Tourennatrix goes around the world

[tourennatrix]

 

I have always (or at least, since middle school maybe) been interested in things from all over the globe. I took Spanish and French in high school and college and tried teaching myself Russian and Japanese. Language, music, food, scenery... I've wanted to see it all. But, seeing it all is not always an option. Thankfully with the world getting smaller, it's getting easier to experience different parts of the world without having to travel very far.

 

Due to travel plans, I will be running the challenge for 7 weeks (starting yesterday 9/7 and going to 10/25). I'll be getting back just in time do do a recap (and maybe share some photos). Scoring is going to be a little more fluid by necessity. 

 

Also, I will be putting comments regarding therapy and life *stuff* behind spoiler cuts. I feel comfortable sharing what I choose to put out here, and I feel like being open about this sort of stuff can be helpful to others, so when I feel like sharing, I will. However, I know that's not for everyone (and frankly, I ramble) so putting it behind a spoiler cut will help keep things tidy and less annoying for anyone who's not interested. And that's cool

 

 

Quest 1 : Brazil

 

 

     3+ Body Weight Workouts/week. I established in my last challenge that committing to 4 was not really reasonable. On Monday and Wednesday I will have my Capoeira classes, and on Friday I plan to do core and upper body training, since that will be so integral to my training (I also haven't lost sight of achieving my handstand and pull up). On the weekends or after my runs, I'd like to focus on balance and flexibility, but that will be extra.

 

     During the weeks that I am in France, I will have to play this by ear, but I want to make sure I continue doing some strength work while I'm out there.

 

Scoring : Min - 14, "extra credit" up to 20

A = 3 STR | 2 DEX

 

 

 

Quest 2 : England

 

 (source)

 

     Continuing my goal of running 3 times per week. Eventually maybe I will be able to integrate this into my routine so well that I won't need to keep mentioning it as a goal, but this is not now. The weather is going to start turning soon, and it will be really tempting to stay curled up in bed. I need to maintain my runs, partly because it feels great, and it makes it just a bit easier to get other stuff done in the morning.

 

     During the challenge, I will be facing 2 bosses: a 5k this weekend supporting a charity that provides games and entertainment to our region's children's hospitals, and on September 26 a 5k Glow Run. While in France, I intend to keep running, though again, playing it by ear.

 

Scoring : Min - 14, "extra credit" up to 20

A = 3 STA | 1 DEX

 

 

 

Quest 3 : France

 

 

     Food. This needs to be addressed. I will be tracking calories using My Plate, and trying to stay within my allotted daily weekly calories. From previous experience, staying within my numbers shouldn't be too hard, but sticking with entering them in the first place could be. Amusingly enough, though I've chosen France to represent this part of the challenge, I will not be tracking food while I'm there. Screw that. I'm going to France, I'm going to ENJOY every last bite, whether it's loaded with butter or chocolate or cream puffs. Even if it means undoing any weight loss I might manage before the trip. The point here, aside from achieving weight loss, is to establish the habit and prove to myself that it actually works.

 

**This has been edited slightly. This was originally a daily count goal, but since I have such high burn workouts, particularly later in the evening, I have a hard time eating "enough" on workout days, and I get super hungry on the days after. So I'll be aiming for a net weekly goal of 8400. 

 

Scoring : Max - 54 (1 pt for tracking each day (total 34), 5 pts per week staying within goal (total 20) - Stateside only)

A = 2 CON | 2 WIS

 

 

 

Life Quest: South Pole

 

 

     With how super excited I've been about all of this fitness stuff, I've not really given myself much of a chance to prepare my wares for the winter markets. At the end of the last few winter seasons I've declared that I would spend time throughout the summer working on hats and scarves so there wouldn't be quite as much of a scramble when end of summer rolled around... and I've failed this yet again. So I will be picking up my "second job" again and trying to work a stunning 10 hours per week on the "regular" weeks, and 5 hours per week on those involving travel. Travelling weeks will, however, depend on the quantity of yarn that I am capable of bringing with me. As a carry-over from last challenge, at the beginning and end of a work session, and every ~30 minutes in between, I will do hand/wrist/forearm stretches and strengtheners. 

 

Scoring : Max - 110 (1 pt per half hour)

A = 2 CHA

 

It's a lot of ground to cover. Let's get moving!

 

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

And so it begins. Began. Whatever. Yesterday was a great start! For the curious, this is my rough weekly schedule for as long as I'm stateside. All that pesky white space will hopefully be filled with crochet and not neglecting my household duties.

 

 

So as we see here, Monday was my day for running and capoeira. Since it was Labor Day I didn't have work, so I spent some of that would-be work time cleaning up my atelier which is where I spend most of my crochet time, and now that I don't have a futon in there, my home workouts will be in there as well. Tidiness is a necessity at this point. 

 

Capoeira was about a bajillion percent better with shoes on. Just sayin'. Once the season starts to turn and the humidity drops, I might try going barefoot again (in stages perhaps). But for now, shoes. Also, jeezy creezy that gym is hot. I will be so happy when the humidity drops so that sweating actually does its job again. I may have been concerned for my ability to stay vertical at one point. Good thing you don't stay vertical in capoeira for very long! bad-um-chhh. We practiced meia lua de frente and what I think may have been queixada but I'm horrible at remembering names without seeing the word or writing it down, but I'll get there. It's executed pretty similarly to the meia lua de frente, just with the leg travelling the other direction. We traded kicks and esquivas for a bit before working on au and handstand kick ups. I can't really see the progress (and it's only been a week, and last time I was growing some huge blisters right where I was landing, and..) but I'm getting all excited thinking about how handstands suddenly seem even more in reach.

