Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
~ unknown
slip:4a198.
One step at a time
Last night I thought there was no way. But I didn’t want to push things back a day. The 24th would then be another push-back (there’s no time to train on the 24h.) So I just got started… dress, start the fitbit tracking, saw some firewood, finish warming-up and start hauling my ass up and down…
60 minutes from start to finish (including the warmup). Pullups were 12×5,4,4,4,4,3… I was at 40 reps of pullups and thought I’d never make it to 75. I just kept saying, “anything over 40 doesn’t dig a hole. Just do one more set of pullups.” The plan was to do 75, and I had it in the back of my head (I don’t know why) that I needed +6 sprinkled in over a few weeks; So instead of 12×5,4,4,4,3 for exactly 75, I made the last set a 4, and then an extra set of 3. The last rep was a stall and kip/struggle. I could not have done a fourth rep in that last set.
BAM!
Seventy. Nine. pullups . . .
…and then updating the spreadsheet back at my desk I see that on Monday, if I do a tidy 80 — ie, NO INCREASE :)))) – the 80th rep will be number 2,000!
So here’s next week planned out. It’s a four training days week, and it’ll be interesting to just do the same number of reps of everything on each workout. The 24th is a “rest” day involving 2 two-hour drives, and 3 (THREE!?) separate stops for Tracy/Stacy’s birthdays. So I’ll be trying to remind myself to keep the eating under control so I can get the workout in on the morning of the 25th.
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That was waaay fun
Had a blast trying (and failing :) a zillion challenges!
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Mother of god
What wizardry is this?!
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Brooklyn Zoo
Pushing the old comfort zone tonight in Brooklyn!
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Ruby giant
Crocus Tommasinianus, ‘Ruby Giant’
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Keep moving forward
It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
~ Rocky Balboa, in Rocky Balboa (2006 film)
slip:4a472.
Secret life of hats
We ducked into our car to avoid a summer thunderstorm and this happened…
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Start where you are
Start where you are.
~ Arthur Ashe
Use what you have.
Do what you can.
slip:4a171.
2,000
Today’s checkin for the 10k project. It will now be a long road to 3,000… so I suspect it will be a while before there’s anything interesting to report.
pushups, pullups, squats and handstand-seconds just passed 2,000 reps !
This is the first day I’ve ever done more pullups than any other activity !!
(granted all the other activities were way too easy ;)Today’s workout is completely as planned. WOOT!
Did excellent for being tired from a good 2hr parkour workout yesterday that involved pushups and handstands…
(Thanks Adam :PI did pushups, squats and precisions in 5×8 sets, and 2×25 handstands — all super easy.
and the 9×5 pullups were all emminently doable
I’ll see how I feel on Wednesday morning: Since this is now a numbers race about pullups, I may stick with sets of 5 pullups, and just add an extra set more often than every fourth workout.
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Pullups pay off
I clearly remember thinking this seemed inconceivable less than a year ago. Pullups and hard work for the win!
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Sunday’s workout report
long day yesterday, lots of bus riding and walking around nyc, and a short but intense parkour class with lots of arm work. So last night I was sore, tired and exhausted. Slowly warmed up all morning in front of the fire and managed to get outside, warmup and actually get through my workout. My left achilles tendon is sore so it took a lot of moving and warming up to get the bar pre’s feeling good. Probably the cleanest (<< nicest landings, most controlled, most ‘stuck’ landings) set of 70 I’ve ever done. boo-YEAH! It’s a schmeazly small workout in the grand scheme, but it was a MAJOR mental win today. Perfectly on-plan for the past week.
Here’s the coming week…
Monday will be tough; class this afternoon and it’s a back-to-back workout. But I don’t want to delay it to tuesday when I plan to run. So, Monday it is. It will be a delight to lower bar pre’s DOWN to 40 reps. Few more pushups just for round numbers and I’ll start ramping pullups.
Which by the way, pullups are paying off in parkour. I have a little video clip of finger tips on an I beam flange pullup-tuck thing that I discovered I can now do. I happen to recall how inconceivable that move seemed when I saw it years ago.
This week I’ll add 5 pullups. I was doing 8×5, I’ll either to 9×5 or go to some sets of six just to get it done faster. My tentative idea is to add 5 reps every fourth workout… that should be easy since it’s only a 10% addition. I hope :) At that add-on rate, pullups will catch up in mid/late January. I’ll then assess if I can go to 50, 60 or more reps across the board on all the activities. With things at “40s” while I’m catching-up pullups I’m continuing to dig an over-all rep-count hole.
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Parkour and Art du Deplacement
Happy Sunday to me!!: …mailman rang the doorbell, on a Sunday?!?
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9/11 Memorial
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Wow
Awesome!
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1WTC
headed down town! Thanks for the great class and a ride downtown :)
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Big Apple
Oh hello Bryant Park, ice skaters and HOT apple cider!
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500 pullups behind
As my 10k project plods onward, I’m making good progress. With some renewed motivation to keep knocking out the numbers, I’ve been making a weekly plan and sticking to it for several weeks now. (A big thank you goes out to my “accountability partner”, Clif!)
Through November 22 (day 124 of the year-long challenge) I’ve been doing various numbers of exercises. In particular, I’ve recently been doing a “pull-ups program” designed to get me from being able to only do 2 or 3 lousy pullups, to being able to do a few sets.
The orange cells show [what I call] the “odometer problem”: pushups and squats are close in the 1800 range, but pullups are way behind, with handstand-seconds and bar-to-bar precisions adrift in the midlands. Green cells remind me where I’m changing numbers, and yellow cells are planned; That’s the number of reps I should do — so this screenshot is from before December 3rd.
For the last week of November and the first week of December I’m focusing on brining four of the activities into line. Low reps of pushups, easy squat numbers, and a load of bar pre’s. On Monday the 7th, the blue cells show the four coming together. And, after a bit of fiddling, they will also all pass over the 2,000 reps count in the same workout. (Yeah short term goals! :)
That leaves pullups (the red cell) a wopping 500 reps behind the other four. Going forward from the 7th, I’ll keep the other four activities in lock-step and work as hard as I can (without injuring myself) to crank on that pullups number. If I get the math right, I think I can make all five activities come together AND pass 3,000 in a workout near the end of January.
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30/30 squat challenge redux
Back at the end of October, I decided I was going to try Ido Portal’s 30/30 Squat Challenge. Basically, attempting to sit (a rest position) in a deep squat for a total of 30 minutes, every day for the month of November.
How did I do? Actually, not so well. I only racked up an average of 11 minutes per day. A few days had only a few minutes, and only on TWO days did I get the full 30 minutes in. It turns out, that making time to sit (squat) down isn’t easy. Most of the time, I just plain forgot. I did best when I set a timer while working at my desk. Every 10 or 15 minutes, the timer would go off and I’d do a one-minute squat.
But, I can see/feel the improvement in ankle and hip flexibility. Initially, I could only manage to squat on the balls of my feet, or rest flat footed if I held onto something VERY sturdy to keep from falling over backwards. Now, it only takes a gentle assistance to sit flat footed. So I think with another, more serious, go at this challenge in December — I’ve gotten all 30 minutes in for the first three days of December — I can finally reach a flat footed, deep squat.
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Wreath’s up
Ok, where’s the snow??
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