Crazies come, Crazies go

And peace is restored to the world. My world, anyway.

Upstairs neighbor moved out yesterday, just about two months after she moved in. She actually didn’t move away, just to another unit in the apartment complex. I’m not sure why; I did see her and we chatted but I didn’t ask, and she didn’t offer an explanation. Either way – yay! Although she and I had reached an easy truce, it’s still very nice not to have anyone overhead. Of course that means I will eventually get another neighbor who could be worse, for now, I’ll enjoy the situation.

Also, Drama Girl officially moved away about two weeks ago. To give credit where credit is due, before she left she did stop by to apologize for what happened the night of the art show, and to let me know she was leaving. I didn’t ask where she was going, but I presume she went to Philly, as she’d mentioned she might move there one day when we were out walking. (And then, she wasn’t moving; and then, she was going to stay with her parents; and then….) She dropped her lawsuit against the building management, and dropped her campaign against the guy who allegedly assaulted her (I presume he’ll still be prosecuted, but by a real lawyer on behalf of The People, not by her as a part of a dog and pony show it’s not even worth my trying to describe here). So, that weird life chapter is done!

I haven’t been motivated to blog that much lately, obviously. I belong to a couple of fitness boards and am in two check-ins, and I post my daily stuff there; probably what I should do is post my dailies here, and C & P them there. However, I’d probably bore y’all stiff in no time. Maybe I’ll do them in a sidebar… hmmm. I’ll play with that one.

I’m about to start my final week of New Rules of Lifting for Women. It’s very hard for me to believe this is almost over! And if I hadn’t decided to do two laps of Stage 7, it would be over. This stage has been a bit more grueling than I expected. The workouts consist of one or two “big” exercises followed by a circuit of four exercises, 15 – 20 reps each, done four times. Let me tell you, that is a lot of counting. I usually do it half in Japanese, half in English, and vary the way I count (i.e., twice to ten, four times to five, five times to four) so I don’t go insane. Adding sweat to the fest, the AC in the gym has been on the fritz, so I’ve come out of there absolutely drenched the past few times. I hope to hell it’s fixed by tomorrow; temps are back in the 90’s (grrr) and that place has got to be getting pretty rank.

The running is going very well. My speed is going up, pretty much without much effort on my part. In fact what feels slow now is a half minute plus per mile faster than fast felt last month. To that, I am crediting both general increased fitness, plus my glute exercises, which still have me thrilled beyond belief. I cannot get over the fact that I have an actual ass – it’s like having a new toy. In fact I’ve changed my plans for weight training during the half marathon prep because I don’t want to give up these exercises.

To that end, I’ve decided to use the workouts from the first two stages of Female Body Breakthrough instead of workouts from NROL because the FBB workouts have built in glute exercises; I can do them as-is or ramp them up to the necessary degree of difficulty, but in either case I don’t have to add them on, as I’m doing now. I don’t plan to do her warm-up; in fact I wouldn’t say I’m doing her program at all, but I am using what amounts to four workouts from the program for my own purposes. At some point, possibly even right after the half, I’ll do the program properly, but for now it’s just not what I need or want.

I think the scale has finally stopped moving, although I haven’t remembered to step on it in some time. I quite honestly don’t think I’ve dropped any more weight, nor do I now think I’ll even try to. I’m fitting into clothes that used to fit when I was about 5 pounds lighter than I think I am and they’re falling off; I almost need a belt for my favorite shorts. My stomach has never been flatter, and it’s very clear to me, by sight and by feel, that I’ve added muscle. My body fat is – if accumeasure calipers are to be believed – 15%, and if they’re not to be believed, it’s significantly less than when I started this program. Could I lose a few more pounds? Sure, but I really don’t have the motivation to try. My face is close to the border of looking, well, closer to my age, and as is, I can without a shred of self consciousness run around the neighborhood in a bra top, which is something I’ve never dared to before. Lots of credit there to both NROL/W and the glute exercises.

I’ve been playing with a few other things, as well – mostly out of curiosity – but I’m about written out for today, so I’ll hit them later this week. Probably. :p

Dream a little dream...

OK, this was a weird one.

