May 17 to May 20

A sort of a lull in the action this week as the Victoria Day weekend vibe gets through everything. At least I worked my way through my tough week at work - now I'm left with a lot of catch up to do. I did a session on Thursday, Saturday and Monday. Just to keep myself going forward. I also did a float on Sunday.

I was still sore after Tuesday's training and the game from the week before. I used to like turf, but no longer. I'll have to take steps to mitigate pain before and immediately after any more turf sessions in the future. Man, just sleeping was an event on Tuesday.

As mentioned, I did do another float on Sunday and found a number of items to assist me in streching and rolling muscles and caring for joints during this time. The float just sort of resets my muscles, as they feel just so much better afterwards. I even found my old SuperNova and got it working on Sunday and Monday... and Tuesday ...

I did demonstrate some improvement in my fitness during this time, but I need to get fitter faster now. I'm going to have to extend my sessions and actually start running in the mornings. Or evenings. I don't really care when I run, I know now that I have to start to run. I'll invest heavily in ice and Advil for after.

The superhero I need

May 6 to 16th

The hits just keep on coming. Still working through the left hand turn that life has made, but at least I'm doing well in the ASL class. I had to do a recording of the "Timber" joke for homework this week. That was cool. Looking forward to the next classes and the next course.

Lots of early morning cardio and I've added rolling after cardio this week. Oh, it feels good to roll out after running on a treadmill, but I'm sure the screams of pain are off putting to others at the gym.

Meh, my bad.

My hip was so sore after training on Tuesday. Sunday after playing on turf again, too. Sunday I had a float and fell asleep for about an hour. I could actually check my blind spots while driving the day after playing.

Managed to score a try on Saturday, too. Yeet! Yeet!

Anyway, back to the gym this week - lots of running indoors to be done.

274

April 28 - May 5

This week was heavy on the front end and rugby on the back end.

Two two a days Sunday and Monday. Two treadmill sessions as the rain kept coming and coming. It was brutal. Tuesday was a early treadmill session then rugby later in the day. Wednesday was an early morning recovery session, as was Thursday. Friday I took off in order to get ready for Saturday.

I was also late on Friday and so missed the window. I should have just skipped the day. A quiet day at work and I spent my time quietly working. I should have been stretching.

Saturday's rugby tournament went well for me. Lots of time on the pitch, ample runs with the ball - more than I was used to last year and the previous years. I think I embarrassed myself when chatting with a team mate just before the game about the system we were to run that game. I think he was thinking I was going to mess everything up. As it was I got to chat with the same dude between games and he liked what I was doing. I did get banged up and am currently nursing an injured knee and a few cuts and scrapes from the turf.

Man, turf. Ew.

At the end of the tournament, I hit the hot tub and the ice machine. Not the hot tub time machine, much to my chagrin. But the knee blew up and I was hobbling everywhere on Sunday. Working on Sunday was interesting, to say the least. Meh, I got a nap in and cleaned the house a little.

Sunday night I was going to do some more recovery work in the form of a float, but instead just iced the daylights out of my knee. Advil and stretching, Advil and stretching.

April 21-27

Well, I'm going to start off by echoing the idea behind this track.

I shake my head at what I'm walking through at the moment.

At least my fitness is getting done.

I took one day off this week, took a look at another gym and have set myself up for success this season. I still see the benefits of the line "Habits eat everything."

I'm walking through a tough time. I'm glad of friends and family support, but I'm looking at the future with a different vision. I will seek solitude in my retirement. Glad, gentle and quiet solitude. But until then, I have some rage screaming to do inside a very large crowd.

Fitness this week looked was a fair amount of cardio, some lifting and rugby on Tuesday.

Man, I need rugby, but I also need to get going on my second career. I'm taking the ASL course in Mississauga; it is this that will help me move forward in my later career.

April 16 to 20

For those of you who are thinking I'm doing some sort of post to celebrate the day, I'm not. I hate the idea of this day and I'm glad it's raining like a son of a gun outside to keep protesters in and down.

I've been keeping to myself these days. My current mantra is "The gifts of exile are many." I'm not sure of the source of such a quote, but it might be me, I don't know. It does seem to fit rather nicely, though.

Evernote has made a comeback into my life. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to pay for this, but I'm trying to work with the unpaid version, just to see if it is workable. I'm trying to lighten my load on my back, get rid of some paper and make sure I can move forward as a paperless person.

I've managed to up my running game - this week I returned to running for 30 minutes on a treadmill. I haven't been able to do that for some time and I'm happy that I made that happen. It was kind of boring but at least I have that monkey off of my back.

The ASL experience/classes have continued. I've managed to work a class into my stupidly busy schedule and I'm taking the class on Thursday nights for the next ten weeks. I know it'll interfere with my playing rugby, but I also know it will help my retirement plans. Now I just need to get the people at work to get their stuff together and answer emails. It may happen, it may not.

So to summarize this week's training, it was lots of elliptical and treadmill work with one or two HIIT sessions. I've already put my current HIIT session here, so I'm not going to retype it now. I'm on the machines before 6:45 though. I'm with a coffee at work early these days. I can't say that my family is enjoying this, but at least I am finding making lemonade fairly easy with all the training I'm doing. These have been some two-a-days, but not many. But at least that possibility exists for me at this time.

Did I mention that the gifts of exile are many?

March 30 to April 15

Well, I've gotten to the hundreth meridian.

And as Gordon Downie mentioned, there's nothing to do but step right on over it. Yup, I've stepped onto the other side of an imaginary line and I'm not sure what to expect.

I'm still getting the training done. A lot of the workouts have been me getting my butt on to an ellitiptical trainer and getting 25 minutes done. I'm measuring all of them, and it's good.

I'm also doing the HIIT training, too. I've gotten up to a 47.5 lb dumb bell in those workouts. I do this for four or five rounds:

2 minutes elliptical - moderate pace and resistence
2 minutes DB snatches, presses and standing overhead tricep extensions.

after about 25 minutes of this, I do this:

farmers carries, inclined bench flies and single arm rows for three rounds.

These work outs usually last about 45 minutes and I'm pretty beat up by the end.

March 20 to 29

Yes, in this time period I was working hard and getting my cardio and lifting done each day.

Things were progressing.

And then a hard left-hand turn was forced upon me.

I'm relying on very good habits to see me through this trying time. I will admit that I ate an entire Pizza Hut medium pizza in front of my mother last night. It was a veggie lovers pizza and it was too entirely delicious. Oh LAWD was it tasty. The glares I got were so worth it.

Tonight, of course, I'm going to have to lift and cardio those calories away.

As I arrived at work, the rugby team was on the field training. I miss not being able to coach this year, but I have too many things up in the air at the moment. Too many things up in the air and too much excitement means I just can't help that rugby team.

Besides, too many cooks.

I'm even thinking that my season will be at least have a delayed start to it. Training is to start next week and I'm just not sure if I can afford the time or the patience.

I will march on, though.