 

Girafa wisdom of the day: "In the end, it doesn't really matter how pretty your esquiva is. The point is to not get kicked. I would rather lose a game than get kicked"

 

Staying within my calories for the day, according to my app, well... getting enough calories is harder. With a half hour run, a half hour walk, and 1 hour of martial arts, I manged to burn my entire allotted 1200 calories and then some. So, yay I win the points for the day, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this may have something to do with why I felt like I caught the plague today. 

 

Because damn it's a good thing my schedule got switched around so I don't road trip to therapy until Thursday because BOY did I feel like I had the plague today. But I still had to go to work because of annoying stupid reasons. I made up for my calorie deficit by eating an entire box of mac and cheese at lunch time because absolutely nothing else sounded appetizing. I'm really hoping that I have magical healing sleep tonight because tomorrow is another big day, and if I miss this run, my schedule won't allow for another run until Saturday. Also, I'm really itching to have 2 proper capoeira classes in a week. 

 

But yes, I will take care of myself first

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 1 | Q2: 1 | Q3: 2 | LQ: 0

[Mad Hatter]

Subbing!

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

Hey good news, the plague went away overnight woohoo! I rolled out of bed this morning feeling pretty much ready to go on my run. Except that since I worked out so much on Monday and walked around super stiff on Tuesday due to nausea, my whole hips-groin area was super displeased. Also, my shoulder felt even worse. Poop.

 

So I went for my run, did some hip, hamstring, and groin stretches, tried to eat more food than I did on Monday, sat all day at work, and went to Capoeira. Pretty solid day. Still coming in at about 500 of 1200 calories for the day though. If I feel like the plague tomorrow, I'll know that's why. Maybe. Or it might be that I have to be at work at 7. We'll see. I think I need to go eat some cheese or something...

 

Capoeira was super fun today. We had another new student (I guess this is what happens when the semester starts, but I beat the rush and I'm a 'natural' so hah!) so he got to learn the super basics while us more advanced students (seriously by like 3 days) practiced kicks and esquivas. We warmed up with some animal movements (also something I've been interested in since I started looking at the assassins guild), and did a bunch of review with form checks. Learned a few new moves: meia ginga, esquiva diagonal, and what sounded like "meia sao" but I think he may have possibly been saying 'bencao' which makes a lot more sense from a looking-it-up-on-the-internet point of view. At one point he brought out a mat for us to kick, which was fun, but I only got a couple hits at it before he took it away, which was right when I was about to get into the groove and release some of my stress from having a couple stressful days at work. Probably for the best though, we were aiming for pushes rather than strikes. 

 

At the end of class I had Girafa show me a couple things I can try to relieve some of the pain in my shoulder, so I'm going to try that for the next few days, take it easy (dang it!). The rest of my week will probably focus more on flexibility rather than upper body work. He made a joke about me going in to his practice (I had already told him I was broke ass broke) but it was extra funny because he does massage therapy at the same place that my therapist does his work. I don't know if I mentioned that here yet? It was really funny when I discovered it. So I might still see him when I go in tomorrow, though completely on accident. Small world!

 

Q1: Brasil +1

Q2: England +1

Q3: France +2

LQ: South Pole +0

 

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 2 | Q2: 2 | Q3: 3 | LQ: 0

[tourennatrix]

Training log

 

Yesterday was a long morning of being at work too early but getting to go see my therapist. In short, good session, if a little difficult. More info after the cut for anyone interested in parts therapy or the internal family systems

He ended up taking me through a sort of guided power nap to help break through some of the fatigue, and I found a very familiar feeling of how crappy I feel when my self-criticism goes haywire. Apparently that's been picking up bit-by-bit over the last week or month or so. So my homework is to spend a little time with this part that is having its feelings hurt so badly, but on my own terms. The idea of doing this is terrifying because that very familiar feeling is related to the huge pile of feeling-like-crap that I went through last winter. The key here is now I have an awareness of what's going on, and I have a language to approach these parts, so I can observe, offer support and love, try to understand them better, and see if I can find an underlying cause for why certain parts behave the way that they do. The idea of intentionally getting in touch with this hurt and sad part is still terrifying, but at least I have a better idea of how to not let it take hold and run the show...

 

He also said that our current schedule isn't going to work for him for very much longer, so I get to start dancing that tango for three, trying to figure out what is going to work best between his schedule, my schedule, and my supervisor's willingness to be flexible. Ouch. 

 

In other news, I did track my meals yesterday. I may have had a couple servings of candy instead of actual dinner, but I tracked it. I will not be surprised if this gif gets a lot of action over the coming weeks, because emotional eating aurgh:

 

 

Augh, I almost forgot! I also realized (again) yesterday that from time to time I get so caught up on finding the solutions to problems that I completely dismiss treating the symptoms of the problem. In less general and enigmatic terms, I say "my shoulder hurts, I should figure out why my shoulder is hurting and fix that." and will avoid painkillers etc because I want to know if anything I'm doing on my own is making it feel better. Never mind the fact that sometimes, as in this case, treating the symptoms can help fix the problem overall. Ibuprofen and arnica ointment (or theragesic, if you're not into homeopathics) are helpers in that they can reduce pain and swelling, which will allow me to stretch and keep movement in my arm, which might even allow the muscles and stuff to realign themselves of their own accord (or at least make them easier and less painful to massage back into place). Felt like a complete doofus when I realized I'd been neglecting arnica as a treatment. "You idiot, you could have had your shoulder practically fixed by now if you had thought of that sooner!" ....AND see above regarding therapy. Oy. 