The dream, or at least what I remember of it, starts with me, in some strange, very large bedroom. I am setting it up for what is clearly a nuit d'amour, although I have no recollection of whom the amoureux was. (Drat. Although I suppose it's nice to have room to add fantasy to a dream...) When I'm in the last stages of the prep, a party breaks out. Family and friends are there, as is Don Drysdale. Yes, Don Drysdale. I guess he got an invite to the dream because we were discussing pitchers at a Memorial Day picnic yesterday, a conversation sparked by Roy Halladay's perfect game this past Saturday. My little nephew, Matthew, asked me who the strange man was, and I said, "Oh, that's Don Drysdale. Go up to him and call him Dandy Don." Which, little nephew did, promptly. Later in the party my father told me Don wasn't so up on the Dandy Don thing, so I go up to him and apologize, and we have a good laugh.

I leave the party, and find myself in what appears to be an academic building crossed with a shopping mall. I meet up with a couple of old co-workers, and we set about looking for my missing lover. They vanish, and I find myself NOW walking out of the mall and onto a baseball field, then into a trailer. And who is there, but Tyra Banks. Apparently, I am a contestant on America's Next Top Model, and we just had a lingerie photoshoot. Instead of handing out copies of photos, she's handing out boxes of chocolates, and if your box of chocolates has lingerie in it, you move on to the next round. I get the most massive box of chocolates, which does not contain lingerie. Tyra informs me that I'm just a bit too old to be America's Next Top Model (ya think?) but she likes me and suggests I could become a cameraman for the show.

I take that all as a bit of a massive win, and return to my bedroom to find the party has broken up, and my mystery man is still nowhere in sight. The dream dissolves there. I'm not big on dream interpretation, and all I can say about that one is, it was entertaining.

Back later to post on workouts.

OK, here we go:

The Fitness Stuff

Two things of note from last week: First, I finished Stage 6 of NROL/W, and I also put in a 20 mile running week. The second was a landmark I had hoped to hit this week, but we didn’t have karate this past Saturday due to the holiday weekend, so I too advantage and went for what for me constitutes a long run right now, over 7 miles, bringing the weekly total comfortably over 20+.

As it happens I’m glad I was able to build so much during Stage 6, because Stage 7 is a whole new ball game. Stage 6 was supposedly about building strength in relation to body weight, hence there was an emphasis on working toward chin-ups and working on push-ups. I believe I prattled on about this in the past so I won’t do it again. The workouts tended to be short, and while they were generally challenging enough during the work, they didn’t leave me feeling all that taxed. Hence, I started adding short runs (2 – 3 miles) after a couple of them per week. That helped me get the weekly mileage up. It was also good, I thought, to try out lifting and running on the same day, something that’s on tap for the half training.

So, mission accomplished for the month of May. Special bonus: I lost a total of four pounds on the month, bringing the total to 15#. All with embarrassingly little effort on my part. Two more pounds lost, and I’ll be at the top what I always considered my comfort range. Four more will put me square in the middle. I don’t plan to change a thing I’m doing. Frankly I think this has gone so easily so far is because it was a bit of an artificial gain, all tied in one way or another to my illness – lack of activity when I was ill and a need to prioritize food basically without restrictions when I was getting well. That’s how the weight went on; resuming normal activities and normal eating is how it’s come off.

Too bad that’s not something marketable.

As mentioned I started Stage 7 yesterday. The workouts are different from the previous workouts in that they start with one or two “big” exercises (squat, deadlift, or a superset of bench press plus cable rows – and why cable rows instead of barbell rows, I’m not quite sure, but whatever) followed by a giant set of four exercises. These include two upper body exercises and two lower body exercises, all done for 15 – 20 reps, four sets of all exercises total. So it’s lower, upper, lower, upper, rinse, repeat – 30 seconds rest between all exercises. Heh, it was fun trying to dial in a weight for that many reps – I had no clue where to start and started too heavy for some things and too light for others. Oh well. Got it all figured out within two rounds and that IS why we keep logs, eh?

It made for a sweaty, partially aerobic workout that I definitely feel today, especially in the butt/hamstrings, although I’m sure my glute work played into that. I’m still really impressed by the results I’ve been getting from my glute activation exercises. Dare I say, baby’s actually got back? (Well, SOME back, but for me, this is a minor miracle.)

:o

Or however you make that "eek" face.

