Here there be dragons...

"I'm telling you stories. Trust me." - Winterson

Some people never learn...


So I did a new (to me) P90X3 video Wednesday – Complex Lower.   As the name would suggest, it’s an entirely lower-body focused workout.   By far the most repetitive I’ve come across in this series – the most like a normal gym workout.  Where you do a circuit of 10-15 reps of five exercises and then repeat the circuit four times.   Now “one” exercise involves: dead lift, squat, and lunge on both sides.   So it’s not *really* only five exercise ;)  

The workout itself wasn’t nearly as challenging as many of the others, but I could feel myself stiffen almost immediately following it – which is never a good sign.   The next day I was okay – not nearly as sore as I’d feared, until almost bedtime when my hamstrings randomly decided they needed to shorten significantly.  Ow.

Today however (the dreaded day after the day after) I woke up and honestly had forgotten the workout.  Usually that’s a great sign.  Until I just about fell down the stairs ;-P   Yup, apparently that’s not in my contract for today.   Was okay coming back up said stairs later, but down, down is evil.

So now I’m going to go sit in a 2.5h meeting without moving.   I suspect I’m going to age about 30 years in mobility in that time *sigh*.  Lunch time is definitely going to require a walk.

FIT (ish): Semi-fit; Kinda-fit; Someone who likes the idea of fit, but equally likes food.

So it's a brilliance or disaster kinda post.  The brilliance literally, the disaster in a first-world problems kinda way ;). But hey, I'm telling you stories ;)

We'll start with some true disaster -- I was very disappointed to learn that while it's clearly summer outside, all the waterparks are currently closed.   This thoroughly ruined my brief plans for enjoying mini-summer with a random vacation day tomorrow.  Booo.   Like I said, first world problems :)

In far less disappointing news -- Kennedy and Callie took 2nd at Bronte HT today.   For a mare that last winter wouldn't go over a trotting pole at home without stopping first -- and when she *did* go, it was borderline dangerously out of control, this is pretty awesome improvement.   And, well, amazing summer weather made for an all-round lovely day :).  Seriously brilliant.   And so much fun to watch them galloping on XC -- under control and both horse and rider focused on what was coming up.   Also good to see that fences that were a challenge earlier in the year, were not today.  So overall, my inner coach is doing a happy dance.

My inner athlete however, is less happy.  This because not only did I fall off the wagon, I broke the axle and lit fire to the contents ;-P.  Some people miss a day here or there, or maybe cheat on the diet one meal...   But when do I ever do things the way most people do???  ;-P.  Lol I was so proud of finishing month two that I celebrated with an entire week of no exercise and ALL the junk food.  I'm not even slightly exaggerating -- there was one day that I deemed Cinnabon an appropriate dinner.  Dinner.  Not snack or desert.  The entire meal.   It was a rough week.  About the only thing I did right was sleep (arguably because I was in a food coma?)    I got like 8-10h every night.  I actually can't remember the last time that happened in real life.  Combination of amazing new comfy bed that means I wake up not sore (win! -- who knew this was a thing?) and husband who goes to bed insanely early because he also choses to get up when any reasonable person would look at the clock and be thrilled to still have a few hours left before morning.   So I joined him at bedtime and chose not to get up with him ;).  Thus, many many hours of sleeping....  Wonderful sleeping...  Unsurprisingly, absolutely nothing remotely productive was accomplished last week.   

So today starts a new week.   I *did* exercise today - so am officially back on track.  Woohoo!   And was pleased that neither my weight nor my strength seem to have deteriorated too much from my random detour.   And I got my steps in -- at least partially because I lost my phone when walking XC with Kennedy (see superstar note above) so got to go walk it a second time in search of said phone.  Disaster.  Ugh.  But then brilliance -- I found it.  It was angry because it was overheated and was definitely on the landing side of a jump which would've been disastrous, but as that jump had not yet been on course, it was still safe ;).   

Also, inspired by random youtube videos, I have stumbled upon adult trampolining course at a local gymnastics club.  Enquiries have been made ;). No idea if anything will come of it -- if nothing else, all fall sessions have already started.   But I imagine it could make for some amusing blog posts.  Or not.  I'm not sure how entertaining I can make "I jumped up....   and then I came down".   Stay tuned.

Happy Fri... Wait, it's Tuesday. Frig. Carry on.


Had an awesome customer service experience that made me laugh today.   Went do a local food court for lunch at a well known chain restaurant – sadly, I cannot give them the credit they’re due to protect the innocent lol.   Anyways – this chain sells Pepsi products; I know this, having eaten there many times before, but in the daze that was my day, I forgot and when they asked “would you like something to drink” I automatically responded with “Coke please”.   This of course resulted in the inevitable “Is Pepsi okay?” *sigh* “No, I’ll . . .” but before I could finish uttering my backup choice of beverage, she ducked into the back and returned with a can of coke that she very carefully wrapped two napkins around to disguise.  So credit to her – pushed the company line with trying for Pepsi first, but also had a backup plan to satisfy picky customers.   Honestly, it kinda made my day.  And I definitely bought extra product as a result ;)   It was the wrapping the napkin around the can to disguise it that really clued me in though.   Hahaha smuggling coke – in the most innocent sense of the word.


So I was also amused in my Spanish lesson the other day – two things I struggle with: tenses of verbs and remembering that words change depending on gender of person under discussion.    Lol so often whether I am doing something, will be doing something, or have already done it is, well, open to interpretation and can lead to confusing conversations, esp as they don’t all switch tenses the same way – tbh most days I’m happy that I picked the right verb at least ;-P    But way funnier was when I turned my brothers into sisters the other day.  Lol   Well I was amused anyways – suffice to say it’s a good thing my coach is patient!

How to make your writing concise...

Lots of people (myself included) struggle with making their writing concise.  All those words have meaning, clearly they're all critical to the perfect picture you're trying to paint.   Well I just learned the trick to editing to truly the essentials ;).    Translate it into a language you barely speak where you have to fight for every word.   Lol had to send a message to my Spanish teacher -- had it all nicely typed out and then thought well, should probably at least attempt to send in Spanish.   Lol yeah, it quickly became less than half the size.  Same point conveyed.   And since he's not super-fluent in English, would probably not have appreciated my longer version anyways!

Just finished month 2 of P90X3 -- I'm doing the classic version this time instead of the lean version.   Lots more weights, far less cardio.  I'm enjoying it a lot more, but not losing weight as fast -- no surprise.  Am definitely getting stronger (yeah records and quantifiable results!). Chris found us a rowing machine on kijiji so I figure I'll supplement month 3 with the rower and see what that does to the results.

Alright, off to the beast that is Home Depot.  Wish me luck.