Looks like another week of lovely weather coming our way. Much as I'm not given to complaining about it, since there's nothing I can do about it, I AM getting annoyed at missing runs. I've been missing about one a week for the past couple of weeks due to weather, and while I have been doing Something Else of approximately the same duration during that time, it ain't running. This week it looks like it will possibly be ICE on Tuesday, and as much as I have often through my nickname could be Dances with Cars (due to my tendency to run on roads), I do not Dance with Cars on Ice - really, the cause of all of the missed runs so far. Lack of plowing/poor plowing plus narrowed roadways plus refreezing equals unsafe conditions. So I am thinking I'm going to have to be a bit less rigid about my schedule going forward - that is, run when I can, even if it's not on scheduled days, and seek alternate cardio when I can't because while I seem to have gotten away with things so far, I don't believe DVDs really cut it in terms of building cardio endurance. The exception to that might be doing some Spinervals - they're at least designed by and for endurance athletes; however my bike hasn't moved in over a year so getting it set up could be an adventure. If that doesn't work, there are some spin classes at the gym that I could actually take (they're after school and before karate), although I don't know either of the instructors. Which means, at the very least, that I don't know that I'll dislike them, which is good.
In any event - we SHOULD be about halfway through meteorological winter, which means that whatever compromises I have to make, I shouldn't have to be making for TOO much longer, and with any luck, some clear days will sneak in along the way.
Wish me luck with the bike!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Climbing the mountain
Snow Day! Wow, haven't had one of these in a long time! We had - maybe a foot of snow yesterday, all totaled. Hard to tell - it snowed in the morning, more than predicted, then it rained for a while, then it snowed like a bastard last night. School was canceled, which surprised me until I actually got out there and started shoveling. (I was guessing we'd just open late.) My parking lot wasn't even plowed as of 9 am. So today will be a wash, run-wise, sticking me with indoor/DVD cardio, hopefully for one of the last times this year. In fact I'm blogging to procrastinate. I've really become disenchanted with DVDs lately (and in fact just erased all my reasons why - save that for another day) and yoga DVDs aside, mostly I see them as time/energy wasters - and grated, on a day like today I NEED a waste gate for energy - and not key parts of my fitness program. I find it hard to find a cardio DVD that is anywhere near as challenging as a run, or a strength/weight training DVD that feels anywhere near as solid and complete as a gym workout. So circuits seem to suit me best; they don't pretend to be either strength or cardio, but they can be tiring, and they sure beat sitting on your duff.
Ramblings and procrastination aside, and in the news-worthy category: I did get my black belt last weekend. It was not my best exam, ever: I was incredibly nervous, and it hit me totally at the wrong time. Before the special training I was thinking that I probably should go run about five miles, since I usually run 10+ on Sundays, thinking that if I wasn't sufficiently tired, I might be over-amped for the test. But I didn't, and I actually felt pretty calm - until I stood up. I was tight at first and then had trouble slowing down; meanwhile, I felt like I WAS going incredibly slow, but he had me do parts of one kata over, a move at a time, because I apparently blasted through it. Oops. And he changed the sai kumite (short sword fighting drill) on the fly during the test. I actually found THAT relaxing, because I had to think about it and that got my mind to stop racing. And, notably, from that point on the exam went much more smoothly.
After the exam, sensei gave us all a pretty inspiring short speech, notably stating that while achieving shodan was great accomplishment, we weren't at the top of the mountain. Instead, we had arrived at the mountain, and now we could see it and start climbing. It makes sense to me; I've never held achieving any rank in particular to be a goal. Instead it's always been about learning and doing whatever is next. Learning the material, spending the time prepping for shodan became the goal when I passed to first kyu. Now, same applies to nidan. So, onward we go. Interestingly I've been asked by the publisher of a martial arts magazine to write an article on what it's like to be the first female black belt in my school. It never occurred to me to even think about that until he asked, and I'm not sure what it means to have a female perspective. I just have my perspective; I don't know that there's anything feminine about it. If I serve as a role model for other women and young girls, great! But I just do what I do because I want to do it. I guess my perspective is a female perspective by biological default, so I will probably just write what I think and that will have to do.
