym scale is not kind either, telling me that I'm getting fat at 113 lbs. Double ugh. You know you're gaining belly fat when there's more depth to your navel than usual. Seriously. I haven't logged my food into My Fitness Pal since we lost power two weeks ago. Time to start again, and become more accountable. Again. I get home and my glaucoma doc needs to reschedule my appt because she's taking her mom to the oncologist. Uh oh. Her office reschedules me for tomorrow afternoon. Well, at least I can get a workout in beforehand. I think I need to do more cardio...

Thursday Boxing
No breakfast

10 min x-trainer
Calories 79
Miles 1.09

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

Mid Band Pulls 15
High Band Pulls 15

Nexersys Follow Me program
7r Beginner
7r Intermediate

HGPU 23 + 3

No Power, No Posts

Friday's workout post postponed due to severe thunderstorms that knocked our power out until the next morning... busy weekend scheduled. Might skip the gym Monday as the next venue asked if I could set up my show a day earlier than I had planned. Ugh!

Friday
Nexersys

15 min x-trainer
Calories 70
Miles 1.82

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

Follow Me
5r Beginner
5r Intermediate

HGPU 31

Post Niko

Winter Storm Niko brought arctic temps along with the bonanza of fluffy snow. It's not hard to shovel, but there's a lot of it. It's so cold though that after shoveling a good 8 x 10 spot for our secondary parking, I haven't busted a sweat even though I'm wearing a fleece hat and winter parka. Temps should rise into the 40s tomorrow, but only areas with patches of visible ground will absorb any heat. Everything else will stay frozen and white. Tonight's suppose to be a lunar eclipse, but true to form, the sky is overcast and gray. It had been blazingly sunny all day! Now, not a star, planet or the moon in sight anywhere! The news states there's more snow and/or rain and/or sleet on the way. Oh yaaay. Kidding.

My right shoulder and hips don't appreciate shoveling. The lungs are getting a good workout though. I drove my son to the school bus stop because our road is slippery with slush this morning. And then I went to the gym. It's only partially full, probably because not only is it Friday, but lots of folks are still shoveling their way out of their driveways. We've had worse snow. And more frequently. Before my hubs and I were married, we spent quite a few winters shoveling snow out of the driveway until the side banks were too high to see over. This isn't even remotely as bad.

The gym is also really cold today so I don't feel very warm after 10 minutes on the elliptical. There's an old guy boxing at the good Nexersys and I'm not going to bother with the other machine because it reverts to SouthPaw unless you log in, and it's impossible to log in because the keyboard is funky. Funky as in you press the W key once and it shows up as WWWWW. Then you hit Backspace and maybe you lose 2 or 3 Ws, or maybe all of them. Ugh. So not worth it. Only by logging in can you turn off all the alarms that stop the machine and tell you that you're hitting too hard. And only by logging in can you prevent the machine from reverting to southpaw stance. The gym owner doesn't care because he doesn't actually log in. He just runs the Spar program in Default mode.

I only do a mild stretch at the Cage because I'm not really warmed up. And then I suck it up and do some pull ups. I'm always so relieved when I make it past 31 reps. The old guy is done, resting at the coffee bar. No one else is waiting. I take my time and affix the moleskin, tape, wraps and finally stuff my hands into my gloves. I'm cold. The machine is near the front door and even though it's a double door system, there's a chill from everyone entering and leaving. I go through all 5 Beginner rounds and never bust a sweat. It's only at the end of the Intermediate rounds that I feel warm. Finally! Temps have also risen outside. It was 17°F when I got to the gym, and closer to 28F by the time I leave. One of the Advance rounds goes a bit haywire, and I catch myself mumbling "Oh, fuckit" when I miss a complete 3-blow combination. None of the combinations are the ones listed beforehand. I don't even know why I bother prepping for each round.

I have to force myself to focus because I'm distracted by how moody I feel. I suspect it's a vitamin imbalance. I've been taking vitamin 250 mg of B-12 along with just 2 capsules of the Optic Nerve vitamin formula. Instructions are to take 4 capsules daily (no consideration given for how big you are so I'm taking the same dose as a 250 lb guy), but because the ON already contains B12, my urine starts to smell noticeably bad. So I skip my 250 mg tablet of B12, my pee smells normal but I don't feel as good. If anything, I feel sort of depressed and anxious, in spite of exercise. Ugh. I should probably take my own B12s again, but maybe cut back on the ON to 3 capsules?

I spend 20 minutes on the elliptical but I don't have the energy to pedal very fast. I'm barely sweating at the 15 min mark. Ugh. Not a great workout. I go to the Stretch Cage. WTH... I stretch and then pump myself up for pull ups. And I actually make it to 40. Yaaaay me! The last 5 aren't pretty, but I'm pretty sure I'm not kipping them either. Whew! I do a quick Mat stretch, note that my left inside quad still feels tight from an inflamed tendon. That's going to take a few weeks to heal up. Sigh. My shoulder's not better. Not worse either. Ugh.

