Maigs

Challenge Wrap up - I haven't been posting updates very well the last half of this challenge so I'll do the best I can with the notes I do have
 

Maigahane Arms Herself for Battle - Strength

10/12 - I was doing really well with this at first but vacation crossing two weeks threw me off a bit. I am enjoying lifting though so I look forward to making this a true habit

Maigahane Limbers Up - Dexterity

10/12 - I think I stretch after every lifting session but never any other time.
 

Maigahane Runs for Her Life - Constitution

9/12 - I'm pretty sure this even includes my OCR's and bike rides during the challenge. As I said, this stopped being as much of a priority once I realized that most people (around here) do even less running than me during OCR's

Maigahane Saves the World - Wisdom

15/12 - Rangered! Full habit now. Next challenge I'll change this to reduce driving in other ways. Exciting(ish) developments here to be discussed later
 

Maigahane Battles Cavities - Charisma

9/12 - No comment

So I only successfully completed one of my goals but it was still a good challenge. Part of the issue was a 4 day vacation that crossed weeks that I didn't plan well for. Another issue was finally getting around to working on the house rehab again after a couple of months off which seems acceptable (is climbing up and down a step ladder repeatedly to paint the tops of the walls considered exercise?). I started working out with a friend again and while she's probably not going to push me to go to the gym I might be able to turn it around and want to go to the gym to motivate her to go

The events for the challenge were a huge success and I'm hooked on OCR's. I'm even eying events in neighboring states that aren't coming to mine (I'm looking at you Warrior Dash in KC).

3 hours ago, Maigahane said:

So yeah, still in the middle of all three books I started with, making slow progress on two of them....and I just got New Rules of Lifting for Women from the library. Cause, you know, rangerbrain *sigh*

Lol, and because that's how things work a book I had on hold at the library just became available today. Luckily I think both library books are fairly short so they shouldn't take long unlike GoT book 5 and The Count of Monte Cristo

On 6/7/2016 at 0:56 PM, Maigahane said:

Side goals that are not fitness related:

...

Finish my damn books

So yeah, still in the middle of all three books I started with, making slow progress on two of them....and I just got New Rules of Lifting for Women from the library. Cause, you know, rangerbrain *sigh*

So I've been thinking about my goals for next challenge.

Strength - I'm really enjoying lifting and will keep this goal of strength training 3x/week. I also like my new routine of picking one of three each for a push, pull, legs, and core plus anything else that sounds fun for the day.

Cardio - I may not set a specific goal for this one next time. I get a fair amount of low intensity cardio from biking and walking at lunch so I'm not completely missing out. I will definitely focus on it again later since while I have no desire to be a "runner" I do want to be able to run 5k's without keeling over

Stretching - I'll keep this one too and at 3x/week. I almost always stretch out after lifting so they'll go hand in hand

Biking to work is a fairly solid habit now but I almost never bike anywhere else. I want this to change. I think I may make the goal to bike to at least one errand a week.

Food - I need to concentrate more on this again. I don't generally make horrible decisions but I don't make great ones either and I've been slacking on tracking. I need to figure out exactly how to quantify this goal.

Week 4 Day 5 (Thursday)
 

Maigahane Arms Herself for Battle - Strength

Rangered. My friend who joined me at the gym Tuesday almost backed out on me yesterday but after I texted her she ended up deciding to come. Motivating others for the win

Barbell Row: 50lbs x 10 x 3

Lunges: 25lbs x 10 (each leg) x 3 (I swear I can't spell lunges right on the first try, it always comes out "lunches")

Negative Pushups: 10 x 3

Medicine Ball Sit ups: 8lbs x 15 x 3 (we were passing the ball back and forth so I only had it for half of them)

Maigahane Limbers Up - Dexterity

Rangered
 

Maigahane Runs for Her Life - Constitution

Nope. I ran out of motivation for this since I realized at my OCR's I did more running than most people I saw

Maigahane Saves the World - Wisdom

Nope. It was raining in the morning and I don't have rain gear yet
 

Maigahane Battles Cavities - Charisma

Rangered

The good: My dining room in grey! It still needs another coat but it looks so much better. Hopefully this weekend we can start putting down the new floor, I'm getting tired of bare concrete

The bad: I ate like a bit of an idiot yesterday. Since I drove hubs asked if I wanted to meet for lunch so we went to a local place and I got a veggie wrap and fries. Then for dinner hubs wasn't excited about the idea of burgers and offered to run to Chipotle while I finished painting edges then he'd do the rolling while I was at the gym (I always do the edges, he does the rolling), so I had a sofritas bowl with guac. Not horrible choices but going out twice in a day was not ideal.