OK, 'nuff procrastination for now. Off to do - something!
Ramblings and procrastination aside, and in the news-worthy category: I did get my black belt last weekend. It was not my best exam, ever: I was incredibly nervous, and it hit me totally at the wrong time. Before the special training I was thinking that I probably should go run about five miles, since I usually run 10+ on Sundays, thinking that if I wasn't sufficiently tired, I might be over-amped for the test. But I didn't, and I actually felt pretty calm - until I stood up. I was tight at first and then had trouble slowing down; meanwhile, I felt like I WAS going incredibly slow, but he had me do parts of one kata over, a move at a time, because I apparently blasted through it. Oops. And he changed the sai kumite (short sword fighting drill) on the fly during the test. I actually found THAT relaxing, because I had to think about it and that got my mind to stop racing. And, notably, from that point on the exam went much more smoothly.
After the exam, sensei gave us all a pretty inspiring short speech, notably stating that while achieving shodan was great accomplishment, we weren't at the top of the mountain. Instead, we had arrived at the mountain, and now we could see it and start climbing. It makes sense to me; I've never held achieving any rank in particular to be a goal. Instead it's always been about learning and doing whatever is next. Learning the material, spending the time prepping for shodan became the goal when I passed to first kyu. Now, same applies to nidan. So, onward we go. Interestingly I've been asked by the publisher of a martial arts magazine to write an article on what it's like to be the first female black belt in my school. It never occurred to me to even think about that until he asked, and I'm not sure what it means to have a female perspective. I just have my perspective; I don't know that there's anything feminine about it. If I serve as a role model for other women and young girls, great! But I just do what I do because I want to do it. I guess my perspective is a female perspective by biological default, so I will probably just write what I think and that will have to do.
OK, 'nuff procrastination for now. Off to do - something!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Argh!
So, maybe I am not testing on Sunday, after all. Sensei has the flu, and may not be able to travel down here on Sunday. The possible alternative would be that we'd go to NY to test the following Sunday, although my sensei really wants our black belt tests to be in our dojo. As much as I'm not really attached to the date/time (I will test SOMETIME; I've never been in a hurry to receive any specific promotion, more just to keep progressing), it's hard to prepare and then not know. It's like having a final exam rescheduled. Oh well; nothing I can do about it, except be prepared when the time actually comes...
Good news, though: I was able to switch my psych class so I can get the time/location/instructor I wanted all along. Woo! I was actually dancing around my apt. when I found I could do that, I was so happy. And, I finally got back together with Sensei J this morning; back to the kyokoshin stuff. We figured we probably hadn't trained together for about 6 weeks, due to our schedules being fuxed up over the holidays. Nice to be back at that, too! And, today marks the halfway point of my dos Remedios hypertrophy rotation. I took it as an unload day (he recommends 1 to 2 per 12 week hypertrophy block) because I am feeling a bit beat up, and it would be nice to be heading into the weekend a bit fresher, with the assumption the test will actually take place. It's hard to tell what kind of progress I'm making (or not); one of the down sides of changing up your routine week to week or even workout to workout is that you don't see that linear progression in an individual lift over time. And I suppose that's not the point of this kind of rotation, anyway - it's about building muscle, not increasing your 1 rep maximum. To that end, I do see some differences in my physique. Nothing grand, and certainly no big muscles (I'm starting to wonder if that's even a possibility for me, at least while I'm running), but things are tighter and definitely feel more solid. So, that's a good thing. This program is really flying by! I didn't realize until last night it was time for me to make up new workout templates reflecting next week's new rep scheme. Again, a good thing!
