Elennare Keeps Training with the Space Marines

[Elennare]

Edit:  Added theme coolness

 

 

Last challenge went ok. Not super well, but not terrible, especially when you consider how much of it either I or someone in my family was sick for. It did point out to me how much I need to work on improving my sleep, though! Which brings me to this challenge :

I'm a Space Marine!

 

I moved from Aspirant to Neophyte in February, and very soon (most likely in the middle of May), I will get promoted to full Battle Brother.  Assuming I can impress the Sergeants enough, that is (there's 4 of them thinking about taking me for their squads).

 

If I'm going to impress anyone, though, I've got to make sure I keep up my training.  So.  On to my challenge goals!

 

Goal the first:  A space marine can go for two weeks without sleeping, but we also know we need to take good care of ourselves when we're not out on a mission.  If I want to do well at the trials, I need to make sure I'm well rested.  So, I will get to bed by 9:30 every night I don't have derby. Get to bed ASAP every derby night.

 

Goal the second: Train for battle. I have an evaluation of my progress soon, and a real mission shortly thereafter. After that brush with the Nurgle cultists, I really need to spend more time training.  Get to practice! 6 practices/scrimmages over the course of the challenge. Also, keep working with the trainer. 4 workouts over the course of the challenge.

 

Goal the third: The endurance of a space marine is legendary.  Mine...is not.  This is unacceptable. Get a minimum of 13k steps /steps equivalent exercise per day. Aim to have at least 9k of that be from walking/running, and try to go run intervals twice a week. Bonus for meeting this goal through the end of June: $100 gift card (thanks employer!).

 

 

(To explain in real-world words what I've got going on, last February I passed evals for my roller derby league to become eligible to be drafted onto one of our home teams (we have 4).  They decided to hold off on the draft until after the next evals.  Which are on May 14th.  On June 17th, we are starting our season, and I will be skating in my first real bout.  I am equal parts excited and terrified.  Also, my place of employment does a yearly exercise challenge that runs for 2 months, which will be starting on May 1.  We can win gift cards if we meet the goal.  There are 3 levels, and I want to get the top one.)

 

Handy dandy progress tracker:

To bed on time: 0/28

Practices: 0/6

Trainer Workouts: 0/4

Step goal met: 0/28

Times gone running: 0

 

Also, I highly doubt I need to say this here, so apologies in advance if it seems rude (and in that case, it's almost certainly not directed at you), but I've run into too many ass-hats, both in person and on-line to risk not saying it.  If you have an issue with the idea of female space marines, I don't want to hear about it.  I'm not going to discuss it, period.  Go somewhere else.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Welcome to the Ranger Corps. This looks like a great challenge with good goals.

[Elastigirl]

Very fun challenge and theme! Very cool that you are prepping for your first roller derby.

[suzyQlou]

All I can say right now is that I want to work for your employer!  $100 reward for healthy goals.  That is awesome!

 

Congrats on passing the roller derby evals.  Do you have to re-eval in May before the draft?  Or are you just on pins and needles until the draft?  Either way, I'm sending good vibes!

[Elennare]

Thanks.

 

I also like getting $100 for walking.   One of the few perks they haven't taken away from us. I'm not entirely happy with employer, but I definitely won't complain about that.

 

I do have to do evals again. Everyone who's not on a team does it every 3 months. At this point it's much more of a measure of progress and a chance to get comments on how I'm doing from someone who is only watching me, then needing to worry about "moving up." I'm not really worried about it.

[Elennare]

Week 1 is starting off with an added unexpected challenge. It's been super rainy, and the result of that is apparently our septic tank got flooded. This manifested by it spitting a puddle of raw sewage into our back yard in the middle of my shower. So now we pretty much can't use any water in our house until it dries out and the water level goes back down.

 

So, lots of buying food (can't wash dishes), showering at the Y, and doing laundry at my mom's house in our future. Glad I didn't do a food goal this challenge.

 

Did at least get my trainer workout done yesterday, and lifted more on deadlift than I did last time. And practice tonight is earlier than normal and in a different spot that happens to be right next to the Y.

[Elennare]

Day 1 update:

 

Steps walked :6284. Total steps after adding in practice: 34604. Didn't get as many straight walking as I would have liked, but goal definitely met.

 

Going to bed as soon as I finish posting this, so that goal is met, too.

