Raptron Rages On

[raptron]

20 hours ago, doctorake said:

I read that you ate a broccoli sandwich.

There are a couple spots around here that actually have really good broccol sandwiches! Though, I can't say I've tried to make one, haha.

 

10 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Finally some evidence that Raptron does not have unlimited energy

 

8 hours ago, @mu said:

 

Good call! Hope it's just a bit of fatigue and not some bug hiding under the hoods!

I slept for 10 hours last night, so there is definitely some residual fatigue happening, but I tried my best to SLEEP IT OUT.

 

Day 1.3

I have a couple of pauses on yesterday's jog: one to pet a dog, one to fix my shoes, and one to just take a WALK for a minute because I was so overheated. THANKFULLY, shortly after that, the sky opened up and I got rained on for the rest of my run, which helped so much and was truly great. 

 

 

This was a tough run because I feel like it was asking for a lot of mental fortitude and stubbornness and I was really not in the mood, especially between the 3-4 mile mark, when I wound up talking the walking break. Howeverrr, once I got to the "well ok, there is only 1.5 miles left now" part of the run, I was able to mentally portion that out and feel much better about getting the finish. My splits were relatively well clustered [9:12, 9:34, 9:40, 9:34, 9:23], and the perk-up in pace when I realized I would be done soon suggests to me that my slog was mostly mental. I'm planning one more 4-5 mile run and then another 3 mile run before the race next Sunday. 

 

Jog: 1/3 

Lift: 1/15

Write: 1/10 writing, 1/10 journaling

Job applications: 0/10

 

I'm going to do some job hunt/applications stuff today after work, lift, and pack for tomorrow's early flight down to the Nash. Gymnastics camp is one of the best weekends of the year, but one of my besties who always stays up late getting into trouble with me is not coming, so I may actually sleep(?!?!?) this time. We shall see.

[KB Girl]

Is it even a gymnastics camp if you get to sleep?!? 

 

Big relief that those plans from the director fell through! 

 

19 hours ago, raptron said:

SLEEP IT OUT

Solution to all of life's problems really. Hope you feel better now  

[Mad Hatter]

On 8/8/2019 at 4:49 PM, raptron said:

Gymnastics camp is one of the best weekends of the year, but one of my besties who always stays up late getting into trouble with me is not coming, so I may actually sleep(?!?!?) this time

I don't believe that for one second.  

[raptron]

On 8/9/2019 at 5:05 AM, KB Girl said:

Is it even a gymnastics camp if you get to sleep?!? 

On 8/10/2019 at 1:10 PM, Mad Hatter said:

I don't believe that for one second.  

Day 1.4

Deadlifts: 4 x 5 x 280# 

DB rows: 3 x 10 x 45#

BSS: 3 x 8 x 40#

Kneeling DB press: 3 x 10 x 30# 

Pull-ups: 3, 3, 3 

 

I had to swing by the gymnastics gym to grab my grips for camp because I hadn't been all week and didn't consider grabbing them before. I met up with a buddy to catch up over some drinks and snacks, finished packing for camp, and went to bed toooooooo late for my very early morning flight. 

 

Day 1.5

Had breakfast and pool hangs in Nashville, drove out to the camp, and had a well paced Friday night workout where I worked on a lot of uneven bars cast drills, toe fronts on the low bar into the pit, some front tumbling, and starting to tumble on the rod floor -- which is a bit bouncier than the regular floor but nothing like the TumbleTrak, the long, strip of trampoline -- into the pit. 

 

Friday night post-workout always includes some bonfire time. We had a few drinks, made s'mores, chatted by the fire, met some new peeps and caught up with some of the folks we only see twice a year (Nationals and camp). I usually stay up pretty late on this night, but between the 3 hours of sleep on Thursday and the very solid workout, I made the executive decision to go to bed around 12:30 - 1! 

 

Day 1.6

Someone in the cabin (not on my team) decided to make a huge racket while waking up and getting ready for a 6 AM run. I couldn't manage to get myself back to sleep, which was super frustrating when I had done the right thing and gone to bed early(ish)! My bff and I were very grumpy about this and had a bit of a sour breakfast at 8 AM. 