Good news, though: I was able to switch my psych class so I can get the time/location/instructor I wanted all along. Woo! I was actually dancing around my apt. when I found I could do that, I was so happy. And, I finally got back together with Sensei J this morning; back to the kyokoshin stuff. We figured we probably hadn't trained together for about 6 weeks, due to our schedules being fuxed up over the holidays. Nice to be back at that, too! And, today marks the halfway point of my dos Remedios hypertrophy rotation. I took it as an unload day (he recommends 1 to 2 per 12 week hypertrophy block) because I am feeling a bit beat up, and it would be nice to be heading into the weekend a bit fresher, with the assumption the test will actually take place. It's hard to tell what kind of progress I'm making (or not); one of the down sides of changing up your routine week to week or even workout to workout is that you don't see that linear progression in an individual lift over time. And I suppose that's not the point of this kind of rotation, anyway - it's about building muscle, not increasing your 1 rep maximum. To that end, I do see some differences in my physique. Nothing grand, and certainly no big muscles (I'm starting to wonder if that's even a possibility for me, at least while I'm running), but things are tighter and definitely feel more solid. So, that's a good thing. This program is really flying by! I didn't realize until last night it was time for me to make up new workout templates reflecting next week's new rep scheme. Again, a good thing!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Red sky in the morning
We had it.
It's supposed to snow today/tonight. Odd thing about snow storms this year, is after last year's named storms (Snomageddon, Snowpocalypse, and whatever they called that last one), the mere something under a foot that were expecting looks more like an inconvenience than a major snowstorm. Funny what a little perspective will do. And for what it's worth, I'm still much, much happier with snow than I am with rain at this time of the year, especially if it's going to be this cold all the time. Makes for slower runs and possibly a missed run here and there, but I. hate. cold. rain.
I'm looking forward to school starting again next week. In the interim, I've been working with some GRE prep stuff. For some reason the GRE site seems to be messed up right now and isn't showing dates past early February (they are supposedly offered monthly), so I haven't been able to register. My desire is to take them in March, which will give me time to get the results back and see if I want to retake them before apply to schools. I don't know why I'd want to do that, really - I was one and one with the SATs, IIRC - but you never know, so I'd rather have the option. Hopefully that will be settled soon.
Funny thing happened over the weekend. I guess my mother has been on come kind of a cleaning tear, because she seems to be popping up with sets of old photos every time I see her. This past Sunday she had a lot of photos from around when I was in high school. It was really cool to see sooo many family members way back when; I almost didn't recognize a few of them, including, believe it or not, myself! That's because I had really short hair back then, and quite honestly I can't remember a time when I had short hair. (Um, other than that summer after sophomore year of college; I had been a model in a hair show and had about half my hair dyed platinum blonde, in that blonde over brown thing that you saw sometimes in the 80's. Anyway, I liked it but nobody could retouch the roots anywhere near the color the show stylist had gotten, so I chopped it all off. But, I digress.) I keep my hair long mainly because it's easy for me to deal with, for the most part. After washing all I do is comb it out, put in some product, and blow dry my bangs, all of which takes less than five minutes. It does mean my head it wet a good deal of the time, but there's no actual STYLING involved (unless I want to fuss, and I rarely do). However it's a PITA sometimes, notably in jiu jistu and when swimming, plus there's just a lot of it to wash and manage, all of the time.
I've always said that if I thought I could rock a short hair cut, I would, but I didn't think I could. But my first impression on seeing myself in those old photos, in that split second before I recognized myself, was, "Who's that? She's cute." So maybe I CAN rock short hair. Food for thought.
It's supposed to snow today/tonight. Odd thing about snow storms this year, is after last year's named storms (Snomageddon, Snowpocalypse, and whatever they called that last one), the mere something under a foot that were expecting looks more like an inconvenience than a major snowstorm. Funny what a little perspective will do. And for what it's worth, I'm still much, much happier with snow than I am with rain at this time of the year, especially if it's going to be this cold all the time. Makes for slower runs and possibly a missed run here and there, but I. hate. cold. rain.
I'm looking forward to school starting again next week. In the interim, I've been working with some GRE prep stuff. For some reason the GRE site seems to be messed up right now and isn't showing dates past early February (they are supposedly offered monthly), so I haven't been able to register. My desire is to take them in March, which will give me time to get the results back and see if I want to retake them before apply to schools. I don't know why I'd want to do that, really - I was one and one with the SATs, IIRC - but you never know, so I'd rather have the option. Hopefully that will be settled soon.
