Hard to believe I'm in the last week of my sort of independent study yoga program. The practises this week put together all of the "learning" practises that have been done over the past 7 week into longer practises - and by longer, I mean "good grief, when does this fucking thing end?" longer. Don't tell Rodney Yee, but I haven't been doing the meditations because that adds 10 minutes of sitting on my ass at or past the point when I'm ready to get on with my day. There are only two practises left in the program, plus the relaxation/meditation day, but at least that final meditation is done walking, which I think I can hack. Still no idea of how I'm going to carry this forward, or if I am. One of the suggestions is to just do this final week's practises, and there's no way that's going to happen. They're just too long. I could go back to DVDs, although there's a certain lack of appeal to that. Or I could just call it a wrap, and just do yoga when I feel like it. It's a shame - there are things about it I really enjoy, and yet these final practises are just pushing my annoyance buttons.
The rest of my workout life is going well. We had a nice cool morning on Tuesday, and what do you know, I did my "easy" run at what was 10 seconds off half marathon pace just running at what felt like a casual pace. Just goes to show you (me) how much the heat really has been a factor. Yesterday was a quarter mile repeat day, and today was an easy run followed by FBB base phase workout B at the gym. Interestingly this workout doesn't annoy me nearly as much as the A workout, and I realized why - I can pretty much do this workout as is, just upping the weights to make it challenging, and for the A workout, for HALF of the exercises, I have to modify them significantly to get anything out of them. And let it be noted, Ms. Rachel doesn't offer any mods up for any of these exercises; in fact for one of them, she suggests you may never even make it to the designated rep range. Um, guess what, girlie? At least the next phase, "Define Yourself," looks significantly better. Jury's still out on whether or not I'll ever do this program for its own sake (with or without her idea of cardio), but suffice it to day, I won't be doing the base phase if I do it any time soon.
Nothing new on the school front. Classes start in early September. I have permission to take Organic Chemistry if a spot in the class opens up, but will have to move my A&P class if that happens. I'm checking the online class advisor program daily. Also, I'm looking forward to an Open House that's being held by one of the schools I'm interested in; that'll be taking place a week from today. Hopefully I'll have a chance to speak with an academic adviser & ask him/her whether or not it makes sense for me to apply for admission this spring (2011), or wait until next spring (2012). In some ways it makes more sense to wait, mostly because I still don't really know what the hell I'm doing, other than what seems to be the Next Right Thing; but OTOH, what's life without a little mass confusion?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Beach Training
OK, so I'm happily eating a bit of crow over this one. Much as I whined about the idea of training on the beach in the heat blah blah blah, it turned out to be fun and very worth while. It was a long car trip, just under 3 hours both ways, and I could not believe some of the tolls ($11? To cross the Verrazzano bridge? Jesus H. Christ.) plus it was $10 to park. Fortunately we carpooled so I can't really complain, but wow - I am continually surprised at how freaking expensive it is to do just about anything in/around NYC.
The training itself was almost all weapons, bo staff in particular. Sensei has come up with a long, pretty intricate attack/defense drill that is based on an advanced bo kata, and we learned most of it yesterday. I think there are for or five moves left which I'm guessing he'll teach at the October Special Training. The added difficulty factor was, of course, learning it all in deep, hot sand. The arches of my feet were really none to happy, but otherwise it really wasn't that bad. It was maybe 10 - 15 degrees cooler on the beach than on the mainland (low 80's as opposed to mid 90's) with a breeze. There was full sun but I about drenched my exposed parts (heh, head and neck, forearms and feet - I guess there is a bit of an advantage to wearing a gi to the beach) in sunblock, so I came away unscathed in that department. We cooled down in the water for a bit after the class and then had a picnic, and then made the long drive home. Nice day, overall.
I'm a bit tired today, which is normal, day after ST. I usually make it a rest day but I don't really want to do that, so what I will do is knock off my workout extras. (Usually I do a glute exercise series - which now consists of heavy hip thrusts plus one or two rotational exercises - push-ups and assisted chins before heading to the gym.)
I also need to get my eating back in order. Three days off plan (rest day, when I usually go off plan, Saturday, which was dominated by the nephew's birthday party, and yesterday), and I feel like Miss Cranky Pants. I kinda thought I was becoming a total diet fusspot, and I guess this just proves I have. It'll be nice to get back to normal!
