[DaemonCorax]

Ok. First. Workout summary:

 

Friday - I napped and I also rode the trainer and did some belly-conscious core work with the rings in the basement.

Saturday - rode the bike trainer again but just for 25 minutes or so. Felt pretty awful actually. My stomach has been giving me a lot more trouble this time around. I think I'm carrying higher because of the fascia scarring, so if I eat a full meal, I'm more likely to feel sick. Saturday I ate a normal size dinner and this was definitely the case.

This Sunday I spent a bunch of time on the trim painting project in my bathroom. I'm one OCD artist brush round of touch-ups away from being done with the trim and moving on to the stripes and shelves on the back wall. I've been painting the inside of the door a blue-black color to match the trim but the door is the cheap hollow core masonite stuff and the previous paint application was a spray, so it's been hard to get the black to go on evenly. I finally won.

 

This morning:

A 5.8 2x that I've done before

5.10

5.10 pink thing that I feel off last week - fell off again, but got a lot higher

5.10 purple repeat 2x

 

Backsquat 45 5x, 95 5x, 105 5x3, 115 5x

Lots of side lunges, cat/cow, pilates spine mobility stuff

Gorilla rows 44 lb ea hand 7x, 53 lbs ea hand 5x3. I was surprised how good the 53s felt, but wow my left is weaker than my right. lol.

 

Second:

I've been thinking a lot about what recovery from the second c section is going to look like. Last time there was a lot of focus on getting back to climbing. I did a practice deadlift once at the 6 week mark just to see if my body could, but then didn't spend time on weights. In the pursuit of climbing grades and keeping up with my climbing partners (MFH), its easy for me to lose sight of how GOOD lifting makes me feel. I've also been eyeing calisthenics as a way of leveling up....This brings me to a new conclusion: Every exercise has some level of "cheating" built into it. There is a lot of climbing you can do without engaging your core, or playing to whatever strength you have, and it's not until you get to a higher level that such cheating or working around your body's hidden weaknesses really starts holding you back. Weightlifting is the same but less so. As a smaller person (on the lifter scale, 5'7" 138 when in shape and not growing a human), I've always been very core-focused in my compound lifts. I feel like there is LESS cheating your body can do with your core to do the big powerlifts. Then there's calisthenics stuff - all the tiny bits in the shoulder joint and core that get to "hide" behind larger muscle groups in other sports have to come out to play. This is a roundabout way of saying that this summer I'm going to keep using lifting as my foundational movements and see where calisthenics takes me in doing stupid human tricks and leveling up my climbing. Maybe by 2024 I'll be able to do a front lever? Or at least a bunch of toes to bar in a controlled way?

 

Third:

Our protagonist has been picking her way down from the ridge for a couple of week now. The time at high elevation has done her well in spite of her heavy load. Even as she run low on water, melting snow and being happy she doesn't have to carry it, her live cargo squirms and glows. She had a deadline. The talus field on this side is misleading. The rocks are smaller, but if she goes the wrong way the trail will disappear under her feet and leave her cliffed out.  The snow can't be trusted as it calves away from the rock, leaving sharp caverns invisible until you're on top of them. The mental fatigue of way-finding takes its toll. Off in the distance she sees the forest quickly rope into wetlands and give way to the river. But look too long, and she loses the next few miles and has to sight it all over again. Avoid the gully. Don't get cliffed out. That rock will roll if you step on it. Shift the pack. Expect the pack to shift itself. One foot. Then the next. Down the faint trail. No one comes this way by choice. This is the domain of goats and marmots, and marmots don't leave much of a game trail. The precision makes her legs burn with each big step down, and then there's a brief reprieve, and then another.

 

An October hike on South Arapaho this year. I had never seen the glacier so low, but hopefully the snow we're getting is helping.
The alpine marsh (yes really) is the most likely marmot-sighting area on this hike. South Arapaho sits at 13,400 ft, but has a misleading ridge as you approach. My friend and I didn't summit this time because of a very black cloud and looming kid-pickup deadline.

 

Note: Going up to 13k ft while pregnant is something that my doctor has now told me not to do this far into the pregnancy. However, anytime I go over 12k I try to stay very in tune with how I'm feeling, pregnant or not. The exposure, weather risks, and elevation can combine to make a very bad day. BUT I've been up this peak many times and am very comfortable with what this trail was going to dish out. Going up slighting pregnant back in October just meant a little more inward awareness. This was my 2nd 13er that month. (and yes, we did get over 13k even though we didn't complete the ridge this day.) My doc warned me about going above 9k or 10k recently, but I'm at those elevations several times a month. If something feels off, I'll stop. I have no 14ers planned as a super pregnant person!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Elastigirl]

Beautiful hike! Did you see any marmots?

 

What do you do on the rings for core work?

[DaemonCorax]

46 minutes ago, Elastigirl said:

Beautiful hike! Did you see any marmots?

 

What do you do on the rings for core work?

 

No marmots that time!

 

So I do several families of things on the rings:

1. Pilates-style exercises that would normally involve standing on the floor and pushing the bar out with different types of spine mobility and positioning

2. Partial-bodyweight push-ups and shoulder extensions in different directions - this hits like a plank but wobblier

3. Not-pregnant me was doing v-sits and dips. I shall return!

4. Less ab-related: inverted rows at varying heights

5. Holding a ring out sideways and pulling my weight from arm-extended to locked-off while in an inclined side-plank

 

Sorry I don't know names for a lot of these exercises. A lot of them are things that I have adapted either because (1) I have rings in the basement so why not or (2) I don't want my belly to cone unhappily so some of the stuff I was doing previously doesn't feel quite right. A lot of stuff that engages one side of my abs at a time feels safer than crunching or v-sit type motions.