Funny thing happened over the weekend. I guess my mother has been on come kind of a cleaning tear, because she seems to be popping up with sets of old photos every time I see her. This past Sunday she had a lot of photos from around when I was in high school. It was really cool to see sooo many family members way back when; I almost didn't recognize a few of them, including, believe it or not, myself! That's because I had really short hair back then, and quite honestly I can't remember a time when I had short hair. (Um, other than that summer after sophomore year of college; I had been a model in a hair show and had about half my hair dyed platinum blonde, in that blonde over brown thing that you saw sometimes in the 80's. Anyway, I liked it but nobody could retouch the roots anywhere near the color the show stylist had gotten, so I chopped it all off. But, I digress.) I keep my hair long mainly because it's easy for me to deal with, for the most part. After washing all I do is comb it out, put in some product, and blow dry my bangs, all of which takes less than five minutes. It does mean my head it wet a good deal of the time, but there's no actual STYLING involved (unless I want to fuss, and I rarely do). However it's a PITA sometimes, notably in jiu jistu and when swimming, plus there's just a lot of it to wash and manage, all of the time.
I've always said that if I thought I could rock a short hair cut, I would, but I didn't think I could. But my first impression on seeing myself in those old photos, in that split second before I recognized myself, was, "Who's that? She's cute." So maybe I CAN rock short hair. Food for thought.
Monday, January 3, 2011
'Tis no longer the season - unless you mean NFL playoff season
I hate to sound like a scrooge, but I'm glad the holidays are done. I LIKE the whole, getting back to normal thing, and I think the bod will like it, too. Except for karate, I did pretty much keep up the exercise routine during the past month. Karate suffered a bit due to exams, travel on the part of Sensei J, and class days falling on holidays. I otherwise missed one run due to snow and ice and the rest was business as usual. On that snow day, I did an actual video workout, Cathe's new Intensity DVD. I. Hated. It. While the HiiT sections weren't bad, really, there was far too much step for my taste (nearly half the thing was step) and of course the step was first, so I was on High Annoyance by the time the floor cardio started. Oh well. Can't win 'em all. It'll also be nice to be back to normal, food-wise, too. My weight stayed within my normal range, but was often enough at the high end that I'm not sure I didn't gain a pound. I was trending down slightly with normal eating prior to the holidays, though, so I'll just go back to that and watch what happens.
Didn't mention karate in my goals for the year post. I don't really have a year-length goal for karate because - dun dun DUN - my next grading should be in less than two weeks. And yes, it is the big one, black belt. It's very hard to believe, and something I truly never imagined happening when I started on this journey. At that time I didn't know anything about belts and rankings; I didn't think (somewhat) normal people just worked hard and earned their way up to black belt - I thought it was some title you earned some mysterious way, and never though I'd get to where I am now. It was not my goal and it's not, to me, an end point. There are people in my association ranked up to sixth and seventh dan so it's in the culture to just keep going, which is what I plan to do. I expect my path to be disrupted to some degree - perhaps even set aside temporarily - while I'm in grad school (although, who knows?), but I don't see NOT coming back to it and continuing to progress.
Speaking of progressing, I'm well into the second stage of my RDR workouts. I've been enjoying the flexibility of changing up the routine fairly often, and I've been incorporating TRX stuff into the workouts (following, of course, the general workout structure guidelines) which adds even more variety. I do find these workouts take a BIT longer than I'd like, but they're not so long that I don't plan to stick this plan out for the duration. After the 12 weeks, I do plan to change to his push/pull split (as opposed to total body workouts); those workouts should be shorter, and I plan to add some cardio on at least one, if not two of those days (nothing long; I'm thinking 10 - 15 minutes of either hill work, stadium stairs, or the dreaded step mill, depending on what's available/convenient - that'll be prep for the spring 15K).
