What Was Your Work Out Today?

Treadmill, incline walk - 1 hr

Getting cool enough at night that I'm starting to debate wearing a sweatshirt to the gym in the morning.

Stern seat in the 29-foot-long canoe with a smaller than normal squad of participants. We had great weather, very little (superstition keeps me from saying that word out loud when paddling or rowing), and saw quite a few birds. Smiles all around!

Still here, but not good about reporting in lately.

On the 27th, I coxed a quad, but didn't row myself. (I slept very, very little, but managed to stay awake enough to get there, and steer the boat. I wasn't up for rowing.)

On the 28th, this (below) happened, and I didn't realize it until I got out on the road to the boathouse. The whole group took a look at this view, and noped out of rowing (so did the crew club coach who as supposed to coach our row, and the university varsity coach who had her team do a rowing machine practice instead of going out in the low-visibility soup). Our group went out for coffee instead of rowing.



This Monday (30th), I rowed engine room (2 seat) in the quad. It'd been a while since I could just focus on my own rowing technique, no steering required. Only about 6.5k, a little shorter than usual . . . for some reason, the guy in bow likes to turn around when further away from the bridges at either end, while I take boats closer when I'm steering so we get a few hundred extra meters in.

Today, the 2nd, back in bow of the double with my friend J. in stroke. Like we've been doing a lot lately when in the double together, we did interval sets of 10 or 20 strokes hard, then the same number moderate pressure, for the main body of the row (excluding WU and CD). It was more like 7.7k, almost a km longer than usual, because we looped back upstream to avoid the section where the university ski club team was practicing.

Treadmill, 9% incline walk - 1 hr

My wrist feels back to normal, so should be good to go to resume lifting Monday.

I couldn't decide what to do today for my day off with such nice weather. I get to take people rafting tomorrow... in the rain. I wanted to do a downriver canoe trip. I couldn't find a partner. I probably could have found a shuttle, but I slept in.

A buddy suggested putting in at Buena Vista and paddling upstream as far as we could in maybe an hour. I know that stretch of river. We might have been able to get a mile. After that is a steep section that I don't think we'd be able to get past without dragging. And he wanted to go at 09:00. It was still cold at that hour. Buena Vista is a half hour away, so I'd spend as much time in the car as on the water. No bueno. Did I mentioned that I slept in?

Well I did some chores and mid afternoon packed up the canoe and went to the boat ramp about a half mile from my house and pointed the boat upstream. I paddled about two miles in about an hour and a half. I did stop after the first climb which is pretty much right out of the gate. I tossed a lure in the water and got some bites. It's a big lure, so the little fish that were biting didn't really bother me much. I got up past the next two climbs. I got to a shallows that I couldn't get past, but I was able to make the ferry to the other side of the river without washing in to a nasty spot and continued up. I got past the last climb to the island at the water treatment plant. Sweet.

I turned around and drifted back. It took a half hour. I fished a bit. I had to make a little correction to keep from drifting into a strainer, and that's when my lure snagged on a rock. I broke it off and picked the paddle back up for the last seven minutes of the half-hour return trip.

Gorgeous day. Glad I waited. It was warm out. There was one fellow rolling up an inflatable kayak when I was putting in, and one fellow showed up to dunk his power boat to flush salt water out of the engine. I saw nobody else until I was almost back when there were a couple folks letting their dogs swim. I saw a fellow in a fast kayak just putting in while I was taking out. I've met him on trash pick-up events in the past, so we had a chat. Then one other person came to dunk a large boat. That was it.

The wind wasn't bad.

Water level was friendly enough that I was able to make the last climb that I sometimes can't. It was a good day. There was a HUGE hornet nest in a tree right around where I turned around.

Today was my first workout in a legit gym!

I was very overwhelmed with where to start and not embarrassing myself, so I did 30 min on the treadmill (speed of 3.8 and incline at 4), walked one mile around the indoor track, did 4 sets of 10 reps on the bench press at 70 lbs, did 4 sets of 10 reps on the leg press at 170 lbs, and then finished up with another 15 min on the treadmill at a speed of 3.0 (no incline).

I enjoy doing the cardio machines, but I really need to work on upper body, so hopefully I will be less overwhelmed next time.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

DiscusTank5 wrote: »

A short walk with the dog early on, then 40 minutes mid-day out in the gorgeous, nearly fall weather here in NW Arkansas.

@DiscusTank5, 23 the other day, then a dog-walk plus 40 today . . . that's a pretty gorgeous thing in itself. :flowerforyou:

I got in a 75 minute walk with a friend yesterday. It was hot (low 90s) so my dog only lasted the first 8 minutes or so. We dropped her off at the house and continued on!

I fell on a slab climb on Wednesday, and my leg hit a volume on the way down. I twisted my right ankle. I couldn't really walk, but a friend I was climbing with lives near the gym. He twisted his ankle on a caving trip in summer, so he had crutches. So I got home fine, if slowly. (Two walks which normally take 10 minutes; one tube trip and a train journey were the stages involved.)