 

Today (Friday) is a no-run day, but hopefully I'll have the inclination to do a bit of core and flexy work, and tomorrow is my first 5k of the challenge!

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 2 | Q2: 2 | Q3: 4 | LQ: 0

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

I've actually had time to post, but needed to wait until end of today so I didn't end up with just a dump of how bad Friday was.

 

So, Friday, I'll put behind a cut because therapy is hard

So a little history here, I started seeing my therapist in January when I was in the middle of a really bad season. Like, having anxiety attacks at work and paralyzing myself with depression and indecision when at home. Part of this was seasonal, part of it was situational (money is a huge stressor of mine), but naturally the majority of it was deeper than that. It took a number of weeks to relax and open up to my therapist, and during that time things got a little worse before they got better. There was a time I was afraid for my job because I was being super forward about the whole therapy thing with my boss because he's an awesome guy, but being honest about it, at the time, meant saying things like 'work is a huge stressor for me' - by which I meant and eventually clarified: "work is where my stress expresses itself." 

 

Fast forward a couple more months, work has essentially stopped being a concern. Still difficult some days, but not nearly as bad as it was. Overall, it's been a good summer. Things have felt great. (This being an overarching impression of the summer compared to the winter. I've had rough patches still, but not nearly as bad or frequent as they were).

 

Then during my latest session, we found this part, or more accurately a dynamic between multiple parts, that felt so familiar. In my last post, I wrote about it with a hopeful outlook- "I have knowledge and language to help me understand what's going on now! It won't necessarily be 'easy,' in fact it will be terrifying, but I'm sure I can handle this!" ... That was written before going to work yesterday morning. Once I got to work, it hit me like a brick wall and it was like I was right back in January, almost like I hadn't learned anything. I felt ready to cry at the drop of a hat and had to bury myself in work as best I could so as not to allow myself any time to muse over how bad I felt. The anxiety and melancholy were both dragging me in.

 

It got so bad that I sent my therapist an email that evening, explaining exactly why visiting this part/dynamic is so terrifying. If just getting a glimpse of it on Thursday lead to a Friday that horrible, what would happen if I spent more time with this, trying to figure it out? Once these parts get 'awakened' they don't seem to want to let go, they'll just drag me under, and then I'll be right back where I started. At least, that is what my fear is telling me. Thankfully he responded this morning with some helpful suggestions and insight which should hopefully help tide things over. Change the perspective a bit, if you will. 

 

Regardless, I felt about a bajillion times better this morning anyway. Amazing what a good night's rest can do for you.

 

tl;dr: Friday sucked, today is much much better. God, I feel like I'm preparing to write a memoir or something.

 

Today I helped husband set up at the market and then ran off to the hospital to participate in the 5k. I was there with a friend and let her set the pace, which meant we walked most of the thing, but we ended up still coming in at 47 min. Not too bad, I guess? I probably would have pwnd that thing, given the time on the last 5k I ran was in 80*+ weather, today it was in the 60s! Hopefully the run in 2 weeks will have a little more running, but we'll see...

 

After the run I ended up doing my workout #3 for the week. I did some ginga as a warmup, practiced some kicks and such, then did that as a break during my 2 minute abs routines, modified to include hollow holds. Once my body was good and warm, I ran through a hips & hamstrings yoga sequence. This is probably going to get a lot of use over the next few weeks.

 

Oh and I also managed to work on a bit of crochet (and remembered my hand stretches). Only an hour today, but hoping tomorrow will be excellent so I can do all of the house work, yard work, and crochet work and be on the right track for Monday and the official start of the challenge for everyone else

 

Q1: Brasil +1

Q2: England +1

Q3: France +3

LQ: South Pole +2

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 3 | Q2: 3 | Q3: 6 | LQ: 2

[tourennatrix]

A few adjustments have been made to the original challenge post over the last couple days:

 

I readjusted the STAT allotment because (1) apparently I can't count, and (2) Capoeira will be earning me more DEX than I originally allotted. I mean, 1 DEX? Seriously? This'll be at least 2!

 

I also adjusted my method for scoring my calorie tracking from 2 possible points daily, to a hybrid system. I'll get 1 point daily for tracking food, but instead of aiming for 1200/day, I'll be aiming for 8400/week, so I'll be awarding 5 points at the end of the week for coming in under par. Since I have such high burn days with workouts late in the evening, I end up not getting 'enough' calories on Mon/Weds and starving on Tues/Thurs. I will of course be aiming for high protein and low-processed-foods, but this averaging will make the day to day a little less painful I hope?

 

We'll see how I weigh in tomorrow, but I'm guessing between tracking calories and doing capoeira twice/week, things will be going in the right direction...

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

Sunday and Week 1 wrap up!

 

Yesterday was a little... slow. Which is okay in one sense. I got a bit of housework done, and a bit of yard work (hellooo finger blisters), but I wasted a lot of time on the internet and in front of the tv without also occupying my hands with the crochet. Got about half an hour in and somehow managed to forget to do my stretches in the process. Oy.

 

On the calorie front, holy bajolie. I tracked every day this week (!!!) and came in at 6800/8400 for the week. That was with trying to "overeat" got compensate for crazy ridiculous burns on Mon/Weds. I forgot to do a weigh-in last Monday, but from my previous weigh in... I lost a whopping .2 lbs. Eh I'll get there. On the bright side, I still get all 12 points for the week!