[DaemonCorax]

Today is a rest day and lunch with a friend. I'm sleeping a little better. Still meltingly tired, but my hips are doing better. I also absconded with this heavy wool Peruvian saddle blanket that's been in my kid's room forever. I bought it when I was pregnant last time after loving the colors in a store I frequented for AGES. It was sort of a rug during the baby stage for a while, then it protected his "headboard" while we were in mattress-on-the-floor stage, then just hanging on a chair, but I put it on my half of the bed recently. Its heeeaaavvvy. It's like just the right weight to force my body to relax while still being lighter and less mobile than MFH, lol. Since I put it on the bed a few nights ago I haven't woken up with hammers on my hips, which is either the pressure forcing things to relax and/or my hips aren't moving as much anymore. So I still need more sleep, but the sleep I am getting is better than it was. My half of the bed DOES look like some bohemian toddler pillow fort first thing in the morning, with three pillows, our duvet, and this orange/bright pink saddle blanket with neon green trim. Getting up in the morning is a losing proposition every time.

 

The blanket it question, folded up. I hit the "sort the closet for baby gear" part of nesting this weekend. Can you tell?

[DaemonCorax]

Morning in the gym by myself.

 

Autobelays climbed a new5.8 2x, 5.9, completed the tall 5.10+ pink route that I fell off last week, but then got shutdown by the OTHER pink 5.10 that is still giving me trouble. Finished on a 5.10- with some weird moves sideways. 6 routes.

Incline dumbbell press 20 ea hand 7x, 25 ea 5x3

Curls 20 lb ea 7x3

Split squat (not Bulgarian) with just the 45 lb bar 5x5. This felt more stable than the Bulgarian, and since ye olde hormones are messing with my hips, I'm going to stick with this for a while.

OHP 45 5x 50 5x4 (I found the micro plates!)

 

OHP has been daunting me a lot lately. I think I found the magic sauce today to begin to making improvements again. - the core. I have to consciously think about lifting my lower core and pelvic floor to keep the whole chain nice and stable around my belly. It feels just fine; it's just a new cue.

 

[DaemonCorax]

I worked on site again yesterday, MFH and I had switched schedules, but I got home before he picked up the small one to squeeze in some uninterrupted time on the bike trainer. I rode 50 minutes. It felt ok. I'm not focusing on how much I sweat, just tempo pace and keeping going.

 

Today MFH and I got to climb together, which meant I could push myself and skip the autobelays.

5.9 warm up, 5.10, 5.10, 5.10+, 5.11-. I fell off the 11- at the last bolt, just 3 moves from the top, and got one more move before being completely stuck. It was an easier 11- than some of the weirder 10+s in the gym, but still, it was a rewarding feeling.

Today was deadlift day

Backsquat warm up 45 5x, 105 5x, 115 5x2

Mat work including heel slides that I probably need to stop because I noticed lying on my back wasn't great, but then birddogs and cat/cow were good replacements.

Deadlift 135 5x, 155 5x, 175 3x2

2 sets of 3 reps looks funny, I know, but I really wanted to do more volume at the heavier weight, but I wanted to give my form and heartrate all the time they needed to behave themselves.

 

I need to balance (1) it's nice seeing the number go up and (2) the stronger I am now, the easier recovery will be this summer with (3) gently. gently. I feel SO much better just moving around though. Now if only I didn't have so much heartburn - I seriously think the scarring in the fascia in my lower belly has me carrying higher this time 🤨

[DaemonCorax]

Sunday I went skiing at our local Nordic center with a friend. It's a bit hillier than your average Nordic center, seeing as how its cut into the same side of the mountain as some actual downhill skiing. It's a lot of fun. Definitely got some looks of "there's a pregnant lady going down a hill on skis" toward the end of the morning. I'm really glad she and I had started skiing first thing, because there were some new folks with zero situational awareness hanging out in the middle of the trails and runs after 11 am.... not ideal.

 

Yesterday was a rest day. I was supposed to WFH, but I actually spent half the day getting distracted by projects.... sigh.

This morning I went to the gym

Repeat a 5.8 2x, 5.10-, 5.10, 5.10+

Incline press 25 lb ea 5x3

Bulgarian split squat unweighted 5x5 (interleaved sets with upper body work)

Curls 20 lb ea 5x3

OHP 45 5x, 50 5x4, 55 3x. OHP is still hard, but the first few reps felt good.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to try to get to the gym too. Then Thursday we're going on a little road trip to go ice climbing for Super Bowl weekend with a pile of friends. It's been a yearly trip for a group of us for a while, but COVID cancelled it the past two years. Since we're travelling with the small one I'm assuming we'll have two longish stops in the 7-ish hour drive.

[DaemonCorax]

Haaaah. Just kidding. I did not go to the gym today. But I showered! So that counts for something right?

The small one has been waking up at night to go to the bathroom. Sometimes this is successful and sometimes not. I think something about the disrupted sleep hit a wall for me yesterday late afternoon and I just felt awful. Then I was nauseous when I woke up with him at 11:40 last night. MFH is fighting a cold again, and he got up too, so we're both hurting. Too many things.

 

So of course we're going on a small vacation tomorrow. Man, I really hope it feels like a vacation. I think since its with friends, and since we're splitting meal cooking responsiblities, and MFH is an extrovert and this will mitigate his work stress, the trip WILL be a good thing. But then two days after that, MFH is having carpal tunnel surgery in his right hand, so the hits keep coming. I tired.

 

On the other hand, I present you today with art from one of my favorite places on the internet:

 

 

https://theradavist.com/

 

[DaemonCorax]

Ok, so I misplaced the end date of this challenge a little bit, but that's ok. Moving along.