Well the only thing I did yesterday was ride my bike to work but I have a good excuse, two actually. It was rest day and we FINALLY primed the dining room so we'll be ready to paint tonight! It only took us like 2 months to get around to it. Tonight we're going to paint but I'm still going to the gym and have figured out what I can eat that's quick but not horrible (burgers)

I needs this tank

Week 4 Day 3 (Tuesday) - Back on track
 

Maigahane Arms Herself for Battle - Strength

Rangered. I had a grouchy afternoon/evening so I was so ready to lift heavy shit. Then a friend joined so I did an extra set with her

OHP: 35lbs x 10 x 4

DL: 125lbs x 5 x 4

Plank: 45 seconds x 2, 30 seconds x 2

Inverted row: 15 x 4

Alternating DB Curls: 17.5lbs x 10 each arm x 3

Maigahane Limbers Up - Dexterity

Rangered
 

Maigahane Runs for Her Life - Constitution

Nope

Maigahane Saves the World - Wisdom

Nope. Turns out I could have but I had an offsite meeting and wasn't sure I'd have a ride
 

Maigahane Battles Cavities - Charisma

Rangered

I did a pseudo mini-fast to help get back on track after vacation and shed the water weight from eating crap and drinking soda. I skipped breakfast and ate under 1000 calories. Today will be fairly light too, I'll probably aim for 1200 calories then I'll be back to normal. I was surprised at how low my weigh in was this morning so apparently I didn't set myself back any on the trip

3 minutes ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I'm sorry. People are jerks.

I just smile and wave and ride on when something like that happens. In the old days it was fairly common for people (usually in pick ups) to throw beer or pop cans at the Lycra-clad.

It took me all of the rest of the day Friday but I'm not peeved about it anymore. I've actually been surprised by how conscientious most drivers have been. Most give me plenty of room, nobody's thrown things at me or yelled as they passed. I've had quite a few stop and let me go first when they definitely had the right of way or wait for me to cross when they have plenty of time to go first when I do have the right of way. I make a point to smile and wave at the especially courteous drivers and generally ignore the ones who do stupid things like pass me in an intersection on a small residential street or the person Friday morning who passed me as I was coming up to a stop sign so they ended up stopped in the wrong side of the road.

I probably won't use it but I printed out a page from the city's website on safe biking that says "don't ride on the sidewalks unless there is not another safe option....it is more dangerous..." and "it is illegal to ride on the sidewalks in some parts of town" (this was not one of them)

Vacation was good but far too short for the amount of driving we did. When we had actual meals I ate well but I had way too much junk food and soda even though I know I don't even like soda anymore. I was so tired when we got home last night that I laid down around 9:30 and managed to somewhat fall asleep even with the constant barrage of fireworks going off all around me. It seriously sounded like a war movie with constant gunfire.

So getting yelled at Friday:

I was riding my bike home after getting off work at noon and some woman stopped me and asked why I wasn't riding on the sidewalk. I told her it's actually safer to ride in the road which sent her off on this rant about how it's not safe and people have to slow down for me and then swing out to pass me and might end up hitting someone and blah blah blah. At that point I was annoyed and did what was probably the wrong thing and just rode away mid-rant which I realized too late meant I had to turn in front of her to get to my road. She was still stopped so I wasn't in danger of getting hit but it probably didn't help her perception that bikes in the road are dangerous. It peeved me the rest of the day so I was stewing basically the entire car ride to OK (we stopped there overnight). It took me a long time to realize why I was so peeved, I think I just really hate being told I'm wrong, in some ways especially when I know I'm right. Then actually doing something wrong right after it had me kicking myself too.

Anyway, first negative encounter on my bike and since it wasn't a normal time for me to be riding there's a good chance we won't see each other again. And I've figured out what to say next time someone's ranting at me to end the situation better; "Look we're not going to convince each other and I have to get home/work. Do you want to go first or do you want me to?"

