Heh, guess what I'm doing?
Driving for over an hour to run for less than half an hour.
Yep, I've actually entered a 5K, first time ever. It's a Turkey Trot, to be held weekend before Thanksgiving, benefiting my nephew's school. Not at all something I'd normally do, but then again, it's not something my sister would ordinarily do, and when she asked if I'd like to join her - seriously, how could I pass that up? How often do you run a race with your sister? Sis actually ran cross country in high school, but didn't continue on as anything other than the occasional recreational runner and to my remembrance, hasn't run a race since then. Something new and different for both of us. What a hoot!
Today was weights at the gym, one of the FBB workouts. I liked it, although the rep scheme, which blends a bit of low rep with a lot of high (similar to the final phase of NROL/W), is not my favorite, mainly because counting 15 or so reps gets old fast. I guess I could vary the rep scheme (d'oh), but OTOH sometimes it's not a bad idea to do what you don't like, and it's not as if a more endurance-like rep scheme isn't what they suggest for runners, anyway. And, it'll be on to strength soon enough.
Bon weekend!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
All over the board Monday
I’m having that “missed the boat” feeling… wow, sigh.
I’ve been thinking a lot about spring semester for school what I want to do, what I need to take, etc. And I decided (finally – hah!) that it might be in my best interest to get myself some academic advisement, preferably someone who has a clue as to what I want to do and how I need to get from here to there. So I went poking around my alma mater’s website, and found that they have a post-baccalaureate program for career changers going into medical or dental professions… but it’s limited to doctors and dentists. Blah. I did call to talk to them, and the referred me to the college’s sport science program, which I didn’t even know EXISTED when I was there, and if I did, I probably would have considered it a gut major, something for jocks who wanted to become gym teachers or something. Yes, I was ignorant, mea culpa! I would LOVE to go back in that major now, but that’s seriously water under the bridge. Still, it makes me sad to think that if I had been a bit more patient and thoughtful back then…. Although, who knows, really.
Oh well. I’ve had my moment of regret – not much I can do about this now but continue on from here. I should have plenty of opportunity to study the same and other topics either in grad school or in continuing ed afterwards, and frankly it’s not as if I haven’t been educating myself in some capacity along the way as it is. So I’ll see what, if anything, that program office can do to help me at this point, and if they can’t, I’ll start calling the grad schools, although to me that seems to be working the process backwards, not forward.
Segue. When I was in college, I had a good friend named Dan. Dan was a physics major, and a total physics enthusiast. He in fact talked my best friend at the time (a writing major, as was I at the time) and I into taking physics and calculus. He and I also used to play guitars until all hours in the stairwells of the dorm; we screwed around with all sorts of funky scales and got an appreciation for how math intermixes with music. I tend to think about him a lot this time of year because one of his favorite sayings was, “It’s always darkest just before it goes completely black.” Which is about how I feel this time of year, when there practically isn’t any morning sunlight to speak of. And by morning, I mean before 7 am. – I think civil twilight is right around then right now, meaning, of course, one who runs at a normal-ish, morning-person-hour runs in the dark at least part, if not all the way. Being one of said people, I love, love, love the day we set the clocks back to normal time and I get the morning light back, at least for a while. Used to be they’d have been set back by now, but unfortunately that won’t happen for nearly two more dark weeks.
All of which is a very long way of saying, I’ve decided that next week, when it’s darkest, I’m going to cut myself a little slack and have an overdue running cutback week, knocking a mile or two off each run. That will leave me with two hard and one easier week before the race, a decent final push, I think.
So far, I’m liking the new weight workouts. The FBB workout I did on Friday was good, different and satisfyingly challenging, and I’m looking forward to doing its “B” counterpart on Wednesday. Today was Give Legs a Break day, so I did the Precision Nutrition workout a go, and have to say, it was a bit of a Fail. The exercises themselves weren’t bad; in fact the thing felt pretty well put together for what it was (upper body, multi-plane push/pull), but it took me just over half an hour for the whole thing, including five minutes of rowing, which was the recommended warm-up. When I was done, both my legs and core felt neglected in a “where’s the REST of the workout?” manner, something I totally hadn’t anticipated, so I added on a couple of things (overhead squats, Roman chair squats because they amuse me, and some killer reverse abs/core on the tiltly board thing) to round out the session. I like the base workout enough to keep it, and next time I’ll know to have a plan to finish it off.