 

Which brings the tracker to:

To bed on time: 1/28

Practices: 1/6

Trainer Workouts: 0/4

Step goal met: 1/28

Times gone running: 0

 

[Elennare]

Update from last night (not posted then so I could get to bed sooner):

 

To bed on time: 2/28

Practices: 2/6

Trainer Workouts: 0/4

Step goal met: 2/28

Times gone running: 0

 

Had a pretty good scrimmage, given my lack of skating recently and the fact that the last scrimmage I played in was with WFTDA rules.  I almost felt like I remembered what I was doing by the end of it.  Next week should be much better.  Got to bed as quickly as I could once I got home.

 

Was a little light on straight walking steps again (6766), but more than the previous day and goal more than met once practice is converted over (35086 total).

[Elennare]

On Saturday, my trainer said he was thinking 115 would be a good goal weight for me.  I thought that sounded absurdly low, but he thought it was reasonable based on my height (and I'm assuming BMI, because looking at the weight ranges for BMI for my height that would be on the lower end of "healthy.").  Well, I have been thinking about it, and I did a little math.  Granted, this is assuming my bathroom scale gives a reasonably accurate measure of body fat, but based on those picture "scales" one can find, I think it's close.

 

My current weight is 153, with a bf% of 35.  That gives me 100lbs of lean mass.  Assuming I do not gain any muscle while I am reducing my bf% (highly unlikely), 115lbs would put me at 13% body fat.  Google says for women 10-12% is essential, 14-20 is the "athlete" range, 21-24 is "fitness" and 25-30 is "acceptable."  Since I am planning to gain muscle, I don't think 115 is a good goal weight for me at all.  Not that he's really doing anything with nutrition with me, but I have a feeling he hasn't realized how low of a body fat percentage that weight would be for me.  Think I'm going to have another talk with him about it next time we work out.  I've been thinking 125 is the very bottom weight I'd want to shoot for (if that was what I was really trying to accomplish), and that would be 20% body fat, if I gained no muscle in the process.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, Elennare said:

On Saturday, my trainer said he was thinking 115 would be a good goal weight for me.

You misspelled "Former Trainer"

1 hour ago, Elennare said:

My current weight is 153, with a bf% of 35.  That gives me 100lbs of lean mass.  Assuming I do not gain any muscle while I am reducing my bf% (highly unlikely), 115lbs would put me at 13% body fat.  Google says for women 10-12% is essential, 14-20 is the "athlete" range, 21-24 is "fitness" and 25-30 is "acceptable."  Since I am planning to gain muscle, I don't think 115 is a good goal weight for me at all.  Not that he's really doing anything with nutrition with me, but I have a feeling he hasn't realized how low of a body fat percentage that weight would be for me.  Think I'm going to have another talk with him about it next time we work out.  I've been thinking 125 is the very bottom weight I'd want to shoot for (if that was what I was really trying to accomplish), and that would be 20% body fat, if I gained no muscle in the process.

I do hereby declare you know more about this issue than your trainer. Either ditch him or only use him for the workout stuff.

[suzyQlou]

On 4/24/2017 at 0:51 AM, Elennare said:

Total steps after adding in practice: 34604.

Holy Cow!  You really rack 'em up on the rink.  That is incredible.

 

2 hours ago, Elennare said:

I've been thinking 125 is the very bottom weight I'd want to shoot for (if that was what I was really trying to accomplish),

It sounds like you are trying to accomplish goals that are better than a specific weight goal.  Hope the trainer is able to focus on the important stuff.

[Elennare]

My post may not have been clear enough. He's in no way pushing that on me, and hasn't given me any nutrition advice. He just kind of mentioned that that was what he'd put as the goal in his progress tracking program and we'd see what happened. He is giving me really good workouts focused on my goal of improving my performance in derby (and I am starting to see results in that). He's been doing sport-specific kind of stuff for a while now but I think the fat-loss stuff is new to him. He's got a shiny new degree in exercise science (with a focus on human performance and the intent of getting a Masters in physical therapy in a few years), but I don't know how much it covered about nutrition and such. I do think he'd be open to reconsidering the "goal" once he realizes what the reality of it would be.

 

Also, he's my little brother and is training me for free, so I don't think I can beat that. ☺️

[Elennare]

4 hours ago, suzyQlou said:

Holy Cow!  You really rack 'em up on the rink.  That is incredible.