Just a quick update before we drive back home today; while I didn't completely fall off the wagon part of the reason is because there's only so much I can eat here. We went to Red Lobster yesterday and literally my only option was a cesar salad. Which is fine, I'm just saying that if there were other options I would likely have eaten something less healthy. We went to the FW zoo yesterday so quite a bit of walking did happen at least

When I get back I'll have to write about the woman who yelled at me Friday...don't let me forget

17 hours ago, Xena said:

Just caught up on your thread. Besides the everyday victories, you've had a great pair of OCRs and a pretty darned great bike ride. Keep up the good work!

How is your "armpit injury" doing? Hopefully just one of those weird glitches.

Thanks! It really hurt the next day but after another day or two it was completely fine

18 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

That stinks you are so uncomfortable. My guess is all three of the above are playing off of each other.

Very possibly. Hopefully I'll get to relax a bit on the trip this weekend and get back to normal

The Good:

Okay, I've been whiny but things have been good too

1) I rode my bike to work 18 times in June. I only drove four times, two were because I had to be somewhere before work, one I had a 20 miles ride after work, and one ended up being a waste but I thought I would be taking my car to get worked on at lunch

2) Related to #1, I've put 162 miles on my bike in June (including my ride home tonight)

3) VW announced this week what they'll be paying to buy back the scandalous diesels and it's very nearly what I paid for the car 3 years ago (like within $500). Due to the above mentioned riding I'm trying to convince hubs to just take the money and run instead of getting another car. He's not convinced yet but they don't plan on starting the buybacks until October so I have a few months to convince him

4) I'm now thoroughly addicted to OCR's and considering traveling for some so I can do more

5) I'm loving lifting and can't wait to get to the gym tonight

6) I'm getting close to not hating running. I think once it cools down some I'll be able to get into the habit of running outside without the internal battle of "I don't wanna"

7) Despite being whiny lately I'm very healthy overall which was proved with my bloodwork this month. I know not everyone is lucky enough to have my genes and I am grateful for them

Possible causes to my crappy week:

1) I've been battling a near-constant headache since the Poker Run, so.....3 weeks now. It's not a bad headache, it just won't go away.

2) I have not been sleeping well. For some reason we've been going to bed late this week even though we're getting up early to make up for leaving early tomorrow so I've been getting 6.5-7 hours of sleep a night which isn't enough for me. And I've been having dreams which always makes me feel not well rested

3) Allergies? In addition to the headache my eyes have been burning all week. My sinus's are fine at least

Maigahane wants to eat all the things:

Due to the type of birth control I'm on I don't have cycles so I rarely blame hormones on anything. Even before this bc I never really had pms. But every few months I get into a bit of a funk that makes me wonder if it's supposed to be that time of the month. This week I have not really wanted to do anything except eat all the things. And I feel like my stomach is flabbier than it was last week...bloating? Last night I got kinda grouchy trying (and failing) to fix the ac in my car and didn't want to cook so we ordered pizza. Today after I ate lunch I still wanted more to eat so I went to the convenience store and bought cookies....and a soda. I don't even like soda anymore but it's still ingrained in my brain that it's my comfort food. And I'm still looking forward to eating the rest of the pizza tonight, because it's freaking pizza and I wants it.

I didn't bike to work today since I was hoping to take my car to the shop at lunch but they're booked through next week. Tonight is game night so no time to work out. I've been going into work even earlier this week to make up some of the time I'm taking off Friday so I can't really do anything in the mornings. I'm so ready to get to the gym tomorrow to lift heavy shit and take out some of my frustrations

/whining

Nice job on the bike ride! I just got a bike last August after not riding for 15ish years and it definitely takes some guts to get out there and ride, especially in traffic. Once you get used to it though you'll wonder why it seemed so hard to start

15 hours ago, EricMN said:

Harder course than last year. Stopped a couple times to help other people who needed it. Had to slow down when Ed hurt his foot.

 

Still finished 15 minutes faster than last year.

Absolutely badass. Way to go!

1 hour ago, DarK_RaideR said:

Speaking of kids,better think of the gainz that kid needs to wear the NSS shirt as well as you do instead.I mean,it's clear from the photo it's not a matter of waist size but chest/shoulders width.

