shoulders

I was going to do yardwork, but it was 32 or whatever again.  But it looks like there will be at least a couple of highs below 30 C next week!!!

So, I did shoulders this evening in the rather hot garage.  The sauna experience was fortunately pleasing this time.  A good sweat, and a good zone for clean and press.  Getting used to the hook grip is beginning to pay off.  It's amazing how much depends on hand position.  And I'm always astounded to rediscover the sweat glands in my shins.

At the end, I did some reps of just cleans with my previous max, which I was using for front squats--it's gotten easier already.  I'm looking forward to making my front squats more painful and thus more meaningful, but I have to take my time building up.  And I got to sort out breathing a bit more.  Still, the sensation of umpteen pounds floating upward is irresistible.  Something like this.  That transition where the minor melds into the major, about 6 seconds in (and repeated during the rest of the track*).  That's the best way I can explain it.  It's addictive.  How can lifting more than half of my bodyweight to shoulder height feel like nothing?  Occasionally, it feels as though I'm the one weighing the bar down.  Like it would escape into the clouds if I didn't pull it back down.

And how about running?  ehhhhh

* found on a Trancestatic mix.  Highly recommend this DJ's mixes if uplifting trance is your thing.

Commit!

I'm still recovering from my trip: it's impossible to avoid gluten when away from home, especially while on a multi-stage trip.  I didn't eat anything that had intentional gluten in it, but it sticks around on stuff like cookware and so forth.  I had to replace some of mine, but can't expect other people to do that! I've had good luck bringing my own cookware and J-cloth on an extended trip before, but it wasn't feasible this time.  Hence, ye olde colitis.  It's not bad, I've lived most of my life with it, but there are low moments.  I got night sweats last night and a run just wasn't in the cards this morning.  Plus the weather here still blows: the low was 24C.  Coupled with high humidity, that's too steamy even without inflammation.

And the dog was sleepy this morning too.

Wah wah wah, so I figured not running would save more juice for leg day!

warm up: clean
front squats (5X)
calf raises (5X)
goblet squats (5X)
deadlifts (5X)
lunges (5X)
clamshells (15X)
pushups (15X)
situps (25X)

I forgot the lunges last time.  It was an honest omission, even though I dislike lunges.  Even after I figured out the best back foot positioning, the exercise has never felt fun.  It doesn't feel pointless, more like dull and uncomfortable.  There isn't enough pow in it to fire things up, but it's not relaxing either like clamshells.  An unhappy medium.

Anyway, I put the lunges back in, same place as last time, I think: right after deadlifts.  For a very good (and, I got to admit, clever) reason: the weight becomes helium in comparision.  Yeah!  After whatever I do on the DLs, less than half of that on the lunges feels like nothing.

Especially after today's milestone.  I was hoping to do it before my trip, but that didn't pan out, and then I'd assumed that I would take longer to get back into shape, but the weights have been going well, and then I figured I would take just a week or two, and then, during the last set today, I figured, hey, why not?  Just one rep.  And then, I got into the swing of it and did two more.  What am I talking about here?  Deadlifting more than I weigh.

I've lifted more than my own weight numerous times before, last time was a full 50 litre keg, but just maybe a foot up.  And I've done it on machines.  None of that counts.  Today was the first time I've done it with a legit free weight lift.  It was a massive high.  It was something that I was a bit scared of, but now the door's open.

If I use a one rep max calculator, I'm now at a novice standard.  Yeah!

And the deadlift is feeling more concrete in general.  I'm starting to get that drive through the heels.  I've noticed that, with other exercises as well, more weight clarifies certain aspects.  Stuff like proper breathing and form and impetus become necessary. 

~

Woke up at 4:30, ran at 6:30.  Just 3.5 miles or so with the dog.

On the way back, a loose German Shepherd ran up to us.  It was a fright at first, because all I knew was that there was a large dog coming at us, and then it showed up, barking and snarling.  We stopped running (no way I can outrun such a dog; it's better to stop and face it) and my dog put up his hackles.  By that point, I knew things were cool.

Yeah, because a German Shepherd usually does a certain thing very well.  My dog has a similar guard dog temperament.  The boundary has to remain inviolate by all parties.  And fortunately, in this case, the boundary was a couple of metres off the road.  Maybe there was an invisible fence, but a good and well-trained GS shouldn't need one, I think.  Anyway, everybody quickly came to an understanding, we were just passing by, and we were good.  My dog knew his place and it knew its.  That's how it should be!  It continued to bark, but it didn't come closer. 