 

So Quests 1-3 are off to a great start, Life Quest is lagging behind a bit, but I think I can push a little more on that this week to get things rolling.

 

(dang it now I'm wishing I'd done a ratatouille theme... *bookmarks for later*)

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 3 | Q2: 3 | Q3: 12 | LQ: 3

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

Another Monday ACED! I am really digging not only having Capoeira to look forward to, but having a set class that I don't want to miss. This may change as the season changes, but for now, this is perfect. 

 

I started the day with a run. I turned on the zombie chases, so towards the end I had 2 chases, which naturally happened right about the time I was about to take a walk break. It was a nice way of pushing myself other than just trying to extend the distance between walk breaks. (In fact, I took the first half of the run a little easy because I knew that the chases were going to hurt later)

 

As for Capoeira, this was an arm-intensive class. Lots of spinning and upside-downing, and stuff that is going to be really hard to fit into my workout space at home. I think if I could get my back yard to be not gross, I would really like to practice outside (I'm also tempted to find a pair of really comfortable gloves and do it out on our side-street and be all "screw social norms, I'm doing shit in the street!" but I doubt I have the actual confidence to do that. Also, I don't know where to find gloves that are both comfortable and thick enough to protect me from the asphalt. 

 

Anywho, we did review where the 2 of us new students tried to kick at each other and evade, which was amusing to say the least. Then we started a bunch of other things. Like a troca de pe, and then breakdowns of various esquiva-to-role movements. The sort of thing that has about 5 steps to complete, and you feel like maybe you've finally got it (while mirroring the instructor) then you try to do it while they're throwing kicks at you can't you can't remember the first step. We then went around the room a bunch of times doing au (cartwheels) and some variations, such as meia au (half cartwheel) and au agulha ("needle" cartwheel, where you land with both feet together)

 

 

 

(Not this)

 

And once again I'm pretty sure I pulled a muscle or something, maybe not so bad, but right along my right shoulderblade it's all angry. Thankfully this time I remembered that muscle relaxers are a thing, so I just slathered some ointment all over my back and I'll be taking some ibuprofen before bed and hopefully I'll be able to breathe in the morning. Yay! So far though, the shoulder pain I was experiencing has backed off a bit, so hopefully that is on its way out. 

 

Aaand... it's past my bedtime already. Early day tomorrow!

 

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 4 | Q2: 4 | Q3: 13 | LQ: 3

[tourennatrix]

Uuuggghhhhh

 

I couldn't get to sleep last night because I was so happy and excited about the things I learned in class

I'm up before the sun because I will be doing a thing that I love in the evening

My body hates everything because it's recovering from learning how to move in ways it's not used to

And despite the soreness I can, in fact, still breathe, so my back and shoulder muscles weren't hurt too much last night

 

 

I'm going to cling on to these silver linings for dear life as I make my way to work this morning, and hopefully this sick feeling (likely/hopefully exhaustion from lack of sleep and exhaustion from repairing muscle) will subside faster than this same feeling I had last Tuesday. Today will be a good day, damn it!

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

Ow?

 

Ok, Ok, backing up- Tuesday was pretty chill (naturally). As far as food is concerned, I got the point for tracking it, but I think I'm going to deduct a point from the end of week bonus because even if I do come in under par, I really didn't keep up with the spirit of things. I also could have had plenty of time to work on crochet stuff if I had been appropriately prepared, so I know better for next week!

 

Yesterday started with an ok run. My legs were questioning things a little bit so I took it easy, varied the number of blocks I would run in a stretch (from 2 to even 4 at one point). Only one zombie chase this time, but I was kindof okay with that. Trying not to overdo it!

 

Class was fun. One of the things I like about training capoeira is that I get to say crazy sentences like "Girafa is out of town for a week or 2 so class is going to be lead by Astronaut" because really who says sentences like that? (this girl!) Anywho, we worked on meia lua de compasso, which (oddly enough) is I think how I hurt my shoulder this time. The beginner's movement is to put all of your weight over your front foot, roll up onto the ball of the foot as you bring up your back leg, and use your hands (instead of any sort of bodily momentum) to pull yourself around in a circle. I was having trouble keeping my weight centered over the foot, keeping my body and my knee in line, keeping on the ball of my foot, you name it. I was really tempted to kick off my shoes and do it in socks so my shoulders didn't have to pull so hard to get me to spin, but as soon as I would be done with the kick and back upright, my feet would have slipped and then I'd end up with some other form of damage on top of everything else

 

I wish I could find videos of the other stuff we've been learning because there's really no way to explain what it is or how awesome it is. Essentially, "breakdowns" are ways to go from one type of esquiva to another without having to stand back up into your ginga. They keep you low to the ground, involve a lot of spinning and twisting and rolling around like a crazy person. Astronaut said one of his goals for us was to learn a bunch of breakdowns so we can do one after another and travel across the room. I'm looking forward to this.

 

I'm also looking forward to my shoulders not freaking out after every class. Seriously. I'm excited that my body is on its way to becoming a BAMF, but this is getting annoying

Today's inventory of DOMS/other ouchies:

Feet: These are doing ok. I think I'm going to start doing my home practices sans shoes starting this week. Our floors are a little rougher than the dance floor at the gym, but the air conditioning keeps things from getting clammy. Should be able to build up a bit of foot armor this way.

Legs: My knees are a little upset, but not too bad. Might delay Friday's run until Saturday but we'll see how things progress.

