Home Crossfit

 It's really hot out today, it went up to 91, but I decided that if I never work out in the heat, I will never work out. It's so hot here now! I'm very sad that we can't take global warming seriously.  Anyhow, I decided to run a mile (1.14 miles, to be specific) and then do some weight lifting. Of course I didn't enjoy the run very much, but I finally remembered to bring my iPod Shuffle, and that made it a little better. I left home at 6:20, according to my fitbit I started running at 6:21. I got held up at a light for about 30 to 45 seconds (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and I finished at 6:32. Which, for me is pretty fast! About a a ten and a half minute mile. I felt pretty good as I was running, at least the slightly downhill parts, and knowing that I was only going to go a mile really helped.

After, I got home and decided to do some lifting. I looked at the crossfit WOD from my old gym and they had squat clean and jerk. I decided that was a good one because I do want to get my legs stronger as well as arms/core, and squats are good for that. I wound up using just one dumbell, holding it outside the weights at the edges. I did every minute on the minute for 12 minutes - the first round I did 20 pounds, which wasn't that hard. The remaining 11 rounds I did 35, which started out fine and got more and more challenging. By the end my arms were shaking a little, but I was glad I made it through all the rounds.

My boss at work gave her notice on Monday. She feels she has no room for growth, which is probably true. I'm sad about it, and was initially assigned to report to my least favorite person in the office, while all her other reports were assigned to someone else. I scheduled a meeting with my boss, and was like "I would be so desolate to be separated from the team," and got moved away from the evil bitch. Victory for me! 

Fells Skyline Trail

I found a couple new mountains in the Belknaps that I want to hike - Klem and Mack. But, today I slept in and was lazy and by the time I was ready to think about hiking, it was already almost noon. It's only an hour and 45 minutes to get there, and 6.1 miles, with only 1227 elevation gain. Which is still a hike, no doubt, but not a 4000 footer. But, in the end I decided it was getting a little late, the trail might not be popular and I could have gotten lost, so I went to the Fells instead. 

 I decided that if I was going to do the fells, I should try doing the Skyline. Happily I could look back in the blog and see that I had done it in four hours and 20 minutes, which seemed reasonable. Of course, I was not thinking about heat. When I got home from my walk, it was 91 out - this was at 4 pm. So, it was hot out!

It started as a fun hike. I actually got parking in one of the more popular areas (now I know why, no one wants to hike in 91+ degree weather. I started out feeling warm, but also good. I saw a couple woodpeckers, which was cool! And, I only got off track once. After about an hour I started feeling hot and tired, but kept on trucking for another 45 minutes or so, when I decided I was pooped and should look at the map. Fortunately I had gone around the reservoirs in the way that left the tower for the end - but I was able to take a short cut and skip the tower area. In the end I did about 3 hours, taking the skyline to the reservoir. I got back to my car and was so happy to sit and turn on the AC!

Ran a mile, plus Deadlifts

It's finally cooler outside - a good day for getting in some exercise. I was going to go walk in the Fells, but then realized that my garden needed watering, and probably some weeding, so I decided to go there instead. On the way there, I realized that I should try and run a little - like a mile. Of course, I wasn't wearing a sports bra, so that was not fun, but I did it anyhow.

I ran near the garden in Cambridge, down by the Harvard museums, past the divinity school, and then into one of the neighborhoods there. It had the advantage of being flat, which is something that I appreciate when running. I got a little turned around, which frequently happens in Cambridge. So, I think that I ran about 1 mile, then realized where I was an ran another .1 mile. Then I walked back to the garden. It took me 18 minutes for the whole thing, but I think about 10 and a half minutes for the mile. Not completely sure. This running is making me want a new fitbit that has a stopwatch. But I'm not going to get one. Also, I think I should run there again, it was nice (and flat).

After I ran and had some water, I gardened for about a half hour. I have a certain amount of grass in my plot, so I worked on pulling that. The thing that seems to grow best is kale, which I'm sure is very good for me, but not so delicious.

When I got home I wanted to do a little weight lifting, so I did deadlifts to see if I could life all the weights that I got. And I could! I did:

EMOM 6:

2 rounds at 40 pounds

2 rounds at 50 pounds

1 round at 60 pounds

1 round at 70 pounds

70 pounds felt heavy, but I thought I could do more. But wasn't sad that I didn't have more weights and couldn't.