The training itself was almost all weapons, bo staff in particular. Sensei has come up with a long, pretty intricate attack/defense drill that is based on an advanced bo kata, and we learned most of it yesterday. I think there are for or five moves left which I'm guessing he'll teach at the October Special Training. The added difficulty factor was, of course, learning it all in deep, hot sand. The arches of my feet were really none to happy, but otherwise it really wasn't that bad. It was maybe 10 - 15 degrees cooler on the beach than on the mainland (low 80's as opposed to mid 90's) with a breeze. There was full sun but I about drenched my exposed parts (heh, head and neck, forearms and feet - I guess there is a bit of an advantage to wearing a gi to the beach) in sunblock, so I came away unscathed in that department. We cooled down in the water for a bit after the class and then had a picnic, and then made the long drive home. Nice day, overall.
I'm a bit tired today, which is normal, day after ST. I usually make it a rest day but I don't really want to do that, so what I will do is knock off my workout extras. (Usually I do a glute exercise series - which now consists of heavy hip thrusts plus one or two rotational exercises - push-ups and assisted chins before heading to the gym.)
I also need to get my eating back in order. Three days off plan (rest day, when I usually go off plan, Saturday, which was dominated by the nephew's birthday party, and yesterday), and I feel like Miss Cranky Pants. I kinda thought I was becoming a total diet fusspot, and I guess this just proves I have. It'll be nice to get back to normal!
Friday, July 23, 2010
I'm a student!
Like, officially, with a schedule (uh, that may still be in flux), a list of books to buy (somewhere - I'm guessing the college bookstore? That seems to be where I recall finding such things), a college ID, a parking decal and everything. Looks like I'm really doing this, eh?
Whenever I start to think about this stuff, my mind starts racing in about 50 directions, so I think I'm going to bullet, Wendy-style, so I don't have to sort this jumble into paragraphs:
1) There are a total of four or possibly five courses I either want to take or need to take to apply to grad school. The need to:
- Anatomy and Physiology, two semesters. I've signed up for A&P I, and will be taking that this fall.
- A chemistry course. I need two semesters of "science major" chemistry, with lab. I actually have that, but for whatever reason - I don't recall at this point - I mentally checked out of my second semster chem class, and have a grade that will not do me any favors in an attempt to get into grad school. So, rather than take chem 2 over, I would like to take either organic chem or biochem.
The want to: Exercise physiology. I can't take this until I've had A&P 1, and I can take it concurrently with A&P 2. I'd like to do that in the spring.
2) The complication, part one: Biochem is not offered this semester, and the organic chem class (which I had to get special permission to take because name of my prior chem courses - prereqs. for Organic - is just General Chemistry, not Chemistry for Geeks) is full. Except it might NOT be full as of next week, when they drop students who haven't paid in full for their classes, which means I could get in. Not realizing that at the time I picked my A&P class section (the selection was based on the fact that the section was offered at the campus closest to home for me), I picked a section that coincided with the time organic is offered. SO, if I can do organic, I have to pick another section A&P, if I can. And if I can't, I can't take organic now, because I HAVE to take the two semesters of A&P, no question.
3) If you could follow that, you get a gold star.
4) All of that is based on the idea that I will somehow have ALL of my shit together - which further includes taking the GREs AND getting something on the order of 100 volunteer hours with practising physical therapists - in time to apply for acceptance to school next year - and the school year starts in MAY.
5) It would probably be easier to back off a bit and not even think about applying for 2011 acceptance, but I figure that's a good goal for now, and if it becomes infeasible for some reason, well, OK, it does, and I apply for 2012.
6) So my next steps are to see what happens next week, re: organic and the schedule, and also to meet (hopefully next week) with some folks about volunteering with a local hospital's PT department. I also have to download and start looking at the GRE test prep materials, which are free for download at the whosamajigger testing center, but, of course, are for PC only, not Mac. I have a dual driver on my Mac and do have a Windows side, but I've had a download or two not behave properly over there, so I may have to fire up my old Dell to run the software.