Back: Doesn't hurt too much now but about an hour after class, I tried to stand up from the couch and it felt like my back muscles were reaching through my ribs and crushing me so I couldn't breathe. THAT was fun! Super hefty dose of theragesic and some ibuprofen and a sleep later, I appear to be able to breathe and move fairly normally.

Shoulders: Top and front of my left shoulder, front of my right shoulder. Mostly ok when I'm not doing anything but if I were to try to recreate some moves from last night, I'm guessing there would be quite a bit of protest.

 

After giving them some time to recover, I'm probably going to work on some much needed strength training for my shoulders for my late-week workout(s), because tweaking my shoulder muscles in class needs to stop XD

 

(still absolutely loving it though)

 

 

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 5 | Q2: 5 | Q3: 15 | LQ: 3

[Mad Hatter]

Your enthusiasm for capoeira makes me so happy!

I'm a bit worried about your shoulder and amount of pain though. Pain killers and not being able to breathe is definitely a sign of taking things too quickly. Pushing yourself is good, pushing yourself so hard you have to take a break from capoeira is bad!

[tourennatrix]

Thankfully the back pain was pretty short lived, and also thankfully I have until monday to recover. I may request to primarily work on kicks next week and do more "standard" upper body training as my body allows. It'll take courage to take a step back and do something different from the rest of the class (stupid social anxiety) but if it helps me not be completely debilitated for the next day or so... might be worth it [emoji14]

Sent from my SCH-R890 using Tapatalk

[Mad Hatter]

Sounds good. And it won't last forever, maybe you could do smaller amounts of the shoulder intensive stuff to condition for it.

[tourennatrix]

Yeah I'm liking that train of thoight [emoji14]

Also FWIW today without any painkillers or anything it just feels mostly like regular DOMS. I even did some (super careful) push ups against the wall with hands in varying positions to test mobility and loadbearing..ness... and it was mostly ok! Still going to take it easy but I'm definitely glad on multiple levels that I don't hurt as much as I did at bedtime [emoji14]

Sent from my SCH-R890 using Tapatalk

[tourennatrix]

The one in which I ramble....

 

I think work stress is starting to get to me again. I recognized a familiar and unsettling feeling again today, that it's starting to feel an awful lot like the level of stress and discomfort that settled in about this time last year. Thankfully this wasn't nearly as drastic as the *ahem* episode I had last Friday, but it was still enough to make me have to take a step back, take a few breaths, and remind myself that just because work is a little hectic and outside is a little dreary does not mean that I'm going to end up bawling my eyes out every evening for the next 6 months. 

 

Anyway, part of this is reminding me that I really need to pack myself conscious snacks for work. I typically end up having a protein bar and yogurt (if I'm good) or crackers (if I'm very, very bad) for breakfast, but more and more lately I've been leaning towards the crackers, and then going through way more than I should be and snacking constantly all day long. At least if I brought something like cashews the only real guilt I would have would be how darn expensive they are  

 

Of course the real solution here is to get over this emotional hump and learn to control my portions again. This seems to be a pretty cyclical thing for me, and may be signifying that I'm going to have a fun little visitor in the next week or so, OR I could just be super stressed. Only time will tell!

 

So... basically, If I do miraculously end up staying under par for calories for the week, I will be super happy that I've stuck with that tedious task for a whole 2 weeks (woohoo!) but I will probably not award any of my end of week bonuses because I really haven't been trying. Like at all. Seriously you don't know how many crackers I've been through.

 

IN OTHER NEWS

 

Yesterday was designated rest day, and this morning I was very adamantly staying in bed for as long as I could. I didn't sleep all that great, but knew I still needed to catch up on sleep from all the exertion earlier in the week, so sleep trumped running. By the time I got home this evening it was getting dark and it had been fairly stormy all day so I wasn't really comfortable trying for a run (and I also figured my knees could use a little bit more of a break). If I can find the time tomorrow I'd love to try for a run after the market, but I doubt I'll make it, since we've got so much planned. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze out time for a short late-week workout.

 

ALSO

 

Astronaut found me on facebook (which I hardly ever use so I'm hoping he doesn't think that that's going to be the best way to make any big or urgent announcements about class or anything) and he invited me to an event tonight and tomorrow- one of our higher-class bars is going out of business (happens once every few years around here, the town demands high class establishments then doesn't patronize them because they're too expensive. oyf) and he is DJing! I'm not a fan of going to bars (or new places, or really anywhere) alone, so if Husband gets done with his evening shenanigans at a convenient time we may go over and check it out. 

 

Ok my parantheticals have gone a little out of control, I think it's time to go wash some dishes and decide how the rest of the night is going to pan out. Maybe eat some dinner so I have something other than goldfish (crackers) swimming in my tumbly...

[tourennatrix]

Training Log (ish)

 

Ok, I feel kindof like a butt today. I apparently consumed almost all of my daily calories by lunch time, didn't do a whole lot for most of the rest of the day. I think I'm definitely hitting that pms point.

 

I did attempt a run in the evening because the weather was beautiful and I wanted to stop by the park to do some (gentle) shoulder strengtheners, but my bluetooth headphones died about half way in... so I decided to not really push the run. I figure my knees would thank me later anyway. I did manage 2 stretches of five blocks which is a bit more than usual. For the exercises, I pulled from GMB's  Unbreakable Shoulders video- I hung from the monkeybars, I did some side-to-side walking plank and crab walks. I also threw in a few inclined push ups and inverted rows just to test things out, but again, didn't push too hard. For the most part, this all felt good. I tried not to do too much, then went home and did some stretching.