I'm going to Maine for the day tomorrow with a couple of friends. They both wanted to eat inside at a restaurant, which to me is just an unnecessary risk during covid. I think I'm going to make a new Red Sox mask for the day :)

Home Crossfit

I'm really enjoying parkour, but it's not a super athletic or weight bearing exercise, at least not the way I do it. I was reading about how important weight lifting is, and remembering that I did like the lifting part of crossfit, and then thought, why not get some weights and lift at home? It turns out that everyone else has been thinking that. So, easier said than done. I did finally get lucky at play it again sports, thought they weren't used weights, they were new ones (so more expensive. But, I haven't been paying much in gym fees these days....) I got dumbells instead of a barbell, since they are easier to store in my tiny place. The bars way about 5 pounds, and then for weights I got 7.5, 5 and 2.5. I had to get 4 of each because you have to balance your sides, but I think that was a good amount. That's a total of 60 pounds, plus the barbells gives me 70 pounds to play with, which is plenty for me for everything but deadlifts (or, was when I was doing crossfit. At the store I quickly realized that I'm not in crossfit shape at all. It took me 3 trips to bring everything to the car).

I was trying to decide what lifts to do, and realized that I could look at my old crossfit for their wod, and do their weight lifting. And then I thought, why not do the whole thing? Without people doing it 10x faster than me. I had already done geriatric parkour today, so I didn't do the whole thing this time, but I think I'm gonna try it! Instead, I just did the weight part:

EMOM 12:

1 strict press

2 push presses

3 push jerks

I put the 5 pound weights on, so each barbell was about 15 pounds, so total 30 pounds, which is pretty light. But, I think for the first day back is fine. I'm pretty psyched about this idea, we'll see how it actually goes :)

My blog has switched to a new format after all these years. It's fine, I guess, thoguh it didn't work in Safari, which isn't helpful.

Non-Geriatric Parkour

There's a Sunday outdoor parkour class that's resumed right across the street at the school. Today was the second time that I went - it was so fun, and absolutely terrifying! We started with burpees as a warmup (you can never get away from the damn things!) and then they broke us up into groups - short people and tall people. Shockingly, I was in the short group. There were three of us - a woman who's done parkour for 5 years, a kid with green hair, and me. 

We started with "climbing" which I thought I would be good at because - climbing. But, then he had us start with step vaults over a hand railing (waist high - maybe 2 1/2 feet high?). I was pretty scared, but the other two did it, so I figured I could too. And I tried, and did! Then we did step vaults that we switched into a side vault at the end, and landed with precision. Which was harder. Then, we went to the ramp going down to a lower level of the park, and he was like - now do it here. And, it was a higher, round rail with a big drop on the other side. Like ten feet at the start! I hustled myself down to the bottom of the ramp, where it was "just" a three or four foot fall, and looked at it. I mean, it was terrifying! Because, you are balancing on opposite hand and foot, on a round rail - and two points of contact isn't that stable! But the other two people in the group were doing it. So, I tried it, and I actually did it! Like five times! One time I didn't lean forward enough, and fell backwards. But, I was holding onto the rail and just wound up hanging by my arms with my butt against the slates, feeling like a bit of an idiot. And, I didn't kill myself. Work in progress.

Then we did jumping. I jumped on this log that I enjoy jumping on. The instructor encouraged me to jump from one curb to another - about 3 feet apart, which was also terrifying. I couldn't get over the mental part of it, but I could jump from right before it, to it. Another work in progress - it's right across the street, I can work on it.

For the last 20 minutes we balanced on the handrail. I'd looked at the rail before and thought about trying to balance or walk on it, but had never gotten up the guts to try it. So, this was immersion therapy. We did four five minute chunks of balance. The first time I mostly just stood there thinking that it was OK. The second time I walked forward a little. The third time I went on a flat part (the other two times I was on a ramp) and walked forward and backward - which actually wasn't that hard. And the last time we were meant to stand still in the same place, which I did, sometimes sticking out a leg and balancing on just one or the other.  All and all, a scary but fun class :)

Whiteface fail(-ish)

Even though it's been hot and humid out, I really wanted to get a good hike in - I took Thursday and Friday off because I needed a nice long weekend. Today was the better weather day, so it was my hiking day! I debated what to hike with Washington, Tom/Field/Willey, Moosilauke and Whiteface all in the mix. In the end, I decided I wanted to go for the ledges, and the slightly shorter elevation and distance. Unfortunately, there were a few fails.

First, I headed out the door, feeling like it was too easy and I was forgetting something. About half way there, I realized that I forgot my hiking boots! I spent a little while trying to decide what to do - hike in my Chacos (bad idea), go home (waste of a good hiking day), go to the North Conway REI and buy new ones (my old hiking boots are getting worn down anyhow). Bingo! Of course, it added almost two hours to my drive up because I had to go 40 minutes past the mountain, try on all these shoes, listen to the chatty salesman (an look at a picture of his son - what??), pee, and then drive back to the trailhead. Buy the time I got there, it was almost noon - pretty late to start a 4000 footer, but it's a shorter one, and it's still getting dark late.