Had one of those moments last night at karate. On Thursdays, we have a brown and black belt only class (followed by an all belt adult class, hence my two Thursday classes). As it happened last night, when class started, there were only three of us there, VERY oddly, all three of the brown belt three stripes, a.k.a., black belt candidates. Because I was out for a while, the other two candidates jumped a bit ahead of me (we've progressed through the ranks together and should have all tested together, but I wound up testing several months behind them). Well, last night sensei hinted that what he would really like is for all of us to test for shodan together. I'm not entirely sure that will fly with the head (NY) sensei, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit. Which means I would test this fall, whereas I had expected that I'd be testing next spring. So, :o

I don't really know what to make of this. I can prep in time, I'm sure, but I hadn't been planning to get that super-intense about training until around the new year (I expected to be testing next March or April - and for all I know that may be what happens). However if it is to be this fall, I can pretty much scrap my sorta plan to do an ultra (50K) in January - and yes, I already have a training schedule mapped out; doing it is contingent on training for the half going injury-free. Which is fine with me; I'd rather go at an ultra full tilt, so if THIS is the way things are to be, I can reorient my thinking to a 24 hour race next summer (goal would be 50 miles).

Got whiplash? Good, because I do, too.

I've also taken a second look at the NROL (original) fat loss program, which I was thinking about using for my strength training during the half prep. I'm probably going to have to mod it a bit more than originally planned. Each of the first two stages contain three supersets, with three sets of each exercise. Looking at the sets/reps/rest scheme, I figure as written the workouts will take the better part of an hour, and that's too long. Likely I will drop to two sets of each exercise so I can keep it under 40 minutes total. I'll also mod the ab work because as written it's too easy. There's a lot of heavy leg work in these workouts, and that really doesn't thrill me, but we'll see how it goes. It's always nice to drop legwork at some point in a running plan - it's like getting a turbo charger.

Ah well. Off to the gym...

It's Official

I've entered the Philadelphia Distance Run. I know I've been talking about it and throwing schedules around, but talking is one thing and filling out that entry form is another. And now, it's all official-like.

The training plans haven't changed. I'm still planning to follow Hal Higdon's Intermediate half marathon training schedule, and I'm still planning on doing a bastardized form (shortened cycles) of the NROL fat loss program for strength training, although I'll probably eyeball that one again when it gets closer to the time. I should finish NROL/W during the first week of official half training, and I might want to take a week off from weights at that point, so as things project now I have until around July 4 to make the call.

So I've done my change as planned for this week, and added my 2 mile run on Monday. That was kind of fun, actually. I worked in some baby speed play (fartlek) (yes, that's really what it's called), and will probably do that in future as well. Had a really good run yesterday, too, despite kind of pukey weather - 50's and a heavy mist that turned to rain. Sounds kind of crappy but I'll take it over a warm, humid day any time. Which is what I expect to have tomorrow. Weird-ass weather we're having, but I guess that's May for ya.

Today I hopped over to the back half of Stage 6 of NR. Finished the written workout (minus warm-up) in about a half an hour. I have to say, this is a really strange Stage, and I'm not used to getting done so quickly. I'm sort of at odds now, with energy to burn, but I have my glute activation stuff left to do (was pressed for time and didn't get to do it before my workout) and then I'll probably go for a walk or something. I am really liking this stuff, as I think I've mentioned before. I don't see a difference so much in my lifting, but dang, do I see it in karate, and I'm assuming it will come into play when I get to doing a bit more formal speed training over the summer. (In fact, some of the later glute exercises are actually sprints.)

Actual training stuff

A nice, quiet week, sans drama... So I figured I'd actually talk about exercise for a change.

I'm in Stage 6 of NROL/W. This stage is optional, and is designed to help you increase your strength relative to body size. There is only one "big lift," that being the chin-up - sort of. The "A" workout calls for negative chins with a slow descent (20 seconds), and call for you to add weight when that becomes too easy. You go from that to 10 sets of 2 pulldowns (yes, you read that right) with a 0-1-4 tempo, and decreasing rest period through the series of workouts. The idea is, presumably, to get you strong enough to do chins, but it does not seem that you are in fact ever expected to succeed, as it's never even suggested that you try one. (Thanks for the vote of confidence, Alwyn.) Well, I've already added weight to the negatives, and I definitely plan to start working the actual chin sooner rather than later. I was previously able to do a few short sets (2 - 4 reps) of pullups, but that was when I was doing the ETK (Enter the Kettlebell) program and was doing them 3 days a week. I stopped practising them when I finished the program and surprise! lost that strength. A dumb mistake I don't want to make again.

