ZoomsGiving

It seems impossible to believe that one day I will look back on this posting and not be wearing a mask outside, hiding from a virus, and unable to hug my family and friends, but I know that will happen. It seems like there are some good options for vaccines out there, and they may be in my arm in another 6-8 months. I think I'm pretty low on the priority list for the shot - so I'm not expecting it soon. But at some point it's going to happen - and things will change back in many ways to how they were before. Except that I'm going to try to work from home two days a week :)

In the meantime, this year we celebrated Thanksgiving via zoom. It was my first time since college that I wasn't with my sister at Thanksgiving. I noticed that she baked an apple pie (what I always bring) and I did not. Since I've stopped eating meat, I did a vegetarian thanksgiving meal, which I have to say was delicious! I found this recipe for a vegetarian sheet pan thanksgiving which consisted of a butternut squash stuffed with wild rice mixed with onion, carrot, celery, feta cheese, cranberry sauce, rosemary, sage and a granny smith apple and then roast potatoes and roast brussels sprouts with cranberries. And, for dessert, a pastry with brie and cranberries that was yummy! I completely over made the amount of rice, but that's OK because rice freezes fine, and it was so good, I will definitely stuff more squash in the next few weeks. For the potatoes, they have you parboil them for 10 minutes, drain the water, put them back in the pan with the lid on to chuff them up, and then cover them with oil, salt and rosemary. And the squash is tied up with a string, just like a turkey! For the pastry, the recipe called for store bought puff pastry, but of course I decided to make my own. After all the great british baking show I've been watching, I decided to make a ruff puff, and it turned out quite well - with lots of layers in the pastry! And the brie and cranberries was so good - I forget about cranberries all the time, but I shouldn't, they are really easy to make. And, for the sprouts you didn't even need to add sugar, just add them with the sprouts, coat with oil and rosemary, and roast! I had a rose wine, and since I haven't really been drinking for some time, felt pretty drunk after a half bottle. I have to say, I didn't miss the turkey at all. 

My sister ordered premade stuff that she picked up. One of my nephews cooked a chicken, one cooked a pie and some other things - not sure what, but he likes cooking, and one made a box of stuffing in the microwave. That was a little sad. Oh, and my brother and his partner in London had a tofurkey earlier in the day. My other sister popped on for a while - it was her granddaughter's birthday, so we all made signs wishing her a happy birthday which she seemed to like. Mine had a unicorn pooping on it because, kids... It was fun zooming with everyone, we could still talk and such, my brother and nephew kept yelling things to order on my alexa (oh sigh), but not exactly the same. Well, next year hopefully.

I wanted to go for a nice post-Thanksgiving hike, as I've done so many other years, but given the covid rates, it didn't seem like a good idea. If you go to NH, you're supposed to isolate for two weeks (though I could drive further to Graylock and be fine, there is a certain randomness to this). I decided the mountains will still be there, and instead spent all day Friday doing a puzzle.

Today I was like "I have to get some exercise" so I went for a 45 minute walk, did a virtual yoga class (which actually got me sweating!) and then did some lifts. I did:

EMOM12:

First 6 minutes 3 front squats at 40 pounds

Second 6 minutes 3 presses - first three at 20 pounds, second three at 25.

I finally found some ninja material, so I made a ninja mask for parkour. And 3 for my instructors. I hope they like them :)

At home Monday WOD

I was going to cancel classpass because it seems silly to pay for it when you can't really go to studios, but then I did a streaming yoga class that was really good and I thought I should keep it. But, today when I signed up for a class the studio didn't send me a link, so I'm back to thinking I should cancel. I think I will keep for one more month, because if I don't I'll lose money, and I'm way to cheap for that. I can just buy passes for my local yoga studio after that, why spend money on a middle person if I'm just going to go there?

