I should have read last year’s summary earlier.

March 6th, 2010 @ 10:48 pm

Today’s fitness challenge was practically the same story again.

Still 4th out of 5 and the 5th wasn’t the woman in our group.

Still saved by rowing, cause the multiplied the calories by 2 – would have been 5th if they didn’t.

Again, the 3rd round was a bit of a vacation.  You know, the type where you’re struggling to breathe and survive and your legs are noodles yet you have people yelling at you to keep trying to do stuff that really seems very dangerous at the time. That 45 pound bar that just banged into your chin?  Lift it back over your head again.  Again!

Still wondering what Shawn would do if he actually signed up.

Turned out this year he was just heckling me at the wall ball, which given my tunnel vision due to lack of functioning sensory systems, is surprising that I even heard.  But I also attributed the comment to the other volunteer next to me and it got in my head because I was struggling with my form/living and didn’t need another element to focus on.  What did he say?  “Don’t break the bench.”  Or something like that.  The message was clear, I was not a light butterfly on my way down – but his wife had told me before we even started “your butt has to touch”.  So come on, we can’t have it both ways when there’s 210 pounds of exhausted involved.

New this year, was me wondering what I had to add to beat people.  For most, if we add our donations to the total, I win (thanks everyone).  But for our lady friend, I think I’d need to add our weights to our score.  You know, cause my body weight effects my burpees and jumps and wall balls.  But no one was really down with altering the rules so that I’d beat them. Go figure.

And I guess I recovered faster this year.  First year, it was a day before I was the same.  Last year, maybe 4 hours till the dizzy spells ended.  This year, I ate a whole pizza (designed for 2+ people) before 1pm.  Whoo-hoo!  Sorta.

So I’m back to promising 500 next year.  But since I was only at 370-ish this year, that’s a big order of extra burpees, jumps, wall balls and push presses.  Though my first round was at 166 – which is a 500 pace.  Just that I couldn’t keep it.  Dropped like a rock.  Still, it’s just working on the cardio to be able to do 3 sets of the same stuff.  And I kinda took the burpees off.  Can’t do that next time.  They’re x2 even!

Montgomery, the one that doesn’t work out regularly with a fanatic was the one that won.  Youth triumphs over age again.  We’ll see if youth triumphs over 4 months of training next time.  Or if youth will just stomp all over a faulty memory/lazy dude…

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It gets better each year. But I don’t.

March 5th, 2010 @ 1:04 am

Fitness challenge again. Please sponsor me.  They won’t spam you constantly afterwards.

I’ve been doing the “easy” fitness challenge, because I’m out of shape and each year, I’m reminded that “fit” people usually do fitness challenges.  As soon as I show up and see all the spandex I’m reminded of that.

But this year, people who said they’d join haven’t joined, and those that have joined have signed up for the hard one.  Chuck was debating which to do.  I didn’t want to be the anchor that held him back, so I moved up to the harder one too.  I mean, if I’m gonna vomit, I might as well do it in the A group.

Last year I said my target number would be 500 this year, then I’d move to the A group.  I think I wrote 330 on the board for my A score this year.  Chuck’s whisper number is 500.  His body weight exercises are easier than mine – aka he’s in better shape.

When Kari moved me up, she said it was a good thing, because her friend, who likes to make fun of my performance in the fitness challenge over the last couple of years, was going to do the A challenge and was going to make fun of me for doing the B challenge.

So then I had to wonder which would be worse – being made fun of for doing the B or being made fun of for doing worse on the A.  Make fun of my apple or make fun of my tiny orange?

Please sponsor me, so at least, I can win at fund-raising.  Thanks.

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Reno trip in Mastercard form.