 

And about a half hour later that same muscle in my back said "Ohai you don't need to be able to move, right? You're good where you are!" It didn't hurt nearly as bad as last time, just prompted me to do more stretching. (Also there was some milder twinging in the same problem areas of my shoulder). I'm starting to think that the lions share of this problem is more that I sit at a desk all day with horrible posture, rather than just going from zero activity to "all the shoulder work!!" I mean, last challenge I was doing quite a bit of upper body/working towards handstands training. This is just... different. And the stress at work I think has been making my posture worse (I swear this is a thing.) 

 

I think I may be contacting my aunt tomorrow to see if she still knows all of the physical therapy things (she used to be a PT but hasn't been for years). 

 

Honestly, one of the things that makes me hesitant to reach out to a PT (aside from me having really crummy insurance and not a lot of spare cash lying around, also I'm super duper busy) is that I'm afraid that they'll just end up telling me to stop what I'm doing. I know, I know, a good PT should be able to show me ways of making myself stronger without completely taking me out of the sport, but it's a fear. And for the size of hospital and community we have, quite possibly a legitimate fear. I know my sister seemed to have good luck with her doctor so I'll probably get some pointers from her but... eeehhhhh doctors make me nervous  (and broke)

 

Gosh Freaking Darn It.

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 6 | Q2: 5.5 | Q3: 18 | LQ: 3

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

Ayup, seasonal malaise appears to be rearing its ugly head at me. A shame, too, because it's been so nice out these last few days! I spent a solid hour and a half laying awake in bed this morning unable to convince myself to do anything. Well that sucked... Thankfully stuff like that is few and far between (I typically seem to have more active ways of locking up and doing nothing with my day, if that makes any sense. I'm trying to not be too concerned (because that's a vicious spiral I don't want to go down) and taking plenty of notes to take to my appointment on... Thursday. Gosh, my schedule keeps changing around it's a miracle I haven't missed an appointment or gone into work early on the wrong day. Oy.

 

Anyway, for most of this morning I was trying to very slowly dig myself out of the mental pit I was in (mostly financial stress), and after lunch Husband and I did some yard work. In the evening I finally got my laptop moved to my craft room and sat down to watch some Fringe and crochet up a few hats. Finally some progress! And I remembered to stretch before, during, and after.

 

See... I'm not a complete waste of space when I get into a funk like this!

 

As far as food goes, I totally didn't make it under par for the week. Blame the cider, blame the pms, blame the stress at work, whatever. It was a rough week for food consumption. Hopefully tomorrow gets me back on track. But at least I tracked it all even when I really really didn't want to.

 

Tomorrow's agenda includes getting up earlyish, take measurements (though if I'm feeling depressed I might just skip this part) run if my limbs feel up for it, call the PT office, work (ugh), and capoeira (but with only the most basic of esquivas). Maybe I can convince husband to give me a back rub at lunch time to get things to loosen up just a tad...

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 6 | Q2: 5.5 | Q3: 19 | LQ: 8

[tourennatrix]

And here we have this week's tentative schedule. Notice all the CATS.... My sister is going out of town for the week so I get to fit in cat feeding and socializing into my already @_@ worthy schedule. I called and got an appointment with a PT for tomorrow, so that'll be a good start to the day.... I  hope. Today's run was skipped because the dog kept making gak noises on the stairs while I was trying to sleep, so I kept having to get up and inspect. Its been a long morning and I've only been up for an hour

 

[tourennatrix]

Just dropping in for a moment before work to say: PT achieved! Much less frightening than my crazy little brain was trying to convince me it would be. More in a full update later

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

Goodness, I can't even remember what day it is. I had this problem for about 6 months once I started going to therapy in the middle of the week, for some reason, over half of the week was Friday. So weird. Over the last few weeks, my session has bounced around to different days (since capoeira took my normal therapy spot) and I've been ultra clueless as to what day it is. Gracious.

 

Anywho. So. Monday I skipped running because sleep was more important. I almost wasn't sure I was going to go to class in the evening because I was feeling exhausted, but my sister fed me an apple after work and by the time I got to the gym I was mostly better. It ended up being just me and Astronaut so I couldn't very well back out at that point. I told him that I wanted to avoid putting pressure on my shoulders at all, so we practiced a different kind of evasion and traded kicks. By the end of the night we were going pretty free-form and not announcing when the kicks were happening and going from kick to dodge right back to kick in a really cool flow. It took a while to get to that point, but it was a lot of fun! 

 

So naturally when I woke up this morning to go to my physical therapy appointment, I had no pain. Zero. Nothing. Go figure. Of course I went anyway because even if whatever was hurting has actually had enough time to heal, I don't want to hurt it again. And it was good. He asked plenty of questions and seemed really impressed with my goals, and not condescending about them at all (I don't know why I would expect him to be other than maybe that's just how I perceive people of authority to treat me. Oh god. *takes notes for therapy* MOVING ON....). He had me demonstrate my range of motion (surprisingly good, compared to my other joints...), did a thing to test my strength at resisting forces on my arms from different angles (and to see if any of them triggered the pain) and passed with flying colors on all except for the medial & lateral rotations. Which are pretty key in keeping stable with inversions. Apparently. Those failed hardcore. I got an ultrasound massage on my shoulder (holy bajeezus that felt good) and he dug into my trapezius (which usually cant get massaged by anything without extreme pain because I carry all of my stress in my shoulders, but it just felt like butter).

