total nerd test: did you use a graphics tile set or are you a ‘purist’?
congrats on your hill sprints. hmm… if you are PMSing I think that means I am PMSing. that could explain my feeling lackluster about my training…
so much paperwork in teaching 
Purist. Oh the fear of being chased around by a giant M! Heh.
Off to gymnastics now. Not really in the mood but I can’t go next week because I’m visiting my folks for Mother’s Day (we have a different Mother’s Day to the US).
my hat goes off to you. i used tile sets :-p intellectually i get the joy of being afraid of the giant M but my memory is so bad it would take me months to immerse myself in the game. hmm… i wonder if it is mother’s day here in aussie… should look into that. hope you enjoy your gymnastics.
Gymnastics was pretty good. There were only three of us so we got worked pretty hard. Did some rolls, some handstand stuff, headstands and bridges. I rock the headstands. Handstands are not too bad either - can do it with a spot. I cannot yet do a free standing handstand and hold it. I don’t have sufficient body control. But considering I could do diddly squat back when I started in September, I’m doing pretty well.
Cal: From what I’ve seen of your vids, you are making excellent progress! The control will come soon I’m sure.
Thanks Nadia. I’ve always had my doubts because I was always the dyspraxic kid who couldn’t catch or ride a bicycle (and actually I still can’t ride a bicycle, not that I’ve actually tried since an unfortunate incident with a rosebush when I was around 10). So yeah, I’ve always thought of myself as someone who can’t do fancy stuff. And yet, now I’m beginning to learn. (And I can catch, at least well enough not to make an ass of myself in PE lessons).
Did the gym today. Tried squatting but it didn’t go well. Overheads to start - did alright with the bar but nearly dumped the 25kg. Switched to back squats and got elbow pain. That elbow is being a right royal pain in the…uh, elbow. Hmm. Anyway…after that I did some functional stuff - snatch practise with a body bar, waiter’s walks, 7kg TGUs, 14kg dumbell windmills. Tried farmer’s walks with 30kg dumbells. Did it once (across the gym and back) and then only managed a half length before my grip failed me on the second round. Seems that once my grip is gone, it’s gone for a while. Not sure what to do about that.
Did a triset of straight arm pulldowns, reverse grip pulldowns and press-ups, then went to do some handstands and stuff. That was it, pretty much. Elbow is sore. That stupid bastard of a muscle behind my knee keeps locking up as well. I did find rolling it on a dumbell helped a bit. Argh I wish I wasn’t so old and busted! Anyway, that’s me.
I don’t know why but I just don’t feel like doing heavy stuff at the moment. I suppose with the half marathon just over a month away I’m better off doing functional and endurance work anyway. We’ll see.
Alot of us wish we weren’t so old and busted.
Perhaps you should try riding a bicycle again. It seems that you may have finally grown out of the dyspraxic stage.
Cal: Mixing up your training sounds like a good plan. I second Kimba’s motion to get you back up on a bike.
That would require me to find someone with a bike. Fact is, I don’t have many local friends and I can’t think of any friends who have bikes in any case. So I can’t be arsed. Not being able to ride one hasn’t really held me back.
One nice thing today was that the girl who’d had the heart valve op popped into school today to see her classmates and teachers and she looks really well. She’ll be back after the Easter holidays, although I daresay she won’t be doing PE for a while. Awesome to see her, though.
Great work with the gymanstics Cal.
You sure do a hell of a lot of stuff for a busted, old bitch! Hang in there.
Glad to hear about the little girl doing so well. Makes me smile.
No biking? Too bad. But look how fun it is!
Cal, I really love how you write. 
Being “old and busted” too, let me ask you this question about the running: how do you decide whether you are too busted to do a planned run? At the moment, I have to at-the-least feel pretty well before I start. After that, its hard for me to know what to do with this. I’d appreciate hearing your philosophy.