Go, Eagles!
Didn't mention karate in my goals for the year post. I don't really have a year-length goal for karate because - dun dun DUN - my next grading should be in less than two weeks. And yes, it is the big one, black belt. It's very hard to believe, and something I truly never imagined happening when I started on this journey. At that time I didn't know anything about belts and rankings; I didn't think (somewhat) normal people just worked hard and earned their way up to black belt - I thought it was some title you earned some mysterious way, and never though I'd get to where I am now. It was not my goal and it's not, to me, an end point. There are people in my association ranked up to sixth and seventh dan so it's in the culture to just keep going, which is what I plan to do. I expect my path to be disrupted to some degree - perhaps even set aside temporarily - while I'm in grad school (although, who knows?), but I don't see NOT coming back to it and continuing to progress.
Speaking of progressing, I'm well into the second stage of my RDR workouts. I've been enjoying the flexibility of changing up the routine fairly often, and I've been incorporating TRX stuff into the workouts (following, of course, the general workout structure guidelines) which adds even more variety. I do find these workouts take a BIT longer than I'd like, but they're not so long that I don't plan to stick this plan out for the duration. After the 12 weeks, I do plan to change to his push/pull split (as opposed to total body workouts); those workouts should be shorter, and I plan to add some cardio on at least one, if not two of those days (nothing long; I'm thinking 10 - 15 minutes of either hill work, stadium stairs, or the dreaded step mill, depending on what's available/convenient - that'll be prep for the spring 15K).
Go, Eagles!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Happy end of 2010!
Haven't been the most inspired blogger of late... Oh well. Despite the lack of updates, the workouts haven't suffered, on the whole; I just haven't been all that diligent about getting here to post them. I've actually enjoyed the break, at that.
I'm not big on resolutions, but I do have goals for 2011:
Number one, of course, is to get into graduate school. I know what I have to do, and I just have to stay out of my own way and keep on doing it.
Number two is to do my first ultra. I am actually only planning on doing trail races this year, although if my sister and I can work it out to do a road race or two together, I'm game for that, as well. But the biggie for the year will be a 50K trail. I'm also looking at two 15K trails, and maybe a trail half, a 12 hour trail, or possibly a second 50K trail. We'll see, and of course it's all dependent on my staying healthy. I'm very, very encouraged by the fact that I had no real physical issues this past year; I credit that to my strength training program and I plan to keep that up to the maximum extent I reasonably can throughout the year.
And that's it for the biggies. I'd also like to tweak the nutrition a bit, mostly because I think I've gotten into a bit of a culinary rut. I've been reluctant to change much because I feel good and my weight has been rock steady - why mess with success, right? - but my shopping list has been the same, more or less, for several months now and I know I should work in some more variety. I've started working on this already, and need to make it a point to keep it up.
I'm looking forward to a challenging and fulfilling year, and I wish everyone who is reading this the same in 2011.
I'm not big on resolutions, but I do have goals for 2011:
Number one, of course, is to get into graduate school. I know what I have to do, and I just have to stay out of my own way and keep on doing it.
Number two is to do my first ultra. I am actually only planning on doing trail races this year, although if my sister and I can work it out to do a road race or two together, I'm game for that, as well. But the biggie for the year will be a 50K trail. I'm also looking at two 15K trails, and maybe a trail half, a 12 hour trail, or possibly a second 50K trail. We'll see, and of course it's all dependent on my staying healthy. I'm very, very encouraged by the fact that I had no real physical issues this past year; I credit that to my strength training program and I plan to keep that up to the maximum extent I reasonably can throughout the year.
And that's it for the biggies. I'd also like to tweak the nutrition a bit, mostly because I think I've gotten into a bit of a culinary rut. I've been reluctant to change much because I feel good and my weight has been rock steady - why mess with success, right? - but my shopping list has been the same, more or less, for several months now and I know I should work in some more variety. I've started working on this already, and need to make it a point to keep it up.
I'm looking forward to a challenging and fulfilling year, and I wish everyone who is reading this the same in 2011.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Hey, it's me!