Yeah, it's worth quite a lot of steps! I'm technically using the conversion for "in-line skating" rather than roller skating, but the only reason I can think of they would be different is "roller skating" is assuming you're just messing around at open skate at a rink while "in-line skating" assumes you're skating outside and dealing with hills and such and just working harder. Because I've done both types, and the arrangement of the wheels does not make that much of a difference in the amount of work it takes to skate. If anything, putting them all in a line and making them skinnier makes it easier! But derby is WAY more exercise than just skating around at open skate so I do not feel the least bit bad using the higher number.

[Elennare]

So many posts in a row. If I was thinking, I would have combined some of these into one post. Oh well.

 

Update for today:

To bed on time: 3/28

Practices: 2/6

Trainer Workouts: 0/4

Step goal met: 3/28

Times gone running: 0

Got (14726) steps today. I think that may be a little low, though. I took the boys to a trampoline park this evening, and the steps conversion chart doesn't have trampolining on there, so I just left my tracker on while I jumped for half an hour. I did get more than 9k from just walking today, thanks to a visit to the factory at work today.

[Elastigirl]

Sorry about the septic. Is it drying out a bit?  How fun that you were able to trampoline with your boys, woot for being fit enough for that.

 

How tall are you? I agree on 5 pounds being a low number. I'm 5'`" and got down to 115, about 22% BF. 13% is super low, seems like even if you got there it would be hard to maintain

[suzyQlou]

9 hours ago, Elennare said:

My post may not have been clear enough. He's in no way pushing that on me, and hasn't given me any nutrition advice. He just kind of mentioned that that was what he'd put as the goal in his progress tracking program and we'd see what happened. He is giving me really good workouts focused on my goal of improving my performance in derby (and I am starting to see results in that). He's been doing sport-specific kind of stuff for a while now but I think the fat-loss stuff is new to him. He's got a shiny new degree in exercise science (with a focus on human performance and the intent of getting a Masters in physical therapy in a few years), but I don't know how much it covered about nutrition and such. I do think he'd be open to reconsidering the "goal" once he realizes what the reality of it would be.

 

Also, he's my little brother and is training me for free, so I don't think I can beat that. ☺️

Oh, wow!  What a terrific opportunity for both you and your little brother.  You get good exercise advise, and he gets to practice his skills on you.

 

Trampoline park sounds fun, too!  My boys love them.  I have bounced occasionally...but I only like it if the crowds are very small.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

10 hours ago, Elennare said:

Also, he's my little brother and is training me for free, so I don't think I can beat that. ☺️

No, you can't beat free training, but if he's your little brother you are allowed to beat him. A noogie and a wedgie should just about even the two of you up.  

[Elennare]

10 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Sorry about the septic. Is it drying out a bit?  How fun that you were able to trampoline with your boys, woot for being fit enough for that.

 

How tall are you? I agree on 5 pounds being a low number. I'm 5'`" and got down to 115, about 22% BF. 13% is super low, seems like even if you got there it would be hard to maintain

 

Alas, not really drying out.  We got a slight reprieve, but it's back to raining again today.  I think it's going to start drying out a little bit after the weekend.  Fingers crossed.

 

I'm 5'4".  Yeah, even if I could get to 13% BF, I know it wouldn't be sustainable, so I have no intention of ever trying for that.  Maybe 20%, but I don't think I want to try to go lower than that.

 

1 hour ago, suzyQlou said:

Oh, wow!  What a terrific opportunity for both you and your little brother.  You get good exercise advise, and he gets to practice his skills on you.

 

Trampoline park sounds fun, too!  My boys love them.  I have bounced occasionally...but I only like it if the crowds are very small.

 

It was a lot of fun.  I got closer to landing a front handspring on their strip trampoline than I have in a while.  And going into the foam pit, I was doing front tucks that I'm pretty sure I could have landed standing up on a mat.  Not that I could come close to doing either w/o the trampoline help, but, still fun.   It was also fun playing bouncy dodge ball against the boys.

 

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

No, you can't beat free training, but if he's your little brother you are allowed to beat him. A noogie and a wedgie should just about even the two of you up.  

 

Lol.

[Elastigirl]

How's your poor septic doing today? Not sure what it's doing where you are, but here it is dumping rain super hard. I thought of you and your poor septic. 

[Elennare]

I spent a good portion of the evening (and who knows how much of the night) pouring rain on us.  So, no drying out happened.  Today looks to be at least driER...  But then it's supposed to get all rainy again, so who knows?

 

Update from yesterday:

Did not go as planned, is the short version.  Didn't get much opportunity to get up from my desk, so I only got 5456 steps.  Was going to take the boys swimming in the evening (and thus complete the ranger feat for the mini, get more steps in, and get us all a shower) but they had a meltdown, and that didn't happen, either.  Then I ended up staying up a bit late because reasons, I guess?  I'm not really sure what happened, I just know all the sudden it was 10pm.  Oops.