 

And of course he gave me some PT exercises to do and a nice blue resistance band to take home. One of the exercises was to take an exercise ball, pin it to the wall, and do wall push ups. Go-go shoulder stability training! I did the whole sequence when i got home from work today and those were no joke! They make them look so easy but after doing 30 reps of each exercise damn if my arms weren't jelly.

 

And no, it is not lost on me that my push ups are going backwards... 3 sessions ago I was doing regular push ups, last challenge I went to knee push ups so I could get the full range of movement (where I strained the muscle that got me here) and now I'm doing (albeit interesting) wall push ups. Oy. At least ball-to-the-wall push ups are fun

 

So basically it's looking like the muscle that was strained is now mostly not strained any more, and I've got some exercises to help the rotation, stability, and a bit for my back to balance things out. And he's ok with me going to class and even using my arms again as long as I pay attention and stop if anything hurts. I go back on Friday.

 

Oh, I also got taped up! Just like my feet being ripped to shreds by capoeira, I am taking this as an assassin badge of honor. Because seriously. BAMF.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow will be interesting... I'm going to do my run on my sisters treadmill to keep her cats company (after fighting through an army of amazon tree spiders she keeps as a home defense system in her front lawn) (this may be an exaggeration) (Or is it?) and then capoeira class in the evening, testing the movements little by little and hopefully listening when it says 'heystopthat'. The tape should be a bit of a reminder at least. 

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 7 | Q2: 5.5 | Q3: 21 | LQ: 8

[tourennatrix]

Training Log

 

"Kaplah!" I say! My shoulder may, in fact, be healed! My shoulder is still taped up, but after I got warmed up, I didn't have much restriction of my range of movement. And what's better, none of the movements aggravated the strained muscle on the front of the shoulder. A couple times I felt a little something on the tops of my shoulders, but nothing that lingered (and PT said that has more to do with how tight my traps are rather than anything else. Not that it's unimportant, just... different). I am so happy about how class went today!

 

We basically did a lot of review, which is god, because you can only learn new things so much without solidifying the stuff that comes before it. I'm learning that my shoes have a rediculous amount of grip on the dance floor, which is fine until you get into the meia lua de compasso, in which I have to get on the ball of one foot and use my arms to push myself in a circle. I might be seeking out another form of foot protection soon...

 

The last thing Astronaut tried to get me to do in class was a way to kick at the opponent's leg from a baited-blocking position. I didn't catch the name, except it's got something to do with "de rins" and I am seriously going to freak out when "de rins" is ever brought out because it's stuff that looks like this:

 

(source)

 

It basically consists of digging your elbow into your abs and leaning into it, then having enough strength to allow one or both of your legs to leave the ground. There's a handstand-ish one, there's a round kick that includes this... it's crazy. And it was hilarious how much I could not do it. But at the same time, I'm pretty sure I didn't mess up my shoulder trying I'll know more tomorrow! I'll be taking things slowly and working my way through a couple push up progressions as PT suggests before dipping into the style of push ups you use to get into these suckers. 

 

In other news, I finished the jog I started earlier this week. Nothing terribly special, but I at least gave it a shot. Didn't last too long because I neglected to turn on any air flow in my sister's workout room before I got on the treadmill, but I'm  pretty sure I ran for the better part of a mile with only a short walking break in less than 12 minutes? Damn better than what I could do in middle school. I'll be doing another 5k this Saturday evening (Ooo a Glow Run!) with a friend, which will be loads of fun. 

 

Tomorrow is going to be my crazy early day for the week so hopefully I'll be able to pass out fairly quickly tonight!

 

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 8 | Q2: 6 | Q3: 22 | LQ: 8

[Mad Hatter]

I'm so glad your shoulder's feeling better and that it wasn't injured. But better safe than sorry. Your classes sound awesome as always.

[tourennatrix]

Training Log...ish

 

Yesterday was therapy day which meant getting up way too early for work and being super tired for my session, but my therapist is adamant that that is ok, in part because some of the best work we've done has been through "guided power naps." I'd still prefer to be less tired, but it's at least comforting to know that he doesn't feel like I'm not taking it seriously or anything.

 

Today I went in to PT for my follow-up. They gave me a few more exercises to try out, gave me another little massage, and sent me on my way. Oh, and they offered to re-tape my shoulder which I agreed to without thinking properly first (see above about being tired) when they had made a comment about 15 minutes prior about how my skin didn't like the adhesive. I mean, I had ripped off the previous tape last night... and they could still see in the morning that my skin wasn't too pleased about the adhesive... and then I say "Sure! Slap another one on, it'll be great at reminding me to not slouch too much!" and by the time I got home I wanted to rip it off again. I have the smarts in the early morning, let me tell you what. That thing came off after work. My poor skin

 

And that pretty much covers it for excitement in the last couple days. No workout today (just... wrong mood for it I guess) except for the PT stuff this morning, so hopefully workout tomorrow afternoon and 5k in the evening. 