I gotta second this

Week 3 Day 2 (Monday)
 

Maigahane Arms Herself for Battle - Strength

Rangered. Even managed to hold to the plan after it became bro's night at the gym (seriously, four beefy guys when I rarely see more than one other person there) and one of them set up his incline bench directly behind my deadlift bar so I felt like I was giving a bit of a show for one of the sets

Deadlift: 125lbs x 5 x 3 (Plates guys! Plates!)
Bench: 45lbs x 10 x 3

Lat Pull-Down: 75lbs x 10 x 2, 60lbs x 10 because I damaged myself *

Situps: 20 x 3

Maigahane Limbers Up - Dexterity

Rangered
 

Maigahane Runs for Her Life - Constitution

Nope

Maigahane Saves the World - Wisdom

Rangered. My legs are more fatigued than I thought after Sunday's bike ride. The two hills in the morning are not getting any easier
 

Maigahane Battles Cavities - Charisma

Rangered even though I just wanted to pass out after a late run to the store

*Guys, I broke my armpit! Okay, so it's not broke but damn that muscle/tendon/whatever runs from the armpit to the pec hurts. I've never heard anyone else complain about this muscle but it always gets sore for me from pushups and somehow yesterday I must have pulled something between the bench and the lat pulldowns (probably those, the bench didn't hurt to do). Could I be doing something wrong? Do other people get sore there and just don't complain about their armpits hurting?

I was going to say that week three will be a bit of a challenge since we're leaving Friday for Texas, but the only one that I should struggle with is Strength. I got in cardio yesterday and can do two more before Friday but with giving myself a needed rest day between lifts I can only do two strength sessions. I could try and say that I'll do a BW day while on vacation but I can't even promise to try. We're staying at a friend's house with 3 month old baby so options are limited

Week 2 Recap

Oh yeah, swag:

That one's actually very blue, not grey

Trail Trek

The local trails organization put on this ride. There are 6, 16, 28, and 50 mile routes. Since it was the day after my OCR I decided to be conservative and go with the 16 mile ride. Since the start/end point is about 2 miles from home we just road there for a total of 20 miles. Bonus points that it went on a trail we haven't done at all before. We left home around 8:30am, got to to start point and picked up our packets. People were just heading out periodically instead of in a group so we headed out pretty quickly. The route was very well marked which is nice because our last ride was not marked. The 16 mile route went 8 miles out to a park, then turning around and going back the way we came. Except for Hub's handlebars getting lose partway through it was an uneventful trip.

We got back 30 minutes before they started serving lunch so we got Hub's bike tightened back up at a bike shop tent and headed back out to do the 6 mile route. The first half was on a dedicated bike lane running through town that we hadn't ridden on before and it was quite nice. Then it turned onto one of the trails we took with the last ride we did. In fact it was the section of trails where I tried dying the first time on that route. It goes under bridges then back up 3 or 4 times and after going up the last hill I started hyperventilating and had to stop for a few minutes. This time I had no issues! We made it back to the start/end point with no problems, ate lunch, listened to a few speeches and headed home. We made it back at 11:30 so we did 26 miles plus lunch in 3 hours without me having an asthma-like attack!

The weather was perfect. Cloudy and only 80 degrees when we got home. Even though it was cloudy I tanned some more. They gave us wrist bands to wear and now I have a white strip on my right wrist to match the one made by my fitbit on my left wrist I forgot to mention that the weather was perfect for my OCR yesterday too. Cloudy with occasional sprinkles. When we left the event at 12:30 my car said it was 84 degrees and by 2:30 it was 93 and sunny.

My next event isn't until August. I have two OCR's then and I thinks one of the 5k's put on by Hub's work to qualify for the shirt We also got a pamphlet for a bike ride in September with 25, 50, 75, and 100 mile routes in our goodie bag today. Right now hub's isn't excited about the idea but hopefully I can convince him to at least do the 25 mile one

5k The Hard Way

This is a local OCR that I did in 2013, in fact until last weekend it was the only 5k I'd ever done. It's also where my current profile picture is from. It was a blast! It was similar to the Insane Inflatable 5k I did last week in that it was challenging but I wasn't worried about being able to finish any of the obstacles. On some of the obstacles you get two choices, the "easy way" or the "hard way". I chose the hard way in all except the very last one (for a good reason that I'll explain in a bit). I would say I ran about 75% of the runnable course and most of what I didn't run was up steep hills