In the midst of this, my workouts have been very, very boringly on schedule, as you can see to the right. *Yawn. Actually having that structure and outside focus has very much helped me stay sane, and I'm sure all of the physical activity has helped me sleep at night, even if I do periodically wake up with my brain going 1,000 miles an hour. This is a bit of a break week in terms of overall running mileage. I have no long run this week, but instead it's suggested that I take a rest or easy day tomorrow and run a 5K race on Sunday. As it happens, I have Special Training on Sunday, so the plan instead is to run 5K at a good clip tomorrow and enjoy the fact that I'm not skipping a run on Special Training Day.
Which I'm not actually looking forward to, for a change. In fact if I didn't need to go (and I do, in order to test this fall), I might think long and hard about skipping this one. It's scheduled to be a beach training, which sounds very nice and romantic (I mean, fighting on the beach? what could be nicer?), except for the full gis and forecast heat and humidity. And it's not like I'm going to want to jump in the ocean afterwards to cool off, because then we have the 3+ hour ride home. I have to wonder who came up with this brilliant idea. Oh well. It'll probably be a great day, in the end, but I'm not looking forward to it with my usual enthusiasm.
Whenever I start to think about this stuff, my mind starts racing in about 50 directions, so I think I'm going to bullet, Wendy-style, so I don't have to sort this jumble into paragraphs:
1) There are a total of four or possibly five courses I either want to take or need to take to apply to grad school. The need to:
- Anatomy and Physiology, two semesters. I've signed up for A&P I, and will be taking that this fall.
- A chemistry course. I need two semesters of "science major" chemistry, with lab. I actually have that, but for whatever reason - I don't recall at this point - I mentally checked out of my second semster chem class, and have a grade that will not do me any favors in an attempt to get into grad school. So, rather than take chem 2 over, I would like to take either organic chem or biochem.
The want to: Exercise physiology. I can't take this until I've had A&P 1, and I can take it concurrently with A&P 2. I'd like to do that in the spring.
2) The complication, part one: Biochem is not offered this semester, and the organic chem class (which I had to get special permission to take because name of my prior chem courses - prereqs. for Organic - is just General Chemistry, not Chemistry for Geeks) is full. Except it might NOT be full as of next week, when they drop students who haven't paid in full for their classes, which means I could get in. Not realizing that at the time I picked my A&P class section (the selection was based on the fact that the section was offered at the campus closest to home for me), I picked a section that coincided with the time organic is offered. SO, if I can do organic, I have to pick another section A&P, if I can. And if I can't, I can't take organic now, because I HAVE to take the two semesters of A&P, no question.
3) If you could follow that, you get a gold star.
4) All of that is based on the idea that I will somehow have ALL of my shit together - which further includes taking the GREs AND getting something on the order of 100 volunteer hours with practising physical therapists - in time to apply for acceptance to school next year - and the school year starts in MAY.
5) It would probably be easier to back off a bit and not even think about applying for 2011 acceptance, but I figure that's a good goal for now, and if it becomes infeasible for some reason, well, OK, it does, and I apply for 2012.
6) So my next steps are to see what happens next week, re: organic and the schedule, and also to meet (hopefully next week) with some folks about volunteering with a local hospital's PT department. I also have to download and start looking at the GRE test prep materials, which are free for download at the whosamajigger testing center, but, of course, are for PC only, not Mac. I have a dual driver on my Mac and do have a Windows side, but I've had a download or two not behave properly over there, so I may have to fire up my old Dell to run the software.
In the midst of this, my workouts have been very, very boringly on schedule, as you can see to the right. *Yawn. Actually having that structure and outside focus has very much helped me stay sane, and I'm sure all of the physical activity has helped me sleep at night, even if I do periodically wake up with my brain going 1,000 miles an hour. This is a bit of a break week in terms of overall running mileage. I have no long run this week, but instead it's suggested that I take a rest or easy day tomorrow and run a 5K race on Sunday. As it happens, I have Special Training on Sunday, so the plan instead is to run 5K at a good clip tomorrow and enjoy the fact that I'm not skipping a run on Special Training Day.
Which I'm not actually looking forward to, for a change. In fact if I didn't need to go (and I do, in order to test this fall), I might think long and hard about skipping this one. It's scheduled to be a beach training, which sounds very nice and romantic (I mean, fighting on the beach? what could be nicer?), except for the full gis and forecast heat and humidity. And it's not like I'm going to want to jump in the ocean afterwards to cool off, because then we have the 3+ hour ride home. I have to wonder who came up with this brilliant idea. Oh well. It'll probably be a great day, in the end, but I'm not looking forward to it with my usual enthusiasm.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Pace? What Pace?