Covid cases are crazy here now. Over a million a week in the US; I feel like I should hide in my basement (if I had a basement). And a vaccine for regular people like me is still 6 months away. Definitely a time to try to eat well and get a lot of exercise! Which is why I signed up for a boot camp today, but didn't get a link. So, I decided to do a crossfit WOD from my old box. And, I did the entire class-ish.

WOD: 3 Rounds

20 Box Jumps

30 Kettlebell Swings

40 Sit ups

my time: 16 min 50 sec

I went to the school across the street to WOD, and was going to use the playground, but just as I was about to start, two kids came there to play. So, I had to go to another area. I did box jumps onto a tree stump that's about a foot high. For kettlebell swings I asked my neighbor slam chowder if I could borrow hers, but she was using it for a class (apparently we all exercise at the same time) so I just brought a 20 pound dumb bell and swung that (which was awkward, but my stomach is sore, so it was effective). And then I did sit ups on this plastic/fake wood platform. It was cool and windy out and I had to wear a light down puff, but it wasn't too bad for the middle of November. 

After I came back and did dumbell hang power cleans - EMOM12, starting with 15 pounds in each hand for the first 2 rounds and then moving up to 20.

Walking railings at 50th Parkour class!

It turns out that today was my 50th parkour class, which I learned via email at the end of class. It was a really good class, with a few breakthroughs for me! First, there's a metal handrailing that we walk on that I've wanted to be able to get up on by myself, and walk from end to end. It's about waist height, but it goes along a walkway that goes up to the school, so it goes up at an angle for about 15 feet, then flat for the same, then down and as it goes up the drop off on one side gets larger and larger. I did walk the entire thing once before, but someone had to spot me, and I was so slow, and it was painful. I've been practicing getting up for a while, and today I finally did it, and then walked the entire length! The first time I was about 5 feet from the end when the wind picked up and I got wobbly and came down. But then I tried again and did the whole thing! Then, coach was like "once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is real" so I had to do it again, and I did the whole thing even faster - the whole way. It was awesome. 

We also practiced kongs in class, which I struggle with. But, the coaches broke them down, and I was able to get them better. I was even able to kong from a standing position onto something about knee high. Lots of work left to do, but it was a good first step in actually being able to do them - before this class I didn't think that I would ever be able to, but now I think I can :) 

Mt Morgan and Percival Loop

I looked at the Terrifying 25 list to see if there are any that aren't a huge drive up in NH, and found that there's a nice loop near the Belknaps that has some ladders and some short caves, as well as a little bouldering. So fun! I decided that would be the perfect hike, and it was. 

It's a shorter hike with less elevation gain - 5.5 miles with 1500 feet elevation gain. So, a good solid hike, but not killer. Since the days are really short now, with the sun going down at 4:45 (yuck) I wanted something that wouldn't be too long and that I could get up at a reasonable hour, hike, and finish in the light. This seemed perfect, and with the ladders and caves, etc, it would still be interesting. 

I got everything set up last night so I could just pop out of bed, feed the cats, make coffee and go. Well, I didn't exactly pop, it was more a crawl at like 7:30, but really not so bad. I was on the road before 8 and planning to get there before 10. That's were things went wrong because I used all trails for driving directions and wound up going down this sketchy dirt road, scraping the bottom of my car on rocks and driving past all these Trump signs. I knew I was in the wrong place - this was supposed to be an easy one to get to! I had to turn around and do some map reading. Fortunately I taken a picture of directions before I left (would have been good to read them over before I wasted 45 minutes going to the wrong place, but whatever). In the end, I got to the trailhead.