I didn't really mean to be away this long, but c'est la vie. This will be short, so I can get to the good stuff.
- School's done, obviously! Got an A in Psych, and while I haven't gotten my final grade for A&P, I would have had to have seriously screwed up the final exam - which I didn't, thankyouverymuch - to have NOT gotten an A. So, well done, me. Heh.
- One good thing about school - coming out of exams like that, I had plenty of momentum to do the holiday stuff. Shopped and decorated Saturday, did family stuff Sunday, shopped Monday and yesterday, and wrapped today. Tomorrow, I bake (chocolate peanut butter cup cake and cookies).
- Workouts have all been going well. I reread parts of the RDR book recently (I always seem to be pawing through the source material when I'm following a program) and realized something pretty cool. I have pretty much always done programs that set you up with a given slate of exercises that you do for a certain period of time, anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks; usually, of late, 3 - 4 weeks (the 12 is definitely an outlier). And this program generally periodizes the REP scheme in three week segments, so in my mind, I just figured I'd do a certain set of exercises for each of those segments. Well, I don't HAVE to do that. In fact, he encourages you to change up what you do often, even every workout, so long as you follow the basic template. Which I think is pretty cool, and certainly allows me a lot of freedom especially for those days when I do weights at home & don't have access to pulleys & a proper cage. So, yay!
- My birthday was last week, and I got a TRX! It is a very cool toy to have in the arsenal; adds a nice dimension of difficulty to things and a different dimension to training in general. I'm planning to take it to the gym on Friday to get a better feel for it. At home, I've been hanging it from my pull up bar and from the door, which limits my space somewhat, so it should be fun to test drive it in a more spacious area.
- It has been a great week to be a Philadelphia sports fan. 'S'all I'm gonna say.
It seems I can't do anything around here without tons of feline assistance. The holidays are no exception. I give you decorating and wrapping, chez moi:
- School's done, obviously! Got an A in Psych, and while I haven't gotten my final grade for A&P, I would have had to have seriously screwed up the final exam - which I didn't, thankyouverymuch - to have NOT gotten an A. So, well done, me. Heh.
- One good thing about school - coming out of exams like that, I had plenty of momentum to do the holiday stuff. Shopped and decorated Saturday, did family stuff Sunday, shopped Monday and yesterday, and wrapped today. Tomorrow, I bake (chocolate peanut butter cup cake and cookies).
- Workouts have all been going well. I reread parts of the RDR book recently (I always seem to be pawing through the source material when I'm following a program) and realized something pretty cool. I have pretty much always done programs that set you up with a given slate of exercises that you do for a certain period of time, anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks; usually, of late, 3 - 4 weeks (the 12 is definitely an outlier). And this program generally periodizes the REP scheme in three week segments, so in my mind, I just figured I'd do a certain set of exercises for each of those segments. Well, I don't HAVE to do that. In fact, he encourages you to change up what you do often, even every workout, so long as you follow the basic template. Which I think is pretty cool, and certainly allows me a lot of freedom especially for those days when I do weights at home & don't have access to pulleys & a proper cage. So, yay!
- My birthday was last week, and I got a TRX! It is a very cool toy to have in the arsenal; adds a nice dimension of difficulty to things and a different dimension to training in general. I'm planning to take it to the gym on Friday to get a better feel for it. At home, I've been hanging it from my pull up bar and from the door, which limits my space somewhat, so it should be fun to test drive it in a more spacious area.
- It has been a great week to be a Philadelphia sports fan. 'S'all I'm gonna say.
It seems I can't do anything around here without tons of feline assistance. The holidays are no exception. I give you decorating and wrapping, chez moi:
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| Tree in a bocks? |
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| This thing NEEDS somfin'... |
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| I know, ME! |
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| You can has empty bag - I have stocking suffers! |
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| He's looking at me... |
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| Bugger! |
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| And now this little brat is bothering me! |
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| RAWR! |
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| A kitteh's work isn't done until he's messed up the wrapping supplies... |
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