I headed out at 12:08 and had a lovely start to the hike. It's one of those hikes where you have a steady but gentle uphill for the first mile, then a more rigorous slope for another mile-ish. And then you pretty much go straight up the mountain. I took the blueberry ledge trail, which I loved at the bottom - slabby and wild blueberries that were in bloom. I had a few for snack. Someone had spent a lot of time on trail work, because the steep uphill had a lot of really nice stairs. I started out strong, but then, after about 45 minutes, started to fade on the uphill. Since I started later, I hadn't really timed eating right, and I was starving! I stopped and ate some Pringles - not the most nutritious, but lots of salt and calories. By this time I was sweating like a pig! My shirt was totally soaked, my shorts were wet, when I took my backpack off, the straps were wet! It was so gross. I was drinking water like crazy, and still thirsty. 

After my Pringles break, I continued. According to my Fitbit, I went up for about 3 hours. I did the fun climbing bits. But, I was so tired and hot! At one point I sat down and realized that my legs were wet and shaking. Yikes! I thought I was almost at the top, so I pressed on further, but then realized that the top was still a little ways, and that I had to sit down and eat. Fortunately there was a lovely viewpoint - I sat and had some water and slowly at a half a cheese sandwich on challah and a half a power bar. Even that didn't feel delicious, and I decided that this was my peek. A few minutes later a family that passed me said it was only like 20 minutes to the top, but I decided that at the rate I was going that would be at least a half hour up, and then I would have to go down as well. So, I made the decision to turn back. No fun, but also I didn't want to end up with a migraine.

The way down was so much quicker and easier. Eating gave me new energy, of course, but also I was able to use my ninja parkour on the way down. Having all the nice steps helped - the steepest parts were actually quite quick. I took a couple stops on the way down to admire the view and to eat an apple, but still it took 2 and a half hours total down, probably a little more than 2 hours walking. And, it was totally fun!

When I got back to my car I changed back into my Chacos and walked into a stream that I saw at the start of the hike to try to get my feet to de-swell a little. The shoes that I bought are trail runners - they are so light! I'm not sure they are enough padding though. I'm going to try them in the Fells and see how they work there - I really don't need boots there, but something more than sneakers would be nice. I tried on this other pair of boots that I didn't wind up getting because they had such thick soles, I felt like I was on platforms and wondered why they would do that. But then I realized that it would be good padding for the knees... I can bring the shoes back for up to a year, so I will give them another test with insoles.

So, not a perfect success, but way better than a day at the "office!"

Garfield, with parkour

Last night I looked at the weather in New Hampshire, and it looked really nice. Covid cases are low here, and so I decided last minute to head up and hike Garfield! I hiked Garfield once before, by myself in November 2016. That time the mountain was in the clouds, it was cold and windy up top, and I ate standing up - huddled in a grove of trees. It took me 4 hours up and 3 hours back down. I wore my micro spikes at the top. Today was much better!

I woke up on my own at 6 am, and was shocked because I never wake up that early. I decided to go back to sleep for an hour, though, because I wanted to be well rested. I got up at 7:15 (that's not an hour of extra sleep is it? But whatever) I was out the door at 7:30 and at the mountain at 10. I knew it was going to be crowded, and it was. I had to park a 5 minute walk from the trailhead - I hate it when I have to walk to my hike :). Seriously, that's probably an extra almost half mile there and back, on top of 10 miles hiking...

So, the things that were better was there was a beautiful view, the weather was good and I sat up there for almost an hour, eating and looking at the mountains and thinking how I had hiked all of the big ones... It was a little breezy and sunny, with pretty clouds, and right before I left, someone flew overhead in a glider. Also, even though I was doing crossfit then, and I certainly don't now, I did the hike faster! It took me 3 hrs and 15 min up and 2 hrs and 30 min down! So, I went from 7 hrs to 5 hrs, 45 min! Of course, I did get to sit up top and rest, which made a huge difference on my hike down...


On the way down especially, I used my parkour skills that I've been gaining to trust my feet and use gravity. Garfield was a good mountain to do this, because it's an out-and-back, 10 miles total, but only the last .2 mile is steep, the rest is pretty gradual, and it has switchbacks! Also, there are rocks, but you can see the ground some. So, it gave me a good chance to practice planning steps and using gravity. And, I was much better at it! Also, there are three stream crossings, which I used my poles to get across last time, but this time I just rock hopped and it was totally fine!

As I was going down, I saw this guy with his face against a tree, standing there with two girls and a dog. I was like "are you OK" and he said he was fine. Soon he passed me, and was like "thanks for making sure I was OK" and we wound up passing each other several times down the trail. It was kind of nice.

When I got back to my car my entire body was wet with sweat, and I ate a power bar pretty much without stopping. I drove straight home, fed the cats, made pizza dough, took a shower, cooked pizza, and ate the entire thing!

PS. That's Owl's Head in the photo to the left!