 

Saturday morning, I did some more uneven bar casting drills, etc. After that, I vaulted -- I worked on half-ons, which I don't really do at home and am going to start doing to work toward a slightly more difficult competition vault for the next season. I REALLY considered just going for a flipping vault into the pit because I definitely had the height/time to, but I was a bit of a scaredy cat. From there, I worked front handspring + front layout + front tucks on a soft-ish mat on the regular floor. Then, I played around on balance beam for a bit with front handsprings and followed up with some hard planking slider conditioning things that folks were trying out at the behest of one of my teammates who is a trainer and delights in tough conditioning trials. 

 

After lunch, there was about a 4 hour break for lake time and naps. I did some paddle boarding and managed to squeak out a few handstand balances on one! My friend and I also tried to work on the lift from Dirty Dancing. I didn't quite get the positioning right, but we did get a few pictures/videos of her over my head, even if my arms aren't locked out, so expect one of those to show up on social media somewhere.  

 

The second Saturday workout, I prioritized getting to the rod floor to work on my BIG GOAL of back twisting. After close to an hour of lead up passes, I convinced myself to do some back fulls! I've had a big mental block about back tumbling into a pit (worried about where I would take off from), so I started doing just doing round-offs instead of a round-off back handspring to lead up to it and it was the magic short cut I needed to actually even get to the point where I could think about twisting.

 

The evening workout also had some toe-fronts off of the high bar (toe shoot but instead of straddling and catching the high bar, you do it from the high bar and pull into a front tuck for a dismount) -- they weren't too much better than the other times I worked on them at camp, but they are REALLY FUN, so I was happy to work on them. Buuuut they totally exhaust your abs, haha. From there, I did some front fulls off the rod floor onto a mat and worked on drills to try to figure out the arabian entry (starting one way, jump 1/2 turning immediately into a flip or a handspring), but didn't make a ton of progress there. I did find a fun onodi drill, so I did that too before heckling some people that were doing real conditioning.

 

Saturday night is dance floor/drinking game night, traditionally. We moseyed over to the party around 11 but gasp! There was no way to plug into the big speakers, so folks were just using measly bluetooth speakers. I hatched a plan with a guy who works at the camp to briefly borrow the soundboard from the gym and use it for the party -- by hatched a plan, I mean, he had the plan but was too nervous to do it without a LOT OF CAJOLING and luckily, cajoling is my specialty. We returned victorious and brought music to the masses. There was a pizza float that was a popular photoshoot prop.

 

 

I had a late, late night thanks to a camp fling -- finally getting after that fully authentic summer camp experience.  The sky was clear and the view was amazing with lots of shooting stars, which I'm obsessed with as a fully urban human who barely gets to see the details in the night sky. Went to bed at 5 AM or so... 🙂

 

Day 1.7

Sunday morning practice is traditionally for stretching and groaning. I actually squeezed in a bench press workout because there was a lone bench with weights set up in one corner of the gym and, as I've said before, benching is the perfect sleepy/hungover activity because you just lay down the whole time.  We packed up, headed back to town, and had a big late lunch of hot chicken, mac and cheese, and collard greeeeens.  We found a bar that would put the gymnastics meet on, watched most of that, went to the airport for a late night flight home.

 

Got home around 2:15 AM and asleep by 2:30 AM. HELP I AM SO SLEEEPYYY. 

 

Jog: 1/3 

Lift: 1/15

Write: 1/10 writing, 2/10 journaling

Job applications: 0/10

[doctorake]

I got tired just reading that

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, raptron said:

I had a late, late night thanks to a camp fling -- finally getting after that fully authentic summer camp experience.

One hears stories about the Deku tree at Camp NF back in the day...

[@mu]

3 hours ago, raptron said:

The second Saturday workout, I prioritized getting to the rod floor to work on my BIG GOAL of back twisting. After close to an hour of lead up passes, I convinced myself to do some back fulls! I've had a big mental block about back tumbling into a pit (worried about where I would take off from), so I started doing just doing round-offs instead of a round-off back handspring to lead up to it and it was the magic short cut I needed to actually even get to the point where I could think about twisting.

 

Brilliant! Raptron 1 fear 0

 

2 hours ago, doctorake said:

I got tired just reading that 

 

Me too, and I spend most of the day sitting behind a screen

[raptron]

4 hours ago, doctorake said:

I got tired just reading that

In some crazy, optimistic plan, I had thought I might go for a jog today... lol. WHAT A FOOL I WAS.

 

3 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

One hears stories about the Deku tree at Camp NF back in the day...

