Ramble on (and on)

It’s one of those weeks where I sit down without much to say but feel like rambling anyway, so here’s 88 lines about 44 things.

My poor, sore muscles:

Remember when I so brazenly said chest and shoulders was my easy day? The Squat Witch gave us a new chest/shoulder workout and two days later typing is hard. We did high set high rep (4×15) on all manner of press machines at different angles, I can’t even name them. We also changed up our back and bicep workout this week, but it wasn’t memorably bad as this one. I’m pretty sure leg day is still #1 for pain and suffering but this is damn close.

After Tuesday, we begin our two-week quarantine before travelling. I do NOT want to get sick and miss this trip, so I figure better safe than sorry. This means only leaving the space station when we absolutely must and donning multiple masks for any spacewalks necessary. This also means we have to stay home from the gym the next two weeks, so we’ll improvise our workouts the best we can from here, though we have plenty of equipment to do so.

However, when we go to Europe, none of the places we’re staying have gyms. So, once we arrive, it’s back to bodyweight exercises. Should be easy enough to cobble together a leg day like:

• 3×20 squats
• 3×20 reverse lunges each side
• 3×15 single leg piston squats
• 3×20 bridge lifts each side
• 3×20 calf raises each side

Back and Biceps might be more challenging, but seems like the internet provides:

• Some bodyweight bicep exercises (looks like the doorways will be getting some use)
• Some bodyweight back exercises (creative ways to use a towel)

Chest and shoulders should be decently easy.

• Since this site is kinda awesome, some bodyweight chest exercises. Spoiler alert, it’s all types of pushups.
• And, bodyweight shoulder exercises. These look incredibly easy enough to adapt to a hotel room.

I’ll hold off on making full workouts in case the squat witch wants to make them for us, but at least there are options.

As for the cardio, we’ve been averaging about 4x week, which isn’t quite where I’d like to be, but it’s close enough. The majority is on the elliptical machine, but I ran and swam once this week and biked twice, and mostly remembered how to do the sports, so that’s encouraging.

In Europe, even though I’ll completely drop swimming, I will try to squeeze in a few runs and imagine I will be very active walking or city biking everywhere. In an alternate 2022 timeline, I had hoped to be in condition to race Kerrville Sprint at the end of September but spending 3.5 weeks away means that our level of training only really nets “participation” levels again. C’est la vie. I can race triathlons other years; I can’t always spend almost a month abroad.

Things, and cakehole shoving:

I have kept a food log for the last two weeks. Sometimes I’m catching up a few days and tracking after the fact, but I’m making an effort to keep it up. Log says I’m right around 1500 (1516)/day this week, which is decent, but with my level of activity lately (not much), I should be closer to 1300-1400 average. Also, tracking after the fact probably means my accuracy is not 100% there. I’m sure there’s some other bits and bobbles I’m not remembering so perhaps safer to say around 1600-1700.

This is what my weight is doing this month after totally ignoring any weighing/tracking for the first half. It’s not awesome.

Hopefully two weeks of lockdown before vacation can also mean two weeks of good clean eating to make progress in the right direction. I continue to aim to try all the things in Europe but also keep the portions reasonable.

Goals ‘n Stuff

It is beyond crazy to me that 7 months have passed since New Years. While goal #2 is in progress (losing weight) and goal #3 didn’t pan out for the right reasons (become a two-time Ironman finisher), I still had other ambitions for the year.

Goal #1 – Work Life Balance – this is getting much better. In the last month or two, I have been able to hand off many of the extra hats I was wearing, which has really helped my workload. I have done some late night and weekend work, but this has been in place of some normal work hours, not in addition. If I were to meticulously log my time, I’d guess I’m pretty close to 40 hours a week right now. It’s just not a continuous 8 hours daily. I tend to bug out early to do chores, workout, eat dinner, and/or relax in the pool and return later in the evening to get some quiet focused time that’s difficult during business hours. The next step is to be able to work a contiguous 8, and that will take some level of further discipline on my part to confine message correspondence to specific windows throughout the day instead of the moment they come in.

Part of the balance I have been lacking is prioritizing any sort of recovery or injury prevention. I haven’t stretched, used the massage boots, rolled, or anything like that for quite a while. I will pat myself on the back that I have had two massages in the last two months, I need to do more. My back is holding up like a champ, it’s almost not worth discussing anymore, and my heel/calf is reasonably cooperating (but I have given it a nice long break without much running, so we shall see…). So, here we start again. Stretching is absolutely something I can do in Europe, and I shall endeavor to start again today and continue 3x week henceforth.

Some other notables from the goal bucket:

• Finding my pavlovian relaxation response: right now, it’s the pool and it’s doing wonders for my stress levels. I’ll have to figure out what happens in late fall/winter but that’s a problem for future me.
• Three new guitar songs: I’m about 1.75 in (Pearl Jam – Black is in the can, California Dreamin’ is allllmost there). I hadn’t picked up the guitar much in the last few months (race, vacation, covid, spending lots of time in the pool, etc) but I’m back to it a few times a week. It makes me happy.
• Paintings: ehhhh. I finished two, started two more, and they sit on the craft table. I have been less than motivated here (maybe I will be more motivated when the pool doesn’t call my name daily). Maybe I’ll pick this up in the fall/winter.
• Writing: I actually opened up my Fork Files, and took a look, and haven’t done anything else with it. It finally dawned on me this morning why I’m not doing this – I’m scratching and clawing for focus time to work, stealing it sometimes in early mornings, late nights, and weekends. I can’t justify adding a hobby that I also have to go in a hole for hours to concentrate on and spend even more time in my office with the door shut. Writing about my silly bard made and still makes me smile, and after two years perspective, I’d love to start taking that and working it into something someone NOT familiar to the campaign might enjoy, but this may not be the year.
• See the doctor: done! And, I need to go back and have a minor procedure later this year, which is no big deal, but I am not looking forward to because I have gotten away with a checkup and a wave every other year.
• Investment property: have talked a lot about it but kind of waiting on a few things and also deciding exactly WHERE to do this (is it Austin area or somewhere else?).
• Get the floor fixed: sighhh. Yeah, haven’t done anything about this. We may prioritize the master bathroom first since the tile is falling away from the wall at some points. Maybe both. Maybe I just continue to keep my head in the sand and do neither. Can someone just come in and fix my house for me without me having to decide things and bear the mental burden of making it happen?

All in all, 2022 is a VAST improvement so far on the two years preceding, and I’m hoping to make some progress on the most important thing (losing weight/getting buff) in the back half of the year and perhaps make some progress on some of the smaller objectives as well.