I’ve been thinking a lot about spring semester for school what I want to do, what I need to take, etc. And I decided (finally – hah!) that it might be in my best interest to get myself some academic advisement, preferably someone who has a clue as to what I want to do and how I need to get from here to there. So I went poking around my alma mater’s website, and found that they have a post-baccalaureate program for career changers going into medical or dental professions… but it’s limited to doctors and dentists. Blah. I did call to talk to them, and the referred me to the college’s sport science program, which I didn’t even know EXISTED when I was there, and if I did, I probably would have considered it a gut major, something for jocks who wanted to become gym teachers or something. Yes, I was ignorant, mea culpa! I would LOVE to go back in that major now, but that’s seriously water under the bridge. Still, it makes me sad to think that if I had been a bit more patient and thoughtful back then…. Although, who knows, really.
Oh well. I’ve had my moment of regret – not much I can do about this now but continue on from here. I should have plenty of opportunity to study the same and other topics either in grad school or in continuing ed afterwards, and frankly it’s not as if I haven’t been educating myself in some capacity along the way as it is. So I’ll see what, if anything, that program office can do to help me at this point, and if they can’t, I’ll start calling the grad schools, although to me that seems to be working the process backwards, not forward.
Segue. When I was in college, I had a good friend named Dan. Dan was a physics major, and a total physics enthusiast. He in fact talked my best friend at the time (a writing major, as was I at the time) and I into taking physics and calculus. He and I also used to play guitars until all hours in the stairwells of the dorm; we screwed around with all sorts of funky scales and got an appreciation for how math intermixes with music. I tend to think about him a lot this time of year because one of his favorite sayings was, “It’s always darkest just before it goes completely black.” Which is about how I feel this time of year, when there practically isn’t any morning sunlight to speak of. And by morning, I mean before 7 am. – I think civil twilight is right around then right now, meaning, of course, one who runs at a normal-ish, morning-person-hour runs in the dark at least part, if not all the way. Being one of said people, I love, love, love the day we set the clocks back to normal time and I get the morning light back, at least for a while. Used to be they’d have been set back by now, but unfortunately that won’t happen for nearly two more dark weeks.
All of which is a very long way of saying, I’ve decided that next week, when it’s darkest, I’m going to cut myself a little slack and have an overdue running cutback week, knocking a mile or two off each run. That will leave me with two hard and one easier week before the race, a decent final push, I think.
So far, I’m liking the new weight workouts. The FBB workout I did on Friday was good, different and satisfyingly challenging, and I’m looking forward to doing its “B” counterpart on Wednesday. Today was Give Legs a Break day, so I did the Precision Nutrition workout a go, and have to say, it was a bit of a Fail. The exercises themselves weren’t bad; in fact the thing felt pretty well put together for what it was (upper body, multi-plane push/pull), but it took me just over half an hour for the whole thing, including five minutes of rowing, which was the recommended warm-up. When I was done, both my legs and core felt neglected in a “where’s the REST of the workout?” manner, something I totally hadn’t anticipated, so I added on a couple of things (overhead squats, Roman chair squats because they amuse me, and some killer reverse abs/core on the tiltly board thing) to round out the session. I like the base workout enough to keep it, and next time I’ll know to have a plan to finish it off.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Day of Rest Not Very Restful, Akshully...
But at least I'm not on a jury. They only called in groups for two jury pools, and my number didn't come up either time. So I spent most of the day in a noisy, crowded area with other equally bored, distracted, and restless people and tried not to be too bored, distracted, and restless, myself. Got in a bit of (probably poor quality) studying for tomorrow's exam, and managed to get out for a decent walk at lunch. Also finished a book and read most of a magazine, and chatted up a couple of people who were also getting can't-sit-still-itis.
At least I wasn't called, and I'm off the hook for the next three years. Yay! But I do think my brain is turning to mush. I'll be very happy when classes are over tomorrow, although I'm looking forward to A&P; we're starting on the muscles.
Speaking of which - I did decide to go with the modified FBB/PN UB workout scheme for the next five weeks. I didn't have to change all that much, as it happens; three exercises, total, all things I have been doing and will do again in the first stage of MS. (Front squat, incline bench, and one other, I forget what. Plus I messed with the planks, because I'm up to two minutes on weighted planks and it's time to switch that up.) I also got a new (well, used) book today, this little puppy:
I keep seeing Robert dos Remedios' name popping up, and having quickly reviewed the plans, I can see why: his approaches are similar to those of the Cosgroves. I don't know what the relationship between those parties, if any, might be, but they've drunk from the same well, no doubt. In any event, I only had a chance to briefly peruse the programs, but there's plenty of flexibility and variety, and I can see having fun playing with this at some point.