Somewhere in my former blog, there is a post very much like this one...
When I trained for the Marine Corps Marathon, I used a training plan developed by Hal Higdon. I like it; it worked for me, on balance, and got me to the start and finish lines in one piece and in a halfway decent time for someone who really only had a vague idea of how long it should take oneself to run 26.2 miles. Part of the training plan was the Saturday Pace run, which is a run of some mileage done at what you plan to have as your race pace. This is followed on Sunday by the long run. The combo of the pace run and the long run back to back supposedly, in the world according to Higdon, kicks up your endurance. Or something. In the end, I had some IT band problems that confounded the last few weeks of my training and I mostly just ran the race itself at what I considered an enjoyable pace.
But, the pace runs themselves always confounded me. I am horrible - truly horrible - at sensing how fast I am running. I have several gears, but they're relative gears, not "numbers" gears. Added to that, I have a severe allergy to running by stopwatch. I don't mind timing runs, or sprints, or whatever, but timing stuff on the go, trying to rejigger my pace, and having to remember where all of my miles begin and end (halfway between X street and Y avenue; at the bridge between the lakes; at Z street; etc.) drives. me. nuts.
I ran yesterday right after karate - as in, I took my gear to class and changed right afterward, and did my route near the dojo. Of course I was very, very warmed up, having had a long class, and without realizing began like a bat out of hell. Result was mile 1, waaaay under half marathon pace. Mile two was closer to pace, but still under, and mile 3? Ugh. Somewhere in mile 3 I hit a long uphill stretch of road that was in pure sunlight (did I mention it was in the upper 80's with high humidity, or does that go without saying for the east coast?), and brain fry started to set in, so I slowed down some. Still, my time was once again well under half pace, despite the impending brain death. I was supposed to do one more mile at pace, but things were going so poorly I punted and (heh, very slowly) jogged the rest of the route. I finished only slightly over pace for the whole thing, but the run was basically a big FAIL because I was really never on pace at all.
And somehow, the most important part to me is that I had the freaking good sense to throttle back when things weren't going nearly on plan and the heat was starting to bug me. I don't always do that. Is this a sign of aging?
So - it's on to week 7 in yogaland. This week, as mentioned in comments, introduces headstand, and looks much more interesting than last week. This is the second to last week of the program, and while book gives some suggestions as to what to do after you've finished, I haven't given it much thought. I could repeat the program or parts of the program, or intermix practises from the program with DVDs, or just say, HMMM, interesting experiment, and go on to something else. Guess I'll think about it more in two weeks. :p
I have a lot to do on the potential "back to school" project this week. I've been in contact with some admissions people, and am going to get myself into community college this fall to take anatomy and physiology. I need two semesters of that for most schools, and frankly I'd also like to take exercise physiology, but need to take A&P first. So I'm off to the local CC tomorrow to try to talk to someone in admissions there, because they offer a couple of different flavors of A&P and I don't know which would be best for me. I also need a lot of volunteer hours - some schools specify a number, and some schools seem to stress variety of experience over hours. So I have to start looking into that, too. AND, I have to take the GREs, which totally freaks me out for some reason.
And of course, I finally had the ultimate freak out moment. What if I CAN'T get into grad school? I mean, I've pretty much operated my whole life on the presumption that I can basically do whatever I set my mind to, and for the most part, that's been true. But I'm 20 plus years out of college, with some grades I'm not exactly proud of (nothing too shocking, but not straight A's), trying to get into a competitive graduate program... What if - ? But then again, what if I don't try? I'll be no better off, and won't have learned anything new, to boot.
Heh, so there, negative thoughts. Time to go stand on my head.
When I trained for the Marine Corps Marathon, I used a training plan developed by Hal Higdon. I like it; it worked for me, on balance, and got me to the start and finish lines in one piece and in a halfway decent time for someone who really only had a vague idea of how long it should take oneself to run 26.2 miles. Part of the training plan was the Saturday Pace run, which is a run of some mileage done at what you plan to have as your race pace. This is followed on Sunday by the long run. The combo of the pace run and the long run back to back supposedly, in the world according to Higdon, kicks up your endurance. Or something. In the end, I had some IT band problems that confounded the last few weeks of my training and I mostly just ran the race itself at what I considered an enjoyable pace.