Anyway, back in the garage, I did arms today:

Dumbbell bench press
Dumbbell flies
7-7-7 bicep curl with dumbbells OR EZ curl bar
Straight Arm dumbbell pullover
Tricep dips (still on the bench)
Standing dumbbell tricep extension
Seated Bent-Over Two-Arm Seated Dumbbell Tricep Extension
Dip station stuff--once I can actually do a legit tricep dip on it, I'm moving off the bench
pushups
situps

Have I written about my almost very first one-armed pushup?  It was on a grassy knoll in Montreal.  I took the easy slope, head up, so it doesn't quite count, but I did a one-armed pushup with my left arm.   It was a bizarre feeling.  A big physical block, and an even bigger mental one: something's wrong, where did the other half go, etc.  There was a solid moment of oh, shit.  But it was very thrilling once I pushed through it and got up.  I even didn't think to balance things with a right arm attempt.

I haven't tried since.  Don't want to burst the bubble quite yet.

I forgot to mention

Yesterday, after my run and during my weights, I smelled like my grandmother used to.  That was the first time that's happened to me.  I can't explain the biochemistry; it was a combo of sweat and a certain soap fragrance as far as I could tell, but I don't use the same soap she used to use.   My soap actually is pretty bland, but about a week ago, I tried on a perfume and there's still a bit on my watch band, so the floral note could be that.  The similarity of body odor is bizarre too.  We have the same mtDNA, but I'm not sure that affects odour.  And we don't have the same diet, mainly because she used to eat a lot of wheat, and I don't eat any.  But she did rock a bit of a sweat at times: she was a peasant and never really fully accepted North American bathing standards--she didn't smell bad, just more human, if that makes sense.  A bit of sweat and a flowery fragrance.  The most puzzling part is that usually I smell worse than that after runs, but the weather eased off a degree or two yesterday, and I didn't end up completely sodden.  Anyway, smelling like her was oddly comforting during the workout.

Ooo, I have back tinglies--just finished my shoulder workout, and now I feel the chill I sometimes feel after busy muscles.  It's not a chill from being sweaty, it's more internal.  I sometimes also feel it during yin yoga.  I guess it's a change of blood flow.  I'm not really sure, but it feels nice.

Anyway, sadly, the dog took a chunk out of a front leg during a bolt after a squirrel yesterday.  It was the worst wound he's ever gotten with us, but he made no fuss about it and my husband found it later by accident.  That's the pitbull high pain tolerance.  So no walk or running today, and probably for a few days, at least for the dog.  I have no such excuse.

But, today, I just did shoulders:
 
Dumbbell shoulder press
Bent over rows, single arm
deltoid raises, side front, back
EZ bar shoulder press/clean and press
shoulder curl
bar rear delt row
shrugs
Cuban press
Iron cross
lying one-arm lateral raise
rotator cuff exercises
pushups
situps

This is a long workout, but my puny shoulders really need it!  It's also an upper back thing...anyway, maybe I can pare it down later, but meanwhile I try to push through it as quickly as possible.  During the last set, I ditched the shrugs because there are already some during the clean and presses; that's a start.

back on the wagon

Finally went on a run.  75 minutes with my husband and the dog, and it didn't feel too hot.  I've been having breathing issues, sort of the same knot in my chest I had in Kansas.  So I guess there's something in the air here too.  Yay.  But it wasn't bad today.

After the run, I did legs.  Pared it down:

squats (5X)
calves (5X)
goblet squats (5X)
deadlifts (5X)
clamshells (15X)
pushups (15X)
situps (25X)

I did front squats with the EZ bar.  This works a lot better than using dumbbells. Easier on my shoulders, and harder on my quads because I can squat more deeply  True, I used a lighter weight because I still have to get used to the movement.  Cleaning the weight isn't a problem, nor is holding it because it mostly rests on my shoulders, but getting it back down is a trick!

It's ok to be a baby sometimes

I'm catching up on sleep and acclimatizing to the weather and getting reacquainted with the iron temple.  This week will be a bust, I guess.