That’s pretty much how I do it. If I feel bone tired or unwell, then I skip my workout. Otherwise I’ll start my run (if it’s a run I’ve planned) and see how it goes. Sometimes I may not feel great to begin with but once I’m running, I’ll perk up. If I’m still leaden-footed after a mile, I’ll just do my “short” run of three miles. Otherwise I’ll push on. Obviously, if there is a bad pain anywhere, it’s time to head for home. However, I have a lot of low grade niggles and I generally ignore these for the mostpart.
I’ve just broken up for the Easter holidays (yay!) so no school for three weeks. I have to visit my folks this weekend so there will be no workout logs for a couple of days. I intend to hit the gym hard over the break, though, in order to make up for recent slacking.
Sneaked in a gym session before I had to head off to see mum and dad. Pretty much functional stuff, no heavy weights. Got sweaty so it felt good.
Warm-up:
Single leg air humps (foot on a bench): 2 x 15 per leg
Single leg squats (rear foot on bench) 1 x 10 per leg
Various mobility crap and some snatch practise with a 4kg body bar.
3 x Triset:
Military Press x 10
Overhead Squats x 10
Good Mornings x 10
Used naked oly bar for all three trisets.
Single leg curls (the bent over kind, on a Cybex leg curl plate load machine)
2 x 15kg per leg. No resting between sets.
Waiter’s Walks: 2 x 20kg - Crossed the gym three times each carry.
Turkish Get-Ups: 10 x 8kg dumbell (alternating sides; so 5 reps per side. Which is enough, trust me).
2 x Triset:
20kg straight arm pulldown (standing) x 10
30kg reverse grip pulldown (sitting) x 10
Pushups x 10
20 x Hypers
20 x Reverse Hypers
Handstand practise.
That’s all folks.
I assume you made it past all the stress you were going through about keeping your job??
Hurray for Easter break! Enjoy. Hope you have a nice visit with your folks.
Nice training session there. Very efficient total body stuff. Interested to see what you do over the next few weeks.
Nice training Cal! You packed in a lot with the gymnastics! And I agree, you’ve come a long way since September. Good job!
I understand re: not lifting heavy. I think I go through phases too and sometimes just doing other “active” stuff feels good. Altho I will say, the waiters walks and the turkish getups are, er, kinda “heavy” no?
Hell yes for spring break! So jealous. Have fun visiting the family m’dere! rest up
MiM - no guarantee I’ll have a job next academic year but at least I’ll be there for the rest of this one. Then we’ll see, I guess.
Just back from the folks. They aren’t doing so well. Mum seems to have given up. She can’t even walk to the bathroom - she can only shuffle from her bedroom to the sitting room and her life is now watching television. She’s incontinent and she can’t speak. She won’t even go and sit in the garden now that the weather is nicer. Her quality of life is piss poor but she makes no effort to help herself any more.
Dad fares little better - he can shuffle around but since breaking his leg, his mobility is considerably less and he keeps falling. His ribs were pretty banged up - he’d fallen and hit them on the arm of the stairlift a few days before I got there. They have carers to come in but I don’t know how long they can go on like that. It sounds horrible, but if they were pets, they’d be taken to the vets and put to sleep. I hope to god I never have a stroke because I certainly wouldn’t want to be revived if that were the case.
On a more positive note, I did manage to get an hour’s run in while I was there. Usual aches and pains but I felt energetic. Also slept a lot (mostly from boredom - inactivity is very tiring and since they can’t go out, I can’t go out with them). Glad to be back home now.
Aww, Cal, I’m really sorry to hear about your folks. That sucks. I agree about being concerned about living with a diminished quality of life someday. My current bf is a paramedic and it is so sad to hear some of the stories about stuff he has witnessed with elderly, infirm, and chronically-ill patients. Thinking about this stuff is probably a big part of why we train so hard, no?
That reality is never easy to deal with. My heart goes out to you. I can see this being my reality in ten years.