The rest of the exercises in both workouts are normal enough (by NR standards) - pushups, squat and lunge variations, push presses, rows, etc., and the workouts should all be doable in under 45 minutes, which makes them winners in my book. The A workouts are even faster, around half an hour (but it's a hard half an hour). I have the A workout scheduled for tomorrow, and am planning to add my first Monday run to the schedule. It will be a shortie, NTE 2 miles, a very weird distance for me; I can't remember the last time I ran anything less than 3.

The running has been going very well. I've been doing 4 - 4.25 miles Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 5+ on Saturday. Yesterday I did 5.6 miles on a pretty hilly (for south Jersey) course and came off it feeling good, which made me very happy. Karate is also going well; sensei is on a real fighting kick lately, and we've been doing a ton of sparring-type drills, focusing on combos and distances, speed, power, deception. He's also taking jiu jitsu again, and is downloading what he learns to me, and I in turn get to help him teach it. Granted it's not a "real" jitz class and I have no delusions about my skills in that department, but we have fun with it. It's where I intend to go next in martial arts and he knows that, so it's a good fit for me. Hopefully in a few years I'll have an actual ranking in BJJ and will be able to bring that stuff back for real on my own.

And how can I NOT give a shout out to my Flyers, for coming back from a 0-3 game deficit to win their playoff series vs. Boston? I think it was only the 4th time in professional sports history that's been done. And this, from a team that needed a freaking shoot-out to get in the playoffs to begin with. I was so damned excited afterwards I could hardly sleep. And speaking of sleep:

Drama Girl – The Final Chapter

I wasn’t going to talk about her anymore, BUT, Drama Girl has provided what for me will be a happy ending to our friendship, so here you have le fin. On a fitness board I belong to, someone has in her signature a quote along the lines of, “Some people bring pleasure wherever they go; some, whenever they go.” And I dedicate that thought to DG.

As mentioned previously, Drama Girl is an artist. This past Saturday, she had an art show in a neighboring town. She’s been talking about it for weeks, and has sent me photos of her pictures as she’s finished them. The show was from 6 – 9 with a party beginning immediately thereafter at her apt., lasting until Whenever. As I tend not to stay up until Whenever these days, and didn’t want to be there when the wet and dry goods came out in full swing (also not my thing these days), it was understood that I’d come and leave early.

Friday rolls around, and as far as I know, we’re still friends, or what appears to pass for friends. She calls me in a fit of hysterical laughter because some guy she was trying to help with a legal problem (because, as you remember, she worked in a law office) apparently reacquainted himself with a substance he cares to abuse, and sent her a text photo of his penis. Which she forwarded to me. Now this guy (and DG, for that matter) are allegedly adults, in their 30's or 40's, so I was kind of speechless about the whole thing... Maybe I live a sheltered life. Whatever.

Saturday afternoon, I went to the drug store (to buy a Mother’s Day card – yes, I am one of those slugs who waits until the last minute, but at least I didn’t wait until SUNDAY) and run into her there. We chat, I confirm I’ll check out the show, and she says she’ll be back to the party by 9:15, 9:30. All seems well. I had karate class plus what turned out to be a really rough run that day so I would have been far happier to have just parked my ass on the couch, popped some corn, and watched sports, but I did the whole girlie prep thing and hit the art show. I saw her pictures – for all I know, they were spectacular, but I have less than no appreciation for art, so to me they were just pictures – walked around the rest of the place, and finally met up with DG. We did the friends hug and I left, figuring she was there to sell paintings, not socialize, and I’d best get out of the way.

So the appointed hour rolls around, by which time I had long changed back into comfy clothes and very happily settled into the couch. But, I said I’d go, and all that… So I change again, and walk all of the 300 or so feet to DG’s apartment. The following, more or less, takes place:

Me: knock knock

A Male answers the door: Hi.

Me: Hi! You must be… Robert. [Robert – not his real name - is DG’s brother. She told me he’d be there hosting the pre-after party, and I’m pleased with myself for actually remembering his name.] I’m Redcat, a friend of DG’s from the apartments.