But, the pace runs themselves always confounded me. I am horrible - truly horrible - at sensing how fast I am running. I have several gears, but they're relative gears, not "numbers" gears. Added to that, I have a severe allergy to running by stopwatch. I don't mind timing runs, or sprints, or whatever, but timing stuff on the go, trying to rejigger my pace, and having to remember where all of my miles begin and end (halfway between X street and Y avenue; at the bridge between the lakes; at Z street; etc.) drives. me. nuts.
I ran yesterday right after karate - as in, I took my gear to class and changed right afterward, and did my route near the dojo. Of course I was very, very warmed up, having had a long class, and without realizing began like a bat out of hell. Result was mile 1, waaaay under half marathon pace. Mile two was closer to pace, but still under, and mile 3? Ugh. Somewhere in mile 3 I hit a long uphill stretch of road that was in pure sunlight (did I mention it was in the upper 80's with high humidity, or does that go without saying for the east coast?), and brain fry started to set in, so I slowed down some. Still, my time was once again well under half pace, despite the impending brain death. I was supposed to do one more mile at pace, but things were going so poorly I punted and (heh, very slowly) jogged the rest of the route. I finished only slightly over pace for the whole thing, but the run was basically a big FAIL because I was really never on pace at all.
And somehow, the most important part to me is that I had the freaking good sense to throttle back when things weren't going nearly on plan and the heat was starting to bug me. I don't always do that. Is this a sign of aging?
So - it's on to week 7 in yogaland. This week, as mentioned in comments, introduces headstand, and looks much more interesting than last week. This is the second to last week of the program, and while book gives some suggestions as to what to do after you've finished, I haven't given it much thought. I could repeat the program or parts of the program, or intermix practises from the program with DVDs, or just say, HMMM, interesting experiment, and go on to something else. Guess I'll think about it more in two weeks. :p
I have a lot to do on the potential "back to school" project this week. I've been in contact with some admissions people, and am going to get myself into community college this fall to take anatomy and physiology. I need two semesters of that for most schools, and frankly I'd also like to take exercise physiology, but need to take A&P first. So I'm off to the local CC tomorrow to try to talk to someone in admissions there, because they offer a couple of different flavors of A&P and I don't know which would be best for me. I also need a lot of volunteer hours - some schools specify a number, and some schools seem to stress variety of experience over hours. So I have to start looking into that, too. AND, I have to take the GREs, which totally freaks me out for some reason.
And of course, I finally had the ultimate freak out moment. What if I CAN'T get into grad school? I mean, I've pretty much operated my whole life on the presumption that I can basically do whatever I set my mind to, and for the most part, that's been true. But I'm 20 plus years out of college, with some grades I'm not exactly proud of (nothing too shocking, but not straight A's), trying to get into a competitive graduate program... What if - ? But then again, what if I don't try? I'll be no better off, and won't have learned anything new, to boot.
Heh, so there, negative thoughts. Time to go stand on my head.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
A quick bitch
And a quick reference to my workout roll on the right: See? I really am boring and predictable.
So the only thing that has varied much, aside from the runs getting a bit longer and the weights a bit heavier, has been the yoga stuff. Last week, hand stand and its less flashy sibling, shoulder stand, came into the picture. I was happy to find by the end of the week I could kick up into handstand against the wall, and hang out there for as long as called for in the program. That was pretty cool, actually. Now this week, by comparison... holy shit. I did not know you really could be bored to utter freaking DEATH by yoga. And I write this NOW because I just looked at today's practise and wanted to smack my head against the table, and need to procrastinate. It's basically I'm-afraid-to-look-at-how-many-minutes of lying around on various props in "restorative" and "relaxation" poses, followed by 10 minutes of meditation followed by 5 more minutes of "breath awareness." I would dearly love to phone this one in, and maybe, just maybe, if I can prattle on here long enough I'll HAVE to skip it so I can eat dinner early enough so I can semi-digest before heading off to karate, lest I spew on the dojo floor.
Or maybe I should just get it over with.