Ohhh yes, I've heard some things as well. It sounded like there were definitely folks that had a very authentic summer camp experience, hahah. 

 

1 hour ago, @mu said:

Brilliant! Raptron 1 fear 0

FEAR VICTORIES!!!  

[CourtnieMarie]

so many positive things!! awesome awesome work on the back fulls

 

now take a nap?

[Mad Hatter]

Yay for overcoming fears! Looks badass!

Love all the antics.  

[raptron]

Day 2.1

I had to go into work early for some meetings (yes, on top of the total lack of sleep), so I slipped out around 4pm. I napped from 4:30 - 7:30pm, journaled, showered, ate greek yogurt and raspberries for dinner, watched a bit of Veronica Mars, and went to bed at 11pm to sleep FULLY SOUNDLY.

 

Day 2.2

Squats: 3 x 3 x 255# <-- supposed to be a set of 5 but my body wasn't recovered yet, 2 x 5 x 235#

Bench: 4 x 5 x 125# <-- my shoulder felt funny aka still under-recovered

Curls: 4 x 8 x 20#

Toes-to-bar: 4 x 8

 

And then I just called it and left. I made an easy dinner with leftovers when I got home and was supposed to go see this guy, but I canceled from sheer exhaustion. I went to bed at 10:30 pm.

 

Jog: 1/3 

Lift: 2/15

Write: 1/10 writing, 2/10 journaling

Job applications: 0/10

 

Plan for the rest of the week:

W - job applications + lift + D&D character making for a 2-shot

Th - jog at lunch + gymnastics in the pm (probably an easier night focused on stretching and uneven bars)

F - RESTFUL yoga + lift + job application stuff + maybe hang with a friend at night

S - gymnastics + head down to the Cape

S - Race day! 7 mile road race on the Cape

(M - day off work, lay on the beach, try not to move)

[Harriet]

On 8/12/2019 at 7:52 AM, raptron said:

After lunch, there was about a 4 hour break for lake time and naps. I did some paddle boarding and managed to squeak out a few handstand balances on one! My friend and I also tried to work on the lift from Dirty Dancing. I didn't quite get the positioning right, but we did get a few pictures/videos of her over my head, even if my arms aren't locked out, so expect one of those to show up on social media somewhere.  

Excellent flippy thing into the pool of squares. And you did handstands on a board in the water??? Wow. I didn't even know it was possible--water is not the most stable platform. 

[raptron]

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

Excellent flippy thing into the pool of squares. And you did handstands on a board in the water??? Wow. I didn't even know it was possible--water is not the most stable platform. 

The entry is very hard to manage because the board wants to kick out behind you if you don't go DIRECTLY up immediately. If I could press handstand more reliably, that would be the most stable way to get up, but lol, I cannot.  I only managed a few short holds. And I love the phrase "pool of squares." I've done it on a floating boat before as well (notice how the boat shifts back when I kick up -- also I am wearing swim bottoms, they're just very pixellated here, lol)

[doctorake]

31 minutes ago, raptron said:

also I am wearing swim bottoms, they're just very pixellated here, lol)

 

HAHAHAHAHA 

[Raxie]

Oh mannnn congrats on the tumbling progress!! So exciting!

 

Sounds like a really great time you had

[miss_marissa]

Yay twisting!!!!! Gymnastics camp sounds like the mostest fun ever I want to go!

[raptron]

18 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

Yay twisting!!!!! Gymnastics camp sounds like the mostest fun ever I want to go!

YOU SHOULD COMEEEEE SOMETIME! It's usually the second or third weekend in August. 

 

Though, they have been hosting occasional development camps for the US elites and are jockeying to get selected for the permanent home of the elite training camps. If that happens, I worry they may terminate their relationship with my organization. We got the "don't post your debauchery to social media" lecture and various other tidbits included in the weekend's intro that lead me to wonder whether or not this camp will continue for us too far into the future. Basically, PLAN TO COME SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.

 

Day 2.3

Work's been kind of a blur this week -- especially since I think I was functionally asleep during most of Monday. I've had no idea what day of the week it is.

 

Deadlifts: 2 x 5 x 280#, 2 x 4 x 285#

Close-grip bench press: 

Kneeling db press: 4 x 8 x 30#

DB rows: 4 x 10 x 45#

Hypers: 4 x 25 x 55#

 

My D&D character is a snooty, libertarian Yuan-ti pureblood shadow monk and I rolled greattttt rolls for my stats. All shall be crushed beneath my scaly feet.