At least I wasn't called, and I'm off the hook for the next three years. Yay! But I do think my brain is turning to mush. I'll be very happy when classes are over tomorrow, although I'm looking forward to A&P; we're starting on the muscles.
Speaking of which - I did decide to go with the modified FBB/PN UB workout scheme for the next five weeks. I didn't have to change all that much, as it happens; three exercises, total, all things I have been doing and will do again in the first stage of MS. (Front squat, incline bench, and one other, I forget what. Plus I messed with the planks, because I'm up to two minutes on weighted planks and it's time to switch that up.) I also got a new (well, used) book today, this little puppy:
I keep seeing Robert dos Remedios' name popping up, and having quickly reviewed the plans, I can see why: his approaches are similar to those of the Cosgroves. I don't know what the relationship between those parties, if any, might be, but they've drunk from the same well, no doubt. In any event, I only had a chance to briefly peruse the programs, but there's plenty of flexibility and variety, and I can see having fun playing with this at some point.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Whew.
Glad that test is over. I thought it went really, really well, too. And I got an A on my lab practical. So, one more exam this week - maybe - and I can breathe for a little while.
The "maybe" - I have a psych exam (yes, yet another one) this Thursday. I also have jury duty tomorrow. Normally I don't mind jury duty - it's a change of pace, sometimes interesting, sometimes not - but this time 'round, I really want nothing to do with serving, because if the trial goes more than one day (and seriously, with the kinds of hours they courtroom seems to keep, that's almost a given), I'll miss class AND my test, and Ms. Psych professor doesn't give make-up exams. What she DOES do is drop your lowest exam grade on the semester and compute your grade based on the remaining scores (so, it's based on 7 out of 8 exams), so in essence, if I miss the exam that would be my dropped grade. Which I suppose is fine, but what if I screw up on my own, down the road? From what I understand the court really doesn't care about this kind of thing (school is not one of the recognized hardship excuses from petit jury service), so we'll just have to see what happens. Not much sense in worrying about it, I guess.
This morning was a rainy, and therefore muddy run. It also wasn't particularly fast, mainly because a good section of it was on trails, so I was squishing through stuff and trying not to land on my ass or do a face plant (which I almost did, woo! that would have been fun). I figure, good practise for the trail race, since you never know what kind of weather you're going to face on a given date. I saw no one else out on the road, or on the trails, which I guess isn't all that surprising since it was around 50 degrees, but honestly, it wasn't all that bad once you got going. The hardest part of a rainy (or very cold) run is getting your ass out the door in the first place.
Might skip karate tonight. I am assuming I will be taking my psych test and need to study, and it's going to take a few more hours before my brain quiets down enough for me to do that. Right now, I sort of have post-test fog.
Go Phillies!!
The "maybe" - I have a psych exam (yes, yet another one) this Thursday. I also have jury duty tomorrow. Normally I don't mind jury duty - it's a change of pace, sometimes interesting, sometimes not - but this time 'round, I really want nothing to do with serving, because if the trial goes more than one day (and seriously, with the kinds of hours they courtroom seems to keep, that's almost a given), I'll miss class AND my test, and Ms. Psych professor doesn't give make-up exams. What she DOES do is drop your lowest exam grade on the semester and compute your grade based on the remaining scores (so, it's based on 7 out of 8 exams), so in essence, if I miss the exam that would be my dropped grade. Which I suppose is fine, but what if I screw up on my own, down the road? From what I understand the court really doesn't care about this kind of thing (school is not one of the recognized hardship excuses from petit jury service), so we'll just have to see what happens. Not much sense in worrying about it, I guess.
This morning was a rainy, and therefore muddy run. It also wasn't particularly fast, mainly because a good section of it was on trails, so I was squishing through stuff and trying not to land on my ass or do a face plant (which I almost did, woo! that would have been fun). I figure, good practise for the trail race, since you never know what kind of weather you're going to face on a given date. I saw no one else out on the road, or on the trails, which I guess isn't all that surprising since it was around 50 degrees, but honestly, it wasn't all that bad once you got going. The hardest part of a rainy (or very cold) run is getting your ass out the door in the first place.
Might skip karate tonight. I am assuming I will be taking my psych test and need to study, and it's going to take a few more hours before my brain quiets down enough for me to do that. Right now, I sort of have post-test fog.
Go Phillies!!