Robert: Do you have a card?

Me: A what?

Robert: A card, one of DG’s cards.

Me puzzled: Probably, back at my apt. I have her business card, and some postcard for the event.

Robert: She said not to let anyone in without a card, with something written on the back.

Me more puzzled: She didn’t say anything to me about that.

Robert: Did you go to the show?

Me: Yes, I was there.

Robert: Well, she told me no one can get in without a card. You could call her…

Me: I didn’t bring my phone.

Robert: Well, she’ll be here in maybe half an hour, you could come back…

Me: I don’t think so. Just tell her I stopped by.

Me : ?! OK…..

Robert was nice about the whole thing, but I had to wonder if this was intentional or a misunderstanding, as I had no clue that DG and I had had a falling out. And then I started to wonder if this was a blessing in disguise. DG didn’t call me to try to clear things up, and I waited a few days before seriously considering calling her. I wouldn’t have at all, except I hate leaving things on a juvenile note, so I did – only to find out her number has been disconnected.

I would say that epitomizes the way she seems to run through people, except I got off easy, as she isn't filing a law suit against me. At least not to my knowledge. So in the words of Cheap Trick, Bye Bye, So Long, Farewell...

Exercise stuff: I don’t know if I’ve talked at all about NROL/W, Stage 6. And honestly – I’m about all talked out for today, so I’ll have to get to that in another post. Suffice it to say, I am still boringly on schedule with everything. Perhaps I’ll have to find a way to spice things up, what without all the craziness…

Procrastinatin'

I should be out running before it gets any hotter... but I haven't updated in a long time and it's on my mind. So this will be brief.

The Drama continues - but not in the form of immediate upstairs neighbor, thankfully. We met a couple of times after the night I actually went up to (gently) complain, and since then, I wouldn't even know she was there. It's hard to believe it's the same person; she's actually quite nice, just going through a rough patch (divorce - I think many can relate - and relocation) and is a bit lost. So - yay! - lack of sleep is no longer an issue in my life.

Artist/manic girl, though... wow. Let me say first that she is a really nice person under it all, and apparently a fairly good artist (I have no way of judging, really - don't know shit about art - but she seems to sell plenty of her work, so she must be doing something right). I don't think she actually has a mean bone in her body BUT damn, does she have a flair for drama. I could type it all out, but it's not worth the effort; half the things would resolve or be compounded by tomorrow. The only thing that has me slightly worried right now is that she's fired her court-appointed prosecutor and plans to represent herself pro se in her case against the guy against whom she's filed assault charges. (Apparently, she worked in a law office for a while.) *sigh. To me that's like taking a knife to a gun fight, even if we are only talking municipal court. I don't usually try to talk her down - there's no point - but this time I did, to no avail. Maybe over time it'll sink in...

LOL. I don't even know why I'm blogging about that crap, except that I've never known anyone who could invent this degree of a whirlwind around themselves and it's kind of fascinating to watch.

Exercise stuff: I am DONE Stage 5 of NROL/W: did the last workout yesterday. About halfway through, I realized I was so demotivated by the workout and flat-out frustrated with the amount of time it took to complete that I couldn't even work up a resounding "happy" that I was done the freaking stage. I chopped most of the rest periods to hell and even so, the thing took me over an hour and a half to complete. I maxed the weights everywhere I could and in the end, I STILL didn't have that incredibly worked-out feeling one might expect after one works out out for over 90 minutes. Bah. I guess what I'm saying poorly is that I don't like not liking my workouts, and I really didn't enjoy that stage at. all. Plus, I've come to question the workout design in several places... (See what happens when you utterly bore my ass with 2 minute rest periods?) BUT, it's over, and the stage 6 and 7 workouts look to be much shorter (under an hour) and I'm totally ready for that.

The running is going well, and another reason I'm looking forward to shorter gym workouts is that I'd like to start increasing my mileage, and maybe sneak in some speed work here and there. I'd like to add one more day a week of running, which will most likely be Mondays; that would be a short run, 2 - 3 miles. Tuesdays and Thursdays would stay in the 4 - 5 mile range and Saturday would creep from 5 upwards. The goal would be to get to 20 miles a week by end of May, and stay around there in June. That's the plan, anyway!