Most of the hike up was actually quite normal, with some pretty uphill parts, some more chill parts; a typical 2000 footer. It was in the 30's, but I was able to hike in my athleta pants, ninja hoodie, and this t-shirt that I have that has a picture of a dinosaur on it that says "t-rex hates pushups." On the way up, no one passed me and I didn't pass anyone until I got to the ladders, which were both sketchy looking and super fun. So the way the ladders on Morgan work you go up the first ladder to the second - easy peasy, except that they are a little flimsy looking an you wonder a little how they are attached to the rocks. Then, from the top of the second you have to step over to the third. By this time you are pretty high up, the ladder is really just bolted to the rocks, and you are kind of out of rungs by the step part. Fortunately, though, there are some really nice holds on the rock to help you side step over. Then you climb the third ladder that gets wider at the top. After only like 3 rungs, the rungs stop and you have just wood blocks to step on, and then the blocks stop, and you have to use the rocks. There was one move that I was like "where do I put my foot?" which of course was the highest up, but it was fine. Then you get to the top, and you have to crawl though this short cave to get to an overlook. Then, there's a little bouldering that brings you to an awesome view.

Just as I finished going up the ladders, these two hikers came flying up them, and it was a little awkward to get a proper picture from the top of the ladder, but whatever, I did. I tagged the peek, but it was viewless, so I went back to the view and I sat and had a peanut butter sandwich and some nuts. 

There's a really nice ridgeline from Morgan to Percival, and I enjoyed the walk. At one point I really needed to stop and pee, and so I went off the trail and found this really cute campground and firepit. I wonder if someone is living up there - it looked well cared for, with a nice stone wall built around the pit.

There were a bunch of people at the top of Percival who were trying to figure out the paths down. There is a "cliff" trail and a "cave" trail. The Terrifying 25 had the cliff trail as a part of the list, so I decided to try that one. Also, this really noisy group of non-socially distant people was doing the cliff trail. I was so glad I did the cave trail - it was really fun. At first I was completely sketched out by it because I'm really claustrophobic, and I wasn't sure I could do it, but the caves were more bouldering, where you went through boulder caves for short bits and had to crawl out of some holes. I had my hiking poles in my pack, so I had to take my pack off and push it ahead of me a couple times. The last hole was the smallest - I wasn't sure I would make it out, and then there was a bit of a drop at the end. Standing on the outside, it makes a great picture (below)! It was some pretty big rocks - you can see the yellow arrow pointing into the cave. It would be kind of fun to try the loop in the other direction because I think the cave would be nice in that direction, but I'm not sure about going down the ladder; certainly it would need to be a dry day (which happily it was today, though there was some running water and I got to practice my parkour ninja jumping skills).

All and all, a really nice hike. Not too difficult, fun climbing and caves, good length, nice ridgeline, excellent views. Not even that long a drive (if you can manage to not take a wrong turn - note that it's 93 to exit 24 to Rt 3 east, left on 113, and then it's less than 6 miles to parking on the left - both Morgan and Percival have lots but Percival's is bigger, and it's nicer to park close to where you will come down from the mountain instead of having to walk to the trailhead, even though it was a nice walk). There are no dirt roads on the way to this trail! I did get a little lost on Mt. Percival looking for the cave trail (you go straight from where you came up to the top of Percival and down. I spent a while looking, which is probably why mile 3 took so long) - so glad I have all trails, really helped me find it! Definitely would do again.

46!

 It was a good weekend! We elected a new president, which it's taking a long time for some to come to grips with, but not me. There was an acceptance speech with full sentences that touched on COVID, the economy, social justice and climate change, as well as people to work together, and it made me want to cry. After the election was called on Saturday (finally), I slept for like 12 hours on Saturday night, and missed my geriatric parkour class - fortunately there was a no-show for the regular one, so I was able to take that. But it sounds like the geriatric class may have been more fun. In regular class we took off our shoes and jumped on things, then we did underbars (which I actually do enjoy) and then we crawled under low things on our backs. 

Today I met my parkour friend Anne at the park to practice and she told me that in the geriatric class they climbed things, and walked on rails. I love climbing things!

After we practiced today I came back and lifted. Doing underbars I realized I need to work on my core, so I did deadlifts. EMOM for 12 minutes lifting all my weights which is 70 pounds. 

I hope our government doesn't mess this up, they are already not getting much done. They gotta pull it together, we have a good thing going here. A little compromise people!!