Friday

10 min elliptical
Calories 89
Miles 0.80

HGPU 36

Nexersys
5r Beginner
5r Intermediate
5r Advance

20 min elliptical
Program 3
Calories 180
Miles 1.63

HGPU 40 Yaaay!

Photos for actual stats:

The Devil is in the Details

I spent 45 minutes in traffic yesterday because people can't seem to pay attention while they're driving, so there were two accidents (one where three cars rear-ended each other) we had to waffle through. I was late to my swim class but not really a big deal since there's only two students. Even though I took last week off, I pretty much remembered most of my lessons well enough. There's only two more classes after Thanksgiving, and I have to decided whether I'm going to sign up for private lessons and/or Lap Swimming. Lap Swimming is considerably cheaper than taking classes. Private lessons are more difficult to arrange, although my instructor tells me she still wants to teach me the breast stroke. I'm having trouble with that particular kick.

I'm also still vaguely sick, which means that every now and then I have to cough up a hairball. It sounds nastier than it really is and I think this is the tail end of it. My hubs, however, seems to be falling ill with the same fatigue and cough. I load him up with zinc and vitamin C. My son seems immune and I'm happy about that.

I call my glaucoma doc this morning to find out if she had prescribed the 2% or the 4% solution of pilocarpine. The pharmacy was about to give me 4% when I said that's not what I recall the doc telling me she was doing. It takes all day before I get in touch with the tech who admits she's made a mistake and will be sending a new Rx order for the 2% drops. Oh jeeze! Good thing I pay attention! My husband wants to know why it seems as if I'm telling the doctor how to treat my condition, as in why she didn't recommend optic nerve vitamins before? And why she didn't suggest pilocarpine after noting that I'm allergic to most of the other meds out there, and that the latanoprost and Azopt aren't working as well as she'd like? I can't really say, except that her independent office still writes out records by hand and her staff turnover seems high. But she's a glaucoma specialist who is willing to listen to my suggestions, as opposed to other docs I've met who harbor low opinions of their patients' IQs. That's worth something.

The dog is still getting up in the middle of the night and peeing in the kitchen. Good thing he pees on the newspaper already on the floor, and good thing I get the newspaper delivered so there's a steady supply on hand. He ate a slice of Swiss cheese and a slice of white sandwich bread with yogurt on it. I take him out briefly and then go to the gym. Today I'm whacking the machine! Ten minutes to warm up, five minutes to tape and wrap up my hands. Then a little over an hour to go 5 rounds three times and bust a drenching sweat. The machine is still oddly finicky, subtracting accuracy points when I respond to a glitchy flash signifying a faux blow. Ugh.

The Intermediate and Advance settings have some good rounds interspersed with more problematic ones. Ones that are 3 minutes of glitchy lights and commands that might or might not be legit. Oh well. Afterwards, I spend 30 minutes on the elliptical. I'm torn between doing Intervals or Program 3. Program 3 wins because kickboxing the machine always messes with my sciatica and the pedal backward sections of the Performance Programs seems to help alleviate that problem. Then I muscle through my pull ups, and I'm done. No stretching. Just done.

Once done with my errands, I weigh myself at home just to see if I'm any closer to being on tract. I'm actually heavier at 110.2 lbs, but my body fat has dropped a tiny bit (15.8%). Okay, I wasn't expecting that. I speak to the vet who came to the house yesterday. Good news: the dog's kidneys and liver seem to be okay, but his pancreas isn't. Hmmm. Chronic problems with his pancreas would explain his inability to process fatty foods and the sporadic issues he has with his bowels. She tells me that pancreatitis is very painful. That might explain his peeing in the middle of the night. But she says the exam showed her that his belly wasn't painful so hopefully he'll recover with the right kind of bland low-fat foods. She believes he needs more protein though and suggested that I make him chicken or scramble eggs. I guess I'll be boiling chicken on a regular basis too.

Tonight, while I'm boiling some chicken thighs with rice, I make a scrambled egg and the dog eats it out of my fingers. He seems more alert today. That's always a good sign. Once he starts eating regularly, I can put him back on pain meds for his back legs. He still seems a bit lopsided, especially since he seems to be tilting his head a lot. My hubs asks me if the dog had a stroke and I tell him I don't think so, but anything's possible. My son looks at me and asks incredulously, "Dogs can have strokes?" Uh, well yes. But it's unlikely.

Friday Workout

10 min elliptical
0.85 miles
96 calories

Nexersys
5 rounds Beginner
5 r Intermediate
5 r Advance

30 min elliptical
Program 3
Miles: 2.80
Calories: 242

HGPU 31

Photos posted for actual stats:

5 rounds Beginner
(great warm up rounds!)

5 rounds Intermediat
(the 2nd round I lost points because the machine doesn't realize it's flashing phantom strike commands)

5 rounds Advance
(frustrating but fun)