The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is think with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
~ A. A. Milne
slip:4a190.
Thinking →
Reality check from 2008 →
My mom dug this photo up from somewhere. It was taken in 2008, and there may have been a few changes since then.
I think this is now my favorite inspirational photo.
Why inspirational? Most of the changes I’ve accomplished have been in the past four years. If I can accomplish what I did, without killing myself (literally or figuratively), while having a tremendous amount of fun… then I cannot wait to see what comes next!
ɕ
5,000 →
5,000. five thousand. FIVE. THOUSAND!!!
So excited to be half way through the numbers of my year-long project. I have about 110 days remaining to do the second 5,000 reps of all the activities. But at this point, it is now possible to do 120 reps (pull-ups being the limiting activity) in a single workout. Granted, that workout takes about two hours but it means it is finally possible to warm up, get started, and get it done.
Last week was a lot of random-seeming numbers of pull-ups just shoved into every day. That took a real toll on my arms. So I was particularly careful about getting back on the pull-up bar.
But first…
5,000 bar precisions…
This seems inconceivable to me. I remember starting all of this…. and now? Well, here’s the worksheet from the last workout on bar precisions:
I did 260 bar precisions (I still have the bars set at 64″ like in the video I recently posted). This seems like an insane number when you step up on the bar. But I start counting to 26, then make a mark in my little book… and then do that 9 more times. It is VERY difficult to stay focused for the entire time. I mean, REALLY REALLY difficult. I don’t see how I can fully convey the experience here (in a quick update), so I’ll leave it at that. I’d love to talk about it some time… so chat me up. :)
Meanwhile, I had planned to do the magical 5,000 milepost workout of the other activities on the following day (Thursday, in the screen grab above.) I headed to the bar, did a bunch of range-of-motion movements, some joint rotations, etc. Then tried a pull-up and OW! …not happening. Normally, the FIRST pull-up always sucks, but on Thursday I felt discretion was warranted. I mustered a LOT of courage and pushed the workout back until my arms felt better. (ie, so it didn’t feel as if they were going to be ripped off my torso at the same time my forearms exploded.)
5,000 pullups!
…also, 5,000 pushups! 5,000 seconds in handstand! 5,000 body-weight squats!
Saturday morning, it was conveniently raining (delaying our plans to tackle yard-work) and I decided to get at it. I warmed up and spent just over 2 hours trying to stick to a ten-minute circuit combining pull-ups, squats, handstand, sitting in a resting squat position (another of my projects is to get a full resting squat). Note the screwball “42” pushups in this workout; That’s just a result of a recent push-up challenge I was doing with some friends where I banked a pile of pushups, so in this workout I can just coast to 5,000.
There it is. April 2nd… 5,000 across the board.
Next week…
I’m going to tweak the circuit just a bit so I can get 125 reps into a workout. At that rate, I have this miraculous spreadsheet projection, where one thousand reps happens in just 8 workouts. boo-YEAH!
…assuming of course I can manage to follow through on this ambitious pace:
ɕ
Clematis durandii →
ɕ
Painful experience →
An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes one can make in a very narrow field.
~ Niels Bohr
slip:4a193.
Twilight Georgetown →
ɕ
What’s your next dragon? →
For a few weeks, life is grand. Everybody wants to hear how great you are. You start saying things like “I’ve earned this” more and more frequently.
And yet…
Something is missing.
~ Steve Kamb from, The Tale Of The Dragon Slayer
slip:4unebo11.
This has, in retrospect, been a very important part of my personal journey in recent years. I’ve written a bit about “short term motiviation” and I think this (what Steve has written) is probably a better take on it: The idea that by continuously figuring out what the next “dragon” is, has kept me interested and motivated. One pushup, run one mile, climb a ten-foot wall, etc. …dragon after dragon.
ɕ
pull-ups pull-ups pull-ups… →
The more I work on this stuff, the more I’m certain I’ll never be done; I’ll finish this challenge, but, “move, exercise” is just an infinitely deep rabbit hole.
The past two weeks, I’ve been working on trying to increase daily numbers. Pull-ups remain the limiting exercise, so it’s a game of how many pull-ups can I do in a day. Last week, every day, I did anywhere from 1 to 4 separate workouts. I did circuits with small pull-up sets to a total of 24 or 25 pull-ups in each workout. (Circuits of pushups, squats, handstands and seated/resting squatted. But that’s all easy stuff.) So the number of pull-ups on each day last week ranges oddly from 24 to 96.
My forearm continues to feel better. It’s now a sort of “remember to be careful about that”, rather than a feeling of impending doom if I do one pull-up incorrectly. I’m continuing to generally push hard with training, but I’ve no qualms about pulling up short if the arm bothers me at all.
I’ll pass 5,000 reps of everything this week!
I’m planning only 2 workouts this week. They will both be the largest number of pull-ups I’ve every attempted in a day. I’m aiming for 120 reps spread into four workouts. This week would still be a slightly “light” week since it’s only 2 out of seven days with workouts. The following week, I’m tentatively thinking of trying two days with 125 pull-ups in each day. I’ve never managed more than about 70 pull-ups in a single workout, so I’m tempted to try to do one big workout to see if I can do 120 pull-ups in something silly like 40 sets of 3.
If I can do 120 reps on workout days, I can still finish this whole challenge in time (but with literally just a few days to spare.) That seems too finely-planned, so I’m hoping to get up to 125 reps on the work days. This is definitely going to be physically challenging to make it by the end of 365 days.
ɕ
Autumn cascade →
ɕ
Sorta nice out here →
Nice day to ride topless!
ɕ