95ish % humidity in the morning with temps above 20C = UGGGGHHHHH.  I can't deal.  I can't sweat efficiently.  My heartrate gets jacked up in an oddly squeezed fashion, sometimes the prelude to supraventricular tachycardia, and once the prelude to heat exhaustion.  Once again, just walking was uncomfortable enough.   Like having a wet towel tightly wrapped around my entire body, including over my face.  And then there are the bugs.  Me contending with divebombing wasps/bees/flies/? this morning

Incredibly, I don't even live in the Deep South.  Almost, but not quite.  I can only imagine that and weep.

Then I did legs.  Just two sets, with reduced weights.

Warm up: clean--I'm still grappling with this again!
heavy squats
pistol squats
single calf raises
goblet squats
heavy deadlifts
lunges
single leg butt bridge
clamshells
situps, pushups

Admittedly, not too many pushups because they made me heart-queasy (just thought of that term for verging too close to my electro-cardio trigger--it's like being squeezed in a (damp) vise until something pops free).  Actually, some of the other exercises also made me feel off, especially the power clean.  It's such a powerful movement that affects so much of the body that, in this climate with a much smaller margin of comfort, it gets too close to the limit.  My muscles are not the issue here!  I can't target them as much because I'm dealing with this cardiovascular/endocrine elevation.  My internal revs are already too high without the added punch of an explosive movement.

Anyway, I altered the heavy squats.  Usually I hold the dumbbells down at my sides, but this puts a lot of pressure on my shoulders, more so than my quads sometimes.  I can't squat deeply enough because of my shoulder weakness.   Before I left, I got up to 40 lbs on each dumbbell, and it wasn't enough, but too much.  So, today, I kept the dumbbells at 20 lbs each, cleaned them to atop my shoulders roughly, and squatted more deeply.  I think this will be more valuable in the long run.  I just have to get the hang of the clean!  I've been doing 40-50 lbs repeatedly, but it doesn't feel efficient or quite right somehow. 

So, I've typed this out quickly while taking a bit of a break--I'm going to experiment some more with the EZ curl bar and just 35 lbs.  I can't actually do a proper clean with its curvature, but at least I can practice getting under the weight.

Overall, coming back to these conditions has been a blow.  I missed the worst of the summer, I think, but not enough of it.  I didn't even feel sore from my 36 km run...to toss that off somewhat blithely one day, and be too confounded by weather a half-week alter to even run at all is a bitter tonic.

recap

Monday: fun 17 km run with an old running friend up into the hills.  The elevation wasn't bad, the weather a bit warm but not unduly, but my new fuel belt was a bust.  I begged off after 17 km.  Total I ran was about 18 km.

Tuesday: don't remember!  Short and easy, or nothing.

Wednesday: fun run (distance? time?) with Gaz including a faster ~1 km interval to get ahead of a group doing some sort of interval training involving a whole lot of annoying yelling.  Hey, it's all cool, and good impetus to bust a move outta there.  Anyway, it was swell having a chat with Gaz about all sorts of things including how people smell.  It's true.  I don't really smell people over here because hardly anyone is around working out, but when I returned to my downtown neighbourhood with plenty of other amateur athletes, and heaps of people in general, I was overwhelmed by human odours.  Not necessarily bad, just present.  And probably useful at some subconscious level.

Thurs: don't remember! ditto

Fri: don't remember! ditto.  I remember running the bridges one day, but I can't remember when!

Sat: 1/2 hour run in downtown Montreal.  Wanted to go for an hour, but slept in, and there was a time constraint: accompanying my cousin to an international Paralympic swimming competition later that morning.

Sun: a somewhat monster fun run including about 14 km with another old running friend.  Total: 36 km.  I stupidly forgot to bring my gels, but my protein shake prior to the run sustained me.  Sadly, the expected quickie mart type place enroute is now closed, but my friend gave me half of her Lara Bar, and then we headed back to better options.  I had my favourite juice blend (beet, ginger, apple, ?, but it's so refreshing and goes down quickly mid-run) at my favourite juice bar in the Market, and a while later, I bought lemonade from a kid who had set up shop next to the road. 

My legs started to tire about this point, but I was able to pick up the pace a bit to end it sooner.  This also happened during my Calgary long run.  I suspect that I'm not actually going faster, merely not slowing down anymore.   At any rate, the last stretch went by relatively quickly, and then, at the very end of my run, I found a lady with a popsicle cart.  Perfect.  Triumphant Orange Creamsicle! 

Monday: travel.  And now I'm back South sweating off the balls I don't even have. 