Starting off the first obstacle is a couple of low log crosses, then a bus with ramps to climb up and over. Then a short run and you're at the first creek crossing. All of the crossings have fairly deep and steep banks so you have to use a rope to climb down, cross, then a rope to climb back up. They have ladders for the "easy way" which is tempting because those banks are slick. Once you get back up the other side there's a ladder wall. The hard way is a rope ladder going up so it's pretty unsteady, especially since your shoes are covered in very slick mud. Some more running and another creek crossing (or two) and you get to Goodyear Canyon which is a ravine that has lots tires, a rope/tire wall, and of course, very slick mud. Then there's a very steep hill followed by a flat run next to a golf course. Near the end of that was a cargo net crawl which was new this year and I was quite proud of my ability to bear crawl under them having never bear crawled before

Then you're running in the woods which was quite nice. I wish I had more trails near me to run, I might do it more. In the woods is a 100ft water slide into a mud pit. Hopefully they'll post a good picture of me waiting for the slide completely covered in mud, if so I'll have to share it. The woman in front of me on the slide had issues getting going so I gave myself a good push...and it might have been too good. I got way too much speed on the slide and scared myself a bit which resulted in my mouth and eyes not being shut when I landed in the mud/water pit at the bottom. Luckily I'm decent in water so my instinct was to blow out from my nose and mouth as soon as I was submerged instead of inhaling.

More trail through the woods that was usually too slick to try running through. There were fallen trees to climb over, under, and through. Then a not-so-tricky suspension bridge (which looking at the course map is apparently the easy way, there was a hard way option to go down the creek ravine again that I didn't do). Some more creek crossings then the pinch point. The easy way is to take a suspended tunnel over the creek (which I did last time) and the hard way is a probably 25ft climb up a steep slope that of course is slick as hell. I took what should have been the easier part of the hard way but was so slick from everyone else trying that it was very hard, the "really hard way" looked much less slick though steeper and without a nice tree in the halfway point to help you out. I made it up but felt bad when I had to cut off a guy climbing beside me to get to the tree before I slid back down.

After a bit more forest trail you get to the balance beams. There were two of them about 18" apart, one had a knotted rope rail and the other had a wire rope. Most people were walking on one and holding its rope, many sliding and barely catching themselves. I walked mostly on one but held both ropes and had zero issues crossing. Then there was an inverse V shaped bridge over the next creek crossing. It was slick (seeing a pattern here?) but not hard. The woman behind me freaked out because you end up about 20 feet over the creek but it's so wide you're really not in any danger of falling off.

Finally one last creek crossing but this one you go down, then follow along the creek for a bit going through huge concrete culverts while a geyser of water comes down between them. Coming back out of the creek on the other side I started trying the rope climb but it was just far too slick and I was starting to shake a bit by then so I ended up just taking the ladder. When I did this last time Hubs joined and he barely made it out of that one (no ladders then) even with a helper at the top to grab onto and pull him out. Once you're out there's a short run up to the fire line and one final mud pit with a foam machine and then the finish line.

When I ran this last time I was in the last wave and was the absolute last person to cross the finish line. They timed it then and I did it in just under an hour which was about average for women. This year they didn't time it but Hubs said I took and hour and twelve minutes. I think a lot of it was because I was with the herd this time and had to wait for obstacles. I was standing in the creek at the really slick climb for probably at least 5 minutes waiting for my turn.

So lots of fun, LOTS of mud, a new shirt, and a finishers medal. I'm thinking of getting like a tie rack to display my medals from. I'm sad though, I tried to find my medal from the first time and I can't find it. I didn't think I'd throw it away but it's not where I remembered putting it and since I'm prone to get rid of things I might have

Week 2 Day 6 (Friday)
 

Maigahane Arms Herself for Battle - Strength

Rest Day much needed. I managed to work everything Thursday. My legs, glutes, abs, arms, and back were (and still are) sore

Maigahane Limbers Up - Dexterity

Rangered
 

Maigahane Runs for Her Life - Constitution

Rest day, again, much needed

Maigahane Saves the World - Wisdom

Rangered
 

Maigahane Battles Cavities - Charisma

Rangered