It has been improving slowly and steadily since then. I've been sleeping 12 hours a day, which is typical of me in recovery mode.

I walked to the local shop without crutches today, so I assume I should be fixed relatively soon. Maybe I should have seen a doctor, but I prefer not to unless it's important.

(Technically, I am a doctor. Some would say a PhD in pure maths doesn't make me a medical expert.)

Upper Body - Power

Bench Press 5x8
Cable Row 5x5
Mac Decline Press 5x5
Machine High Row 5x5
Seated Smith OHP 3x10
Preacher Curl 3x10, 8, 6
Cable Pushdown 3x10
Cable Woodchoppers 3x10

My wrist felt great during lifting, thing of the past. I'm switching my BB decline bench back to machine, and my BB OHP back to Smith, both cases because of shoulder instability as the weights go up.

Whatcha think? Yup, I rowed today.

Usual distance - well, a little under more like 6.5k, because our bow rower likes to spin waaay before the bridges for some reason. I was 2 seat (engine room) of the quad, so I could focus on technique in my own rowing, which is a boon and luxury. The boat was all pretty-experienced rowers, which was nice, felt good. Though the boat was just doing steady pace (strokes per minute-wise), I did "10 power, 10 easier" intervals for the main body of the row. Bow called some slide-management drills right after the warm up phase.

I didn't row Saturday. There was a home head race (staggered start, timed racing, a bit under 4k which in the headwind conditions yielded times 20 minutes +/- a couple). Half a dozen of my rowing buddies raced. I was there, but just milling around, interfering in some of the dock-mastering and trying to get spectators off the boats' path from the recovery dock.

Something like 3 spectators got smacked by boats, because people are . . . oblivious? In some cases, there were literal skinny (but athletic) high school kids, eight of them, carrying 60-foot boats weighing 200 pounds or more, navigating a narrow dock ramp. Their coxswain was doing the best s/he could, yelling "heads up", but people kept chatting with their backs to the boats . . . so, *bam*, sometimes.

Two or three boats flipped (windy, choppy) out of 250+ total boats, an eight hit a pair (one of them took an incorrect arch through a bridge), an oar-carrier improbably took a mis-step on the recovery dock and fell in the water, various power boats got onto the race-course and refused to yield, but no major injuries, which is a win.

Treadmill, 10% incline walk - 1 hr

Monday I led a shortish kayak trip to a lake on the coast that I've never paddled. It's a pretty large lake, but also very shallow. It has a lot of arms, so it would be easy to get lost. My boss usually is very thorough giving us a good idea of where to go. He's on vacation. I asked around and found a decent plan, and we had a great day. Warm and sunny, although about a five knot headwind on the way back. This lake has about 29 miles of shoreline because of all the arms. We saw cougar tracks on the beach where we had lunch. Cool!

Today was my first day back in the gym after taking a few months off for my active outdoor season. They will put members on "inactive" status and charge a much smaller fee. I call it "active" status; that's why I don't go in!

When I checked in, I told the staff person at the front desk that I was back from my summer off. He recognized me and said yeah, he hasn't seen me in a while. I thought it was nice he even recognized me. That says I actually do show up in season.

I did an abbreviated workout dialing back the weight of all my movements, and I did just two sets of each instead of three.

• 15 minute warm-up on the ergometer
• Deadlifts on freemotion machine
• Goblet squats
• Alternating lunges
• Machine chest press
• Rows on a freemotion machine
• Lat pull on freemotion machine
• Dumbbell curls
• Triceps pull-down
• Machine lat raise
• 15 minute cool down on the treadmill

The sauna is down, so I went out to the steam. There was only one person swimming in the pool. I almost went back and put on swim gear, but I didn't want to be there that long. Maybe I'll go back and get a swim tomorrow.

Tonight is a candidate's forum, and tomorrow is a debate. Yeah. I'm running for office. Silly me.

Back in bow of the double with my friend J. in stroke seat, just a nice moderate steady state row, the usual 7k-ish distance. A little chilly, but not as much so as some of the recent days, so good rowing conditions.

An afternoon paddle.

I waited until mid-afternoon when it warmed up a bit. I went to the ramp and headed upstream. I got almost exactly three miles - 3.03 miles according to my GPS. That included three or four ferries which added to the distance, because it was only 2.95 miles back. There were three "climbs." Almost four. One right out of the gate. Then another less than a mile upstream. Then another around the island by the water treatment plant. There was another that I only went about halfway up.

Upstream took 91 minutes with an average speed of 2.0 mph (30:12 per mile). Downstream took 35 minutes with an average speed of 5.0 mph (11:54 per mile). The downstream would have been faster, but I stopped to talk with a couple fellas next to a boat I saw on the way up while I heard shotgun blasts. They have a tag for the Willamette Unit, and they got a nice deer.

I left the canoe on the truck. We have two more really nice days before the rain sets in for the indefinite future.

I competed - got a matched PB (comp PB) for snatch and a new PB for the clean and jerk. Knees have been a bit uncooperative recently so I had to power everything - which made the PBs even sweeter! 😀😀