February 16th, 2010 @ 9:28 pm

• 20″ Bobbie sub at Capriotti’s that you get to split with your wife 50/50 then once she can’t finish her half, you get another 50/50 split with her 4 hours later – $12.75
• Kid so excited that he wants to take skiing lessons on the afternoon of our arrival – $65
• Kid less excited the next day, after realizing that skiing isn’t “easy”.  But his motivation is revived a bit by talking about skiing together.  Get his rentals and lessons and then get a beginner’s package for yourself and wife and stand quiet as they give you tiny skis, since it’s your first time – $195
• Edgey-Wedgey to keep ski tips from going more than 6 inches apart so the skier can focus on pushing out their legs to form a wedge – $12.
• Kid frustrated with falling down a few times so he starts throwing a fit before lunch – powered by a $3 Gatorade
• Guinness @ lunch to mellow yourself out so that the kid isn’t left to fend for his own in a different state – $6.50 + $1.50 tip
• Negotiated costs to get the kid to commit to going out for another 10 runs on the bunny slope – a trip to the hotel arcade to win a stuffed animal…but we were probably going to do that anyway.
• The dream of a good craps roll – $200  (but the night is still young…)
• Hearing the waitress describe ketchup as “Sauce Americana” and then asking her to repeat it since you like those types of awkward moments – $19 fish and chips at FinFish in the Grand Sierra Resort.
• Finding out your wife has a Flaming Finger that was worth a 544 ticket jackpot payout – 2 tokens
• Convincing your kid that there are other kids that aren’t as lucky and that we don’t need to spend our last token or use the last  91 tickets to buy trinkets we’ll just lose or throw away when he’s not looking – a little girl with an arm in a sling (broken collarbone!)
• Putting the boy to bed and having him roll over and say softly “I don’t really like skiing”.  Then 30 seconds later, he’s talking eagerly about how we’re going to ski from the rental place to the bunny slope instead of walk tomorrow.  So that you’re confused about whether he just needs a healthy dose of support/encouragement/pushing or if you’re one of those overbearing parents that’s forcing their kids to do all sorts of stuff for your own selfish reasons – priceless.

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2010 goals.

January 27th, 2010 @ 12:29 am

Kettlebell class needs goals.  “For the year” he said.  I think year long goals are hard.  Cause if you really try, you can do a lot in a year.  So I imagine a lot of our goals would be considered sandbagging goals.  But here’s my first draft:

• 15:15 workout, for 64 minutes, with a 16kg bell, doing 8 snatches per 15 seconds.  I did 16 minutes now.  Add a minute a week for the rest of the year, I’ll get to 64.
• Press the 40kg bell in either hand.
• Pistol with either leg
• 200 snatches in 10 minutes with the 24kg bell
• Be able to press while in a deep squat (more of a stretching exercise than a strength for me)
• 5 pull ups. This one is kind of strange, cause 5 pull ups are the pre-requisite for their “beginner” kettlebell class and I can’t do it.  I can do 1 if I save up all my energy for it.  Yet I can pass the test for completing the intermediate class, of 100 snatches in 5 minutes.  It’s all about what you focus on…and now I need to focus on the lats.

With these goals, I think my weight and bodyfat % will stay in check.

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The inner rebel is gone.

January 16th, 2010 @ 9:44 pm

The Robinson’s were kind enough to deck our family out with shirts with this on them.

And I guess it was kind of a dig, but they’re not really the type to make digs like that, which makes it that much more special of a dig.

Anyway, I wore the shirt yesterday.  And I was planning on buying 2 dozen donuts on the way to work.  But I got a late start, chit chatting with our nanny and Sal and getting her family tickets to go see Avenue Q and explaining why it wouldn’t be appropriate for my kid to go see this play with muppets, yet it was okay for her kids to go.  Double standards and all.

So I thought I could grab a donut at lunch, or a snickerdoodle, or at least a couple cookies from the catered lunch at the interview function I was set to rebel against my shirt.

I got distracted at lunch, figuring out how much more food I could get into the to-go box vs. a plate.  But it was chicken saag…with extra carne asada fajitas on the side under the naan.

And then the interview thing – there were no cookies left.

And when 5 o’clock rolled around and Brian was getting a coffee I looked at the donuts behind the glass and I just kept on venting about work instead of throwing down some change for the donut.

So the shirt kind of worked in a reverse negative backwards kind of way.  We’ll see if it still works post fat dunking.

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Points of view…

January 15th, 2010 @ 9:31 pm

Last night, there was something on TV talking about the passage of 20 years.

I thought about 20 years for a moment and realized that in 3 years, I’d have known Catherine for 20 years.

I shared my joy and excitement of that fact with her.

“Well, this year, I’ll have known you half my life.” She snorted with semi-disgust.

I was quite taken aback with the amount of dislike she was able to compress into such a potentially sweet moment.  I had to come up with a rebuttal.

“Uh…well, I see it as you’ve doubled in age.” I was able to snort back.

It’s all just perspective, honeybun.

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