 

Jog: 1/3 

Lift: 4/15

Write: 2/10 writing, 2/10 journaling

Job applications: 1/10

[Raxie]

3 hours ago, raptron said:

My D&D character is a snooty, libertarian Yuan-ti pureblood shadow monk

 

Omg this is AMAZING.  I haven't seen anyone playing as the cool monster races from Volo's yet so colour me super intrigued!

[raptron]

Day 2.4

It was a bit slower than I would have liked, but I did get a jog in during lunch time. I was good when there was a breeze, but slacked when there was dead air. The course is pretty much along the ocean, so hopefully it'll be more breezy than not! The weather looks like it's actually going to be pretty nice -- maybe 70 or so when we're racing. 

 

As work wrapped up, I realized I felt pretty beat and as a grown-ass woman who makes my own workout schedule, I reflected on my options. Turns out, it's absolutely not necessary for me, a 30-year-old doing recreational sport for fun, TO HAVE A TWO-A-DAY IF I DON'T WANT TO, hahaha. I instead, picked up some rosé and wrote out on my porch for a while, then chattered away with some folks via text/DMs/slack which can take up a surprising amount of time. I redye'd my hair in the meanwhile and got plenty of sleep. NICE THURSDAY, SELF.

 

Jog: 2/3 

Lift: 4/15

Write: 3/10 writing, 2/10 journaling

Job applications: 2/10

[WhiteGhost]

On 8/14/2019 at 8:54 AM, raptron said:

 

Yes,  this is the picture that inspired me so much

 

Good luck on the upcoming race.  Please do not die! 

[CourtnieMarie]

3 hours ago, raptron said:

NICE THURSDAY, SELF.

very nice indeed!

[KB Girl]

Bit late, but camp sounds like it was brilliant

I hope you survived this weekends race and are relaxing on the beach as we speak! 

[@mu]

10 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Bit late, but camp sounds like it was brilliant

I hope you survived this weekends race and are relaxing on the beach as we speak! 

 

Yessss! How was it?

[raptron]

 

 

Day 2.5

Squats: 4 x 5 x 245#

Paused bench: 4 x 5 x 130# 

Pull-ups: 3, 3, 2

DB lat raises: 3 x 10 x 15#

DB Lunges: 3 x 10 x 35#

 

I journaled and wrote some more! Packed for the Cape and went to bed early-ish. 

 

Day 2.6

Gymnastics practice: double salto passes (most to my butt but two to my feet), kip into toe shoot to high bar, attempted a couple of what would be my new low bar half of my routine all strung together (no success yet), and back handsprings on high beam with all of the mats. It's been a while since I've practiced the beam back handsprings and I need to really make it a focus again from now on. 

 

We drove down after practice and didn't hit too much traffic, had dinner with my friend's family and otherwise had a chill night. We had to get up at 5:30 AM on Sunday for the race, so folks were in bed around 10. I read a book (Severance by Ling Ma) for most of my pre-bed time. 

 

Day 2.7

Race day! The early morning rising was mostly to park and get a shuttle to the start line, where we had like at least another 90 minutes to kill. I got a coffee and wandered around a little. It was an extremely humid morning -- above 90% humidity for the whole race. Luckily, it was mostly cloudy, but the clouds cleared around mile 6 for me and I started to hit a wall of total lack of willpower. My last mile was lots of starts and stops. I had kind of hoped to finish strong, but my mental dialogue swapped to "fuck this, fuck this, this fucking sucks" instead of "woo, we're almost done!" and that's not really the most helpful internal pep talk.

 

Officially my only goal was survival, but unofficially, I was hoping to finish in under 1:10 for the race. And despite all of my internal griping at the end, I did make it! The very last bit before the finish line is all downhill, so I was tearing it up to get FINISHED faster.

(Lol at "sex place.") The look of post-race suffering:

We had a post-race cookout at my friend's family friends' place and it was incredibly low energy because most people there had run the race in the morning. We went back, and I slept from 9 PM to 9 AM, basically.

 

Jog: 3/3 

Lift: 5/15

Write: 4/10 writing, 3/10 journaling

Job applications: 3/10

[sylph]

Hooray for beating double-secret goals