 

An aside about Winter Blues and the preceding season:

 

I did want to share a little nugget from therapy that I had rolling around in my head today regarding the "Winter Blues." I shared with him that I've been having a few rough days lately (last weekend particularly) and part of what makes them so bad, aside from them jut being crummy, is that my system is picking up patterns and saying "Uh oh... This stressful day at work is an awful lot like how stressful work was this time last year. And if I'm having bad days just like last year now, imagine how bad they're going to be once we're in the thick of winter!" He responded with a comment that in some cases (probably more frequently than not) people who tend to get the "winter blues" will get to autumn and start "bracing" for how bad they expect winter to be. I nodded understandingly and filed that away to process later, because it makes sense, especially for people such as myself who tend to obsess over things. In the parlance of my sessions, "it felt true"

 

And this morning when I was sitting on my break at work, out in my car with the windows down, something clicked. I LIKE autumn. The colors are beautiful, the weather is refreshing. The air is comfortable to breathe (Not too muggy and not too frozen). The bugs are dying out for the year. It's time for learning (I generally liked going to school, and rather miss it since I graduated). Quite frankly, autumn is my favorite season. Has been since forever, still is now.

 

Like hell am I going to waste away my favorite season "bracing" myself for a bout of winter depression. A depression that, honestly, might not be as bad as my system would have me believe. 

 

 

Now here's the part where I take a baby step back. In declaring this, I in no way intend to say that I am just going to magically not feel bad for the rest of the fall, nor do I intend to say that it's just that easy. Nope. In fact, if I were to just somehow "refuse to be sad" it would probably just deepen whatever underlying issue is there and make matters worse.

 

So instead of treating this statement as a "denial" to the pain of bracing for winter, I'm shifting the emphasis a bit (and this is where things get a little weird sounding because therapy sounds a little weird sometimes). I'm not going to waste wast my autumn. I'm going to... invite the icky feeling. Not like I'm saying "ok let's freak out about how bad winter is going to be," but acknowledge that this feeling does have a purpose and not chase it away. When it gets intense, I can let it run its course and then ponder on it later. The ultimate goal here (in parts work) is to make friends with this part that likes to freak out about stuff, assure it that it doesn't need to freak out quite so much, and then that part can use its energies to bloom into something... different. Don't know what it is until it happens, from what I hear it's pretty magical, and generally a lot better than freaking out about things left and right

 

Again, I'm making it sound easy and it won't be. But I think maybe by making this distinction I can take a moment to enjoy the beauty this season.

 

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 8 | Q2: 6 | Q3: 24 | LQ: 8

[tourennatrix]

Training Log & Week Review

 

What. A. Week. Omigawd.

 

Yesterday started with too damn early and ended with a little later than I'd like. But we had a good market, and in the afternoon I managed to be... a little productive. I had one of those moments of "ok I've got the whoooole afternoon ahead of me, and I want to do a workout and I want to do some housecleaning. But I don't know which to start with. And I don't know what I want to do for a workout and I have no idea where to start for housecleaning." It kindof sucked, but I managed to clear some stuff out of my workshop/exercise room. Not enough to really make more space, but enough to at least reduce a little clutter and vacuum a bit more of the floor. Progress is progress. I managed to sort of piece together a workout over the course of the afternoon, did a bit of self-led yoga, and half-heartedly prepared for the 5k in the afternoon. 

 

I almost didn't go (and was having some difficulty with finding a comfortable exercise to do) because my legs were ridiculously crampy yesterday. Like... I would squat, stand up, and my muscles felt like they were trying to crush my shin bones. Eugh. Eventually I decided to track down my magnesium supplements and a coconut water, and did some yoga stretches to try to ease it out.

 

By the time we made it to the 5k, and during the run, my legs didn't give me any trouble, and I'm pretty sure it was bedtime before I started feeling them act up again, but at least I held them at bay for a while. I didn't have too much problem with them today (though I really didn't move a whole lot) but tomorrow I'm going to make sure I get my electrolytes in. I'm pretty sure that was a pretty big factor because this past week I didn't get nearly as many as the previous few weeks.

 

Today was a work day. Sort of. I spent about 6 hours crocheting. Some of the work I did ended up needing to be scrapped, but otherwise it was fairly productive. I didn't stretch as much as I should have, but I did stop a few times to work on something else. I do have a little more adulting to do before bed (augh, laundry, why are you so difficult) but otherwise, not so bad.

 

As for a week in review...

 

BWW & Capoeira went more or less as scheduled, though the 3rd session was a little difficult. I did zero shoulder work on Monday's class, felt better, did loads of shoulder work on Wednesday's class, still felt ok. I'll still be doing some of the PT exercises for a bit I think because I really don't want to re-injure myself, but things are looking good.

 

Running took a hit this week with only half a run during the week, and the 5k barely counted. I'm blaming this on muscle cramps and being too damn busy this week.

 

Food... is a bit tricky. I ended up being over par for the week, but not by too much. I think I'm over my uncontrollable eating phase so I should be able to regulate again.

 

Crochet... only happened today. Ideally I would be doing a little bit here and there throughout the week, but this is pretty much what I expected from the start, that most of my crochet work would be done on Saturday and/or Sunday. Ah well. I'll have plenty of time to work on the plane as well. Gracious.

 

Thoughts for the coming week:

 

Must remember to keep listening to shoulders in class. It was easy enough this last week to insist on doing certain things in class because it was just me and Astronaut. But Girafa and maybe (hopefully) the other student will be back tomorrow, so they'll be pushing to do more and I'll have to be extra careful to listen and speak up if something starts to hurt.

 

Also I'm starting what I'm calling "capoeira feet training" and taking really short walks barefoot in the neighborhood. With any luck that will help me transition back out of shoes for class, because shoes are proving to be super annoying for spinning kicks. 

 

For my late-week or off-days, I really need to start incorporating flexibility training more, because that is going to be extremely valuable as I progress in class.

 

Onwards!

 

 

**Cumulative Scoring**

Q1: 9 | Q2: 7 | Q3: 26 | LQ: 20