Monday, October 18, 2010
My text book has a website
How cool is that? I didn't realize it until just this past week. The book came with a CD, which I tried to use on my computer but didn't have much luck. It says it's Mac compatible, but when I popped it in, it tried to run Windows on my comp via Parallels, which is not a good thing, Parallels being amazingly flaky and crash-prone. So I pretty much gave up on using the computer as a study aid, and just figured I'd do it all the old-fashioned way. Which, frankly, hasn't been working all that badly for me thus far. But one of my classmates put me on to the book's actual website, and it's pretty damned useful! It has all kinds of interactive tools plus several tests per chapter, as well as bonus materials. It has really helped me figure out what I have down and what I need to look at more going into my next exam.
Got me thinking about "back in the day" when I first went to college. I went to Carnegie -Mellon University, which at the time was referred to as Computer U. They had a vision - a computer in every dorm room. They weren't there as of the time I left, but they were still well ahead of the times in that regard. EVERY student - and we are talking a diverse lot, everything from music and drama majors to hard science and engineering majors - had an account on the schools mainframe (remember those?) and had to take a programming class. We learned Pascal, which I believe is actually still in use, not that I could actually still write a program in it. It was actually a pretty cool class in that it taught you a bit about thinking/thinking things through/testing your work. The computer could only do what you told it to do, so if your program didn't work, well, you f'd up, and had to tease out your own mistake. Debugging became one of my favorite things there for a little while.
And now, textbook publishers have book-specific websites, and people carry powerful computers to the actual classroom. A-mazing.
Had a really great day for running yesterday, and bombed myself with a really challenging run. I strung together just about every hill I could without doing any significant backtracking, with a mix of steep ups and downs and gradual ups and downs. I can throw in at least one more level of difficulty - more than that will require a lot of backtracking and loops, which I despise, so I'm not sure I'll go there - but even so, this one was really tough. One of the steepest up hills was at around mile 9 (out of 10.4 or so) and I wouldn't have minded having a rope to help drag myself up. But I did it, so I'm happy, plus the Eagles won, the Phils won, and I squeezed in some quality study time, so I can't argue with the day on the whole.
Today was weights at the gym. I'm officially done my self-made workout block, and am considering what to do next. Assuming all goes as planned, I have about five weeks of workouts to do prior to the trail run, after which (after a short break!) I'll be starting Maximum Strength. I'm considering using the FBB stage 3 workouts, swapping out any exercises that also appear in the first stage of MS for something similar that doesn't. However I also like having one day a week where I'm giving legs a total break (and they seem to like it, too), so I may do FBB two days a week and a purely UB workout one day a week. I have until Friday to think about it, as I'm taking Wednesday as a rest day (Jury duty) and won't hit the gym again until Friday, but right now I like that plan.
Got me thinking about "back in the day" when I first went to college. I went to Carnegie -Mellon University, which at the time was referred to as Computer U. They had a vision - a computer in every dorm room. They weren't there as of the time I left, but they were still well ahead of the times in that regard. EVERY student - and we are talking a diverse lot, everything from music and drama majors to hard science and engineering majors - had an account on the schools mainframe (remember those?) and had to take a programming class. We learned Pascal, which I believe is actually still in use, not that I could actually still write a program in it. It was actually a pretty cool class in that it taught you a bit about thinking/thinking things through/testing your work. The computer could only do what you told it to do, so if your program didn't work, well, you f'd up, and had to tease out your own mistake. Debugging became one of my favorite things there for a little while.
And now, textbook publishers have book-specific websites, and people carry powerful computers to the actual classroom. A-mazing.
Had a really great day for running yesterday, and bombed myself with a really challenging run. I strung together just about every hill I could without doing any significant backtracking, with a mix of steep ups and downs and gradual ups and downs. I can throw in at least one more level of difficulty - more than that will require a lot of backtracking and loops, which I despise, so I'm not sure I'll go there - but even so, this one was really tough. One of the steepest up hills was at around mile 9 (out of 10.4 or so) and I wouldn't have minded having a rope to help drag myself up. But I did it, so I'm happy, plus the Eagles won, the Phils won, and I squeezed in some quality study time, so I can't argue with the day on the whole.
Today was weights at the gym. I'm officially done my self-made workout block, and am considering what to do next. Assuming all goes as planned, I have about five weeks of workouts to do prior to the trail run, after which (after a short break!) I'll be starting Maximum Strength. I'm considering using the FBB stage 3 workouts, swapping out any exercises that also appear in the first stage of MS for something similar that doesn't. However I also like having one day a week where I'm giving legs a total break (and they seem to like it, too), so I may do FBB two days a week and a purely UB workout one day a week. I have until Friday to think about it, as I'm taking Wednesday as a rest day (Jury duty) and won't hit the gym again until Friday, but right now I like that plan.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Nausea!