Tues: walk.  It was foggy and pretty, but so humid that my breathing was constrained.   However, I hope to attempt a run tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I did an arm workout.  Just two sets.  It's been a while, and I feel it!  My power clean has suffered most of all.  It feels completely new again.

That sad moment when I'm unpacking

And I'm putting the coins from my country away because I won't need them again for a good long while....





I'm going to need a moment here!

A week at the lake

Lots of reading, several 20-30 min jogs, a few teeth-clenching swims, some pushups and situps.  Mostly reading.  Not even a terrible amount of eating and/or drinking because I'm starting to feel "off" in that special gluten fashion.

Hence the piss-poor use of the trails.  Also affected by the threat of bears.  My husband accompanied me on two or three of the runs, but I had no other takers, and without human companionship, my sympathetic nervous system totally belies that adjective.  Who named this thing?  Who picked that word?  It's not sympathetic. It's jacked to the skies.  Every large shadow becomes a menace, every fallen branch an untimely, unpretty dispatch, every oddly musky smell or piece of fresh poop a warning: claws and jaws AHEAD.  The resulting elevated pulse is tolerable for about an hour, when excitement cedes to fatigue.  Some years are better than others.  This year, I just wasn't into it.

I was more in the mood for tearing through heaps of paperbacks. I can't even blame the weather.  There were non-rainy stretches.  It was actually near-perfect running weather.  I could blame the noise in the bunkhouse at night, especially the card games running into the wee hours, and, oh gods, the three or four dependable snorers, but I brought ear plugs.

Anyway, I'm now in the 'wa, oh running mecca of my enfance.  My departure was delayed this morning due to gluten-related issues, so I missed run club.  Two hours later, I returned home.  My radar was off.  I couldn't find the group.  I don't know what routes the group does nowadays, nor who is in it...maybe I passed it without recognizing it.  I didn't check what they were running, and I wasn't sure if I could keep up anyway.  At any rate, about 1:40 of running time got me about 11.5 miles.

The pace was admittedly pushed a few times because running with people--or, rather, in front and in behind people, is rather more exciting than running on my own.  Can I catch him/her?  Will they catch me?

Footfalls from behind growing louder can offer an interesting proposition.  Occasionally, the pursuit is so quick and decisively out-of-league that there is no question of if, not even of when, just an inarguable soon, quickly followed by awe in the face--rather, the rear--of superior form and fitness.  But sometimes it isn't as clean-cut.  Someone who is just a hair faster sometimes becomes the unwitting victim of a certain athletic vampirism.  It isn't drafting, it isn't as close as that.  Rather, a mental motivational tether.  Hey, maybe I can (almost?) keep up with this guy for a km.  And then another.  Just one more.

Running up to someone is simpler at first, but what if they pick up their pace?  Then it becomes interesting.

Today, my pace edged up fraction by fraction, person by person.  I trailed one guy for about a mile at an almost no-longer-easy run pace, and then he stopped running.  Shortly after, another guy passed me, and I picked it up further and almost stuck with him for perhaps another mile...and then he quit too!  Those were the most memorable encounters of many.  I easily passed hundreds of people.  Usually I see only a handful of runners and cyclists per week.  Solitude and nature have their charms, but I'm more appreciative of the crammed urban environment.  It's nice having some company.

no Z

Music for Airports

But I'm blasting something with a faster beat right now because I'm pulling a prior-to-6-am-flight all-nighter on the YEG Observation Deck--which I highly recommend--because Air Canada won't check my bag for another couple of hours.  And, really, their rep was crankeeee about it.  I didn't know!  I'd pounded my water and protein shake prior to security for nothing!

This followed a really fun random evening.  My staid, 21-day Hound advance ticket purchase plans were eroded by an invitation to a blues concert.  This didn't pan out, so I tagged along to the mall:  WEST ED.  Among its other glories was a Wild West saloon markmanship booth.  I swear the laser pointer was a bit off, but I got 60% on my second and final try--I had to walk away before I got gripped too tightly.  Oh, obsession!

So, anyway, I'm now on the Observation Deck by day and napground by night.  There are nearly a dozen of us stretched out on the carpet.  It's highly comfortable.  This is the best transit overnight I've had yet, and I'm almost as pro as it gets with this sort of thing. 

I don't wish to procrastinate my report writing too much, but I'm headed to a place without internet.  Will I not lift a finger all week?  Or will I treat my muscle children with respect?  I have trails, a lake, (hopefully) good weather, and gravity at my disposal.