Which brings the tracker to:

To bed on time: 3/28

Practices: 2/6

Trainer Workouts: 0/4

Step goal met: 3/28

Times gone running: 0

As you can see, no change from Tuesday.

 

Today is already doing better.  Swimming isn't until later today, so I'm going to see what Husband thinks of us heading over half an hour before swimming and letting the boys go play in the child care area while I run and he does...something.

[suzyQlou]

Remind me how old your boys are?  Mine are 12 and 9.  I bet they wish I would take THEM swimming!  Trampoline and the pool in the same week.  It's a every kid's dream!

[Elennare]

3 hours ago, suzyQlou said:

Remind me how old your boys are?  Mine are 12 and 9.  I bet they wish I would take THEM swimming!  Trampoline and the pool in the same week.  It's a every kid's dream!

They're 3 and almost 6.  They've been pretty happy about doing stuff this week.

 

Update from yesterday: the quest for dinner turned into one of those things that sends you all over the map, and then surprises you with "that thing you were supposed to get? Fooled you.  You need this other thing instead."  Was going to get smoothies, but the shop closed early for some reason (and just before I got there, as they were still making stuff for the people who had already ordered, but I was too late) so I drove across town to the other location to find out that one had closed permanently! So I went to the grocery store and picked up stuff to make smoothies with.

 

Which was fine, but the result was no time to go running before swimming.  I did get 9214 steps from just walking, though.  Add in the swimming, and I just missed my goal with a total of 12754.  Which is a bit disappointing, but whatever.  The "actual" challenge doesn't start until Monday, and that goes by average steps.  Pretty sure my week so far has well met that target.  Unfortunately got to bed late as a result of going swimming.  But still making progress with that goal, too.

 

To bed on time: 3/28

Practices: 2/6

Trainer Workouts: 0/4

Step goal met: 3/28

Times gone running: 0

[Elennare]

Today's update:

Didn't get enough steps again, but I think I got more than my last "short" day? I don't know, it's late and I'm tired. I'll put numbers to it tomorrow.

 

Did my workout with the trainer tonight. It went well. Did battle ropes for the first time. They're fun! I also did better with the overhead press. Still at 45lbs, but I got all 6 reps on the first round, 5 on the second, and 4 on the 3rd. All 3 sets were 6 reps ,but he helped me with the failed ones.

 

Also talked to him about the weight thing. I actually didn't get to say much before he said (slightly paraphrased) "no, that one was wrong. I had your height in there wrong (short by a couple inches) and that was for someone with a small frame and you're a medium. I think 125-130 would be good." So we're actually on the same page with that.

 

To bed on time: 3/28

Practices: 2/6

Trainer Workouts: 1/4

Step goal met: 3/28

Times gone running: 0

 

Edit: we've gotten a slight reprieve from the rain, and I think it's dried out enough to run the dishwasher. Need to do it in the morning, though, before it starts raining again...

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

8 hours ago, Elennare said:

Also talked to him about the weight thing. I actually didn't get to say much before he said (slightly paraphrased) "no, that one was wrong. I had your height in there wrong (short by a couple inches) and that was for someone with a small frame and you're a medium. I think 125-130 would be good." So we're actually on the same page with that.

He shall live wedgie free...

for now.

[Elennare]

Whoops, didn't have time to post updates for a couple days.

Saturday, didn't get all that many steps in.  Had to take a waste of time class all afternoon, and didn't have much opportunity to move.  We did try to take a walk in the park in the evening, but got rained out before we got very far.  Then, Husband wanted to play FFXIV, and he's been wanting to play with me for a while and I haven't been able to so I did even though it meant getting to bed late.

Which brings the tracker to

To bed on time: 3/28

Practices: 2/6

Trainer Workouts: 1/4

Step goal met: 3/28

Times gone running: 0

for week 1.

 

Eh.  Started out good, but then kinda fell off.  Not gonna let that happen in week 2!

 

Sunday was a bit better.  Didn't get as many straight walking steps as I should have (also didn't see which feat we were supposed to be doing for the mini, so I'm going to have to make that up or something), but met the goal after practice.  Got to bed as quickly as I could after practice too, so week 2 is starting out good!

To bed on time: 4/28

Practices: 3/6

Trainer Workouts: 1/4

Step goal met: 4/28

Times gone running: 0