There's something really elemental and apparently gut-wrenching about lab practicals. They're not multiple choice tests, where you at least have a chance of getting things right if you're struck clueless. They're not essay tests, where you can at least feel semi-good about yourself for employing the "baffle 'em with bullshit" tactic (not that it works) if you don't really know what to say. No, you're presented with whatever - in today's case, bones - and asked very specific things, which you have to describe in the correct manner. Basically, you know the instant you lay eyes on the bone if you know it and that's it - you know it or, well, not. I don't know what it is about them, but many of us find ourselves extremely nervous and nauseous prior to walking into the lab. It's like all the studying is behind a very flimsy damn that really wants to break, and is afraid of breaking at the same time.
I went in there feeling like I knew my shit but wouldn't you know? I seem to have tried to invent a new way to screw up. We were given a bone (or set of bones, such as part of a skull, or a hand, or a foot), and asked to name four specific parts of it. Well, I caught myself twice simply naming things in the order in which they spilled out of my head, rather than in the order in which they were asked. So I had, say, radial tuberosity where I should have had troclear notch, hamate where I should have had fifth proximal phalanx, etc. I caught a THIRD instance of my doing this when I went back over my test, and am hoping I caught them all. Jesus H. Christ. The results of that exam may be way more interesting that I'd like them to be.
Speaking of which, I got a 101 on my psych exam. I'll take it.
Today was back to the hills. I strung my route together a bit differently, essentially doing the key/hardest hills the opposite way from what I usually do. (Incidentally, reversing a route is a great way to freshen up any run.) Usually I route my hill runs for maximum uphill steepage, and for just about all of the hills I have, the normal down side is generally of a gentler grade than the up. But, since running down a steep hill is actually pretty challenging in its own right (as is running up those long grades), it made for a nice change of pace and a good reminder to self to do that more often. Tonight will be karate, as usual.
I went in there feeling like I knew my shit but wouldn't you know? I seem to have tried to invent a new way to screw up. We were given a bone (or set of bones, such as part of a skull, or a hand, or a foot), and asked to name four specific parts of it. Well, I caught myself twice simply naming things in the order in which they spilled out of my head, rather than in the order in which they were asked. So I had, say, radial tuberosity where I should have had troclear notch, hamate where I should have had fifth proximal phalanx, etc. I caught a THIRD instance of my doing this when I went back over my test, and am hoping I caught them all. Jesus H. Christ. The results of that exam may be way more interesting that I'd like them to be.
Speaking of which, I got a 101 on my psych exam. I'll take it.
Today was back to the hills. I strung my route together a bit differently, essentially doing the key/hardest hills the opposite way from what I usually do. (Incidentally, reversing a route is a great way to freshen up any run.) Usually I route my hill runs for maximum uphill steepage, and for just about all of the hills I have, the normal down side is generally of a gentler grade than the up. But, since running down a steep hill is actually pretty challenging in its own right (as is running up those long grades), it made for a nice change of pace and a good reminder to self to do that more often. Tonight will be karate, as usual.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The tibia articulates with the...
Yeah, that's what I'm studying. OK, not at this moment - the brain needs a brief recess. I've frankly come to appreciate how well they - the recesses - work, as opposed to just pounding away at stuff until the pages get blurry.
This morning was the usual am workout with Sensei J, followed by yoga class. Spent much of the afternoon studying and found myself really just wanting a simple push-up/pull-up style workout (part of my "legs mostly off" day). The mind was feeling uncreative so I grabbed P90X Chest and Back off the shelf and did that, plus Ab Ripper X. I haven't done THAT type of volume in some time, so I expect to feel it tomorrow.
I hope the legs appreciated their mini-break; it's back to hills tomorrow. Heh.
This morning was the usual am workout with Sensei J, followed by yoga class. Spent much of the afternoon studying and found myself really just wanting a simple push-up/pull-up style workout (part of my "legs mostly off" day). The mind was feeling uncreative so I grabbed P90X Chest and Back off the shelf and did that, plus Ab Ripper X. I haven't done THAT type of volume in some time, so I expect to feel it tomorrow.
I hope the legs appreciated their mini-break; it's back to hills tomorrow. Heh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)