Life has otherwise been pretty good. I've gotten copies of my college transcripts, which has been a hoot. Damn, did I take a variety of stuff, everything from the generic sciences and humanities to degree specific stuff to larks like (I am not making these classes up) Strategic Nuclear Policy (for which I wrote a paper that was actually published), Witchcraft and Dissent in the Middle Ages, Animal Science, and Light Horse Management. Anyway, I THINK I may be lucky enough that I will only have to take a few additional courses before doing the grad school thing; I know I'll have to take anatomy and physiology, and I'd like to that exercise physiology as well. I also need volunteer hours, probably lots of them. I've started making contacts and the picture is starting to shape up, but I'll be happier when I can start to frame a timeline/schedule for myself. (The old schedule on the fridge thing...)
Of course, the biggest mystery is how I'm going to pay for all of this - but I guess I'll figure that one out, too.
And crap. I do have time for this yoga practise. *sigh. Things do go back to interesting next week, thankfully.
So the only thing that has varied much, aside from the runs getting a bit longer and the weights a bit heavier, has been the yoga stuff. Last week, hand stand and its less flashy sibling, shoulder stand, came into the picture. I was happy to find by the end of the week I could kick up into handstand against the wall, and hang out there for as long as called for in the program. That was pretty cool, actually. Now this week, by comparison... holy shit. I did not know you really could be bored to utter freaking DEATH by yoga. And I write this NOW because I just looked at today's practise and wanted to smack my head against the table, and need to procrastinate. It's basically I'm-afraid-to-look-at-how-many-minutes of lying around on various props in "restorative" and "relaxation" poses, followed by 10 minutes of meditation followed by 5 more minutes of "breath awareness." I would dearly love to phone this one in, and maybe, just maybe, if I can prattle on here long enough I'll HAVE to skip it so I can eat dinner early enough so I can semi-digest before heading off to karate, lest I spew on the dojo floor.
Or maybe I should just get it over with.
Life has otherwise been pretty good. I've gotten copies of my college transcripts, which has been a hoot. Damn, did I take a variety of stuff, everything from the generic sciences and humanities to degree specific stuff to larks like (I am not making these classes up) Strategic Nuclear Policy (for which I wrote a paper that was actually published), Witchcraft and Dissent in the Middle Ages, Animal Science, and Light Horse Management. Anyway, I THINK I may be lucky enough that I will only have to take a few additional courses before doing the grad school thing; I know I'll have to take anatomy and physiology, and I'd like to that exercise physiology as well. I also need volunteer hours, probably lots of them. I've started making contacts and the picture is starting to shape up, but I'll be happier when I can start to frame a timeline/schedule for myself. (The old schedule on the fridge thing...)
Of course, the biggest mystery is how I'm going to pay for all of this - but I guess I'll figure that one out, too.
And crap. I do have time for this yoga practise. *sigh. Things do go back to interesting next week, thankfully.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Easy week - or was it?
Heh. Looked that way on paper, coming in to the week; my running mileage, overall, dropped a bit (well, except that it really didn't, it was just a bit more spread out) and with the absence of weight work, I spent more time than usual at the dojo. More on that in a minute.
I also did my first speed workout, which went well. The plan was to do 1/4 mile repeats at a 5K pace. The operative question for someone who has never bothered to run a 5K being, what is my 5K pace? (The shortest race I've ever run was 4 miles, and that was in 1993, IIRC.) So I settled on "a fast but seemingly sustainable pace, slower than a sprint" and was probably running somewhere about the pace of a high 7/s mile. I have no idea whether or not I could maintain that for 5K, but the point of these workouts is to improve leg turnover, not train for a 5K, so I'll keep shooting for about that pace. My 1/4 mile track is slightly longer than 1/4 mile, and is also interesting in that it has some terrain. I picked a stretch of road reasonably close to home - far enough for a warm-up/cool-down run to and from - that has no cross streets and thus no traffic worries, and good, newer asphalt. It's also somewhat uphill in one direction, thus downhill in the other. So one fun pacing challenge, when I choose to do it, will be to try to make the pace as close as possible, both ways. (Why? No reason, other than the challenge just presents itself, so why not?) And it's been a lovely week for running with cooler temperatures that are about to vanish. Not something I'm looking forward to.
My other new thing this week - some morning karate training. We have a newer student, a west coast transfer. He's second dan in Kyokushin and taught in that style, and has a lot of fighting experience. (Kyokushin folk don't do point sparring, either - it's full contact. Which is cool with me; we don't point spar often - I've probably done it three times in five plus years of training - and I would happily never do it again, as I don't get the, um, point. It's karate, not tag.) Anyway, his techniques are somewhat different from ours, and he's going to help me with power development and I'm going to help him learn our kata, and I am also getting not so vague ideas about putting a kettlebell in his hands. I've also started doing a bit of teaching again. I'm trying to keep it to one day a week so it doesn't get to feeling like I'm living at the dojo again.
In non-exercise news, I'm seriously considering going back to school. It would be a rather complete change of field, so I know I'm going to need a bit more undergrad work first, but at this point, I can't even remember everything I took in college, so I don't know how much. I've ordered my transcripts and should get them next week, and then I'll be able to get a better handle on things. It's scary and I'm a bit overwhelmed; I know I need some guidance and I'm in the process of looking for help in that area, too. I also have to take the GRE's at some point, but don't know if that should be sooner or later. (Special side note: I went to the online test prep area, and the very first question I read was a reading comprehension question that used an environmental issue as the basis for their first statement, or whatever you want to call it. Well, I RIPPED into the premise of the statement, which in my mind was too grossly overgeneralized to use to draw any conclusions, and found their questions irrelevant. Bad omen?) It's a long potential journey, but it feels much more real, tangible, practical, and worth doing than the law school idea ever did. Oh, and shit, before you ask, I'm thinking about a doctorate in physical therapy.
Hope everyone has a safe 4th!
I also did my first speed workout, which went well. The plan was to do 1/4 mile repeats at a 5K pace. The operative question for someone who has never bothered to run a 5K being, what is my 5K pace? (The shortest race I've ever run was 4 miles, and that was in 1993, IIRC.) So I settled on "a fast but seemingly sustainable pace, slower than a sprint" and was probably running somewhere about the pace of a high 7/s mile. I have no idea whether or not I could maintain that for 5K, but the point of these workouts is to improve leg turnover, not train for a 5K, so I'll keep shooting for about that pace. My 1/4 mile track is slightly longer than 1/4 mile, and is also interesting in that it has some terrain. I picked a stretch of road reasonably close to home - far enough for a warm-up/cool-down run to and from - that has no cross streets and thus no traffic worries, and good, newer asphalt. It's also somewhat uphill in one direction, thus downhill in the other. So one fun pacing challenge, when I choose to do it, will be to try to make the pace as close as possible, both ways. (Why? No reason, other than the challenge just presents itself, so why not?) And it's been a lovely week for running with cooler temperatures that are about to vanish. Not something I'm looking forward to.
My other new thing this week - some morning karate training. We have a newer student, a west coast transfer. He's second dan in Kyokushin and taught in that style, and has a lot of fighting experience. (Kyokushin folk don't do point sparring, either - it's full contact. Which is cool with me; we don't point spar often - I've probably done it three times in five plus years of training - and I would happily never do it again, as I don't get the, um, point. It's karate, not tag.) Anyway, his techniques are somewhat different from ours, and he's going to help me with power development and I'm going to help him learn our kata, and I am also getting not so vague ideas about putting a kettlebell in his hands. I've also started doing a bit of teaching again. I'm trying to keep it to one day a week so it doesn't get to feeling like I'm living at the dojo again.
In non-exercise news, I'm seriously considering going back to school. It would be a rather complete change of field, so I know I'm going to need a bit more undergrad work first, but at this point, I can't even remember everything I took in college, so I don't know how much. I've ordered my transcripts and should get them next week, and then I'll be able to get a better handle on things. It's scary and I'm a bit overwhelmed; I know I need some guidance and I'm in the process of looking for help in that area, too. I also have to take the GRE's at some point, but don't know if that should be sooner or later. (Special side note: I went to the online test prep area, and the very first question I read was a reading comprehension question that used an environmental issue as the basis for their first statement, or whatever you want to call it. Well, I RIPPED into the premise of the statement, which in my mind was too grossly overgeneralized to use to draw any conclusions, and found their questions irrelevant. Bad omen?) It's a long potential journey, but it feels much more real, tangible, practical, and worth doing than the law school idea ever did. Oh, and shit, before you ask, I'm thinking about a doctorate in physical therapy.
Hope everyone has a safe 4th!
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