I am antsy as HELL.  Gotta gym it up tonight.  Legit.

Yesterday I got back on the horse, as it were.  Hit the gym for what was supposed to be a pretty light day.  Ended up being
Deadlift 3x10x115 supersetted with
One-leg squat (pistol) 4/Leg
The DLs felt decent, not fantastic.  I focused on getting my ass down before the lift, which i think helped keep the power through my heels, as its supposed to be.  The pistols were alright, I found myself losing stability on the up and not getting down as far as I'd like, but overall they're heading in the right direction, so if I just keep doing it, I'll get there.
Squat 2x15x115 These were a breeze through the first five of each set, then took focus for the next five, then the final five were surprisingly difficult given how light the weight was.
Split squats: 3x10/Leg These felt great.  I got good height and was really stable.  Also, I could feel my muscles going right up to their failure point without _quite_ reaching it.  I would take steps between sets and my glutes would tighten like they were about to seize but they never quite did.  It was about perfect.
Run 1 mile: Don't completely remember it, but it was a 1% run so it was high-speed.  Felt good, finished without feeling like death, just that I had done a good solid run.
Finished up with some simple ladder work, got a good idea from one of the trainers that I'll have to try next time (both feet out, steps into the ladder, steps out, repeat moving forward).

Today was spent taking photographs, which was nice, but left me feeling underworked, so I challenged myself to my 100 pushup time.  This was spurred by the 100 burpee challenge on the Mr. Yuk bboard.  For a while, Corey had the lead with about a 7:40.  Then a sophomore beat him by ten seconds, then Hao Su blew him out of the water with a 6:13.  This number blew my mind and, since I don't particularly care for Hao, kinda tweaked me.  Hence, the 100 pushup challenge.  I...was not too pleased with my result.  I pulled a 6:15, which means Hao can do 100 burpees 2 seconds FASTER than I can do 100 pushups.  I'll probably do this again in a few weeks.  Coming up, I'll want to check my 100 burpee time.  I'm also hoping to do a proper pull up soon.  Ahh, wishes.

Anyway, my shoulder is coming along, I think, my lower body is getting stronger and I'm getting sleep (for now).  However, I don't feel as confident as I may sound.  I'm in one of my down phases, where I feel like I'm falling behind.  Long as I keep the right attitude, I can come out of it for the better, though- remotivated and ready to ball.  Let's see what we can do.
~#28

First off- SICK.  Ughhhh.  I hate being sick.  In that "I feel like I hate it more than normal but I can't really think of anybody who _doesn't_ hate being sick" kinda way.  It just can't come at an opportune time.  I guess at the very least, Ginie's around and she's super nice and takes care of me which is really sweet.  Still, I'd rather not be sick.

Secondly- Got stronger over the weekend, and a little bit faster, maybe.  Ken's having me finish all workouts with a mile on the treadmill now, so I'm doing it in my own workouts too.  Not fun, but finishable.  Goal is going to be 7:00 at 3% grade or harder.  Haven't hit it yet, but maybe next time.  I can do it, I think.  Generally, I'm doing normal strength stuff on my upper body and dynamic/functional/power lifting with kettlebells and such on the lower body.  That stuff is fun but really hard.  I hate when my form starts to slip.  I feel it happen and it makes me frustrated, since I feel, often, like I know what it should feel like INSTEAD of how it actually feels.  Yesterday was a nice little circuit that Ken gave me, 3 rounds, moving quickly, of

10xSquat Clean/Clean and Press (45,55, 65), my squat diminished over each set, as i got tired.  Have to focus better on getting my ass down after the deadlift.
20xDB Clean (25 lb, 10 reps each arm)
20xKB Squat Clean (20 lb, 10 reps each arm)
10x upright row (45 bar, 45 plate, 45 plate) The plate added a gripping dimension to this that I liked.  Just gave me one more muscle group to work.

After this was a 1 mile run, it was 7:11 and I'll take it.  Moving up to faster next time.  My legs are handling the runs better and better each time.

Got Stronger AND Better.  First Chest with K, chest pressed 110, which might be a PR (not sure).  Had a weird plyo circuit on a medicine ball and a half balance ball, then ran a 7:17 mile.  I thought the mile would be faster, but whatever.

Later hit up throwing with Toad.  We started with the usual free throwing and I was pretty regularly out-throwing him.  That felt good, not gonna pretend it didn't.  Then it was a marking drill- no arms for two rounds, then arms for two rounds.  While he landed more shots, I shut him down on a lot of pivots.  I'm looking forward to game time situations.  My foot speed was not as low as I worried it was, but still is too low.  If I'm gonna come up against, say, Zelnik again, what I've got will not cut it.  Finally, we ran a weird modified Nietzsche and then Toad ran a plyo-100 (10 yds, 5 tuck jumps, 10 yards, 5 split squats for 5 reps, then a sprint back) and we bailed.  Right now, my abs are feeling something, not sure what, but they're sore.  Overall, a pretty legit day and a great way to use the 50 degree weather.  I'm really looking forward to winter league now.

Got Stronger last night.  Funtional lifting/power lifting.  A pretty tough circuit of

Clean and Press with the bar (45, 65, 65)
DB one-motion straight up (3x25)
KB cradle snatch (3x20) (the last two were 1-arm)
upright row (45, 65, 65 with the last two sets as 5x65, 10x20 because I could no longer row the bar)

This was really rough.  I started out each set with a good strong explosive lift, so I know I _can_ do the movements.  The problem is when I start getting tired I can feel my upper body taking over.  Like I said, I could explosively lift the first rep of each exercise and I could usually explosively lift one or two more across the set _and_ I got good snap out of most of the whole first round, making it deep into the sets BUT by the second round of the circuit, things had dropped to being much much harder.  I was lifting hard, as evidenced by my lightheadedness, but I'm not sure that wasn't caused by my form.  I was happy that I got to do it and perhaps I'll run the circuit again sometime soon.

After the circuit was simple abs- 3x[10xknees, legs, knee/legs] on the captain's chair.  Then Ken hit me with the treadmill.  The challenge was to run a sub-9 mile after that workout, any incline.  Having run a 7:30@3% on Wednesday, i figured runnning it again at 1% should compensate for the workout.  I....was wrong.  I hit the wall well within two minutes, even keeping pace for a 7:30, and cramping started almost immediately.  This was my second hardest run (for some reason, I had a bitch of a time running a 7:30@3.5% a few weeks ago) and required some real focus to push past the pain.  And by focus I mean berating myself for being such a bitch.  I ended up running 3/4 at 8mph, 3/16 at 8.5mph and finishing the last 100 at 9mph.  this run absolutely ruined me for a long time.  Especially my concentration.  I tried to write my weights and the details of the workout and i just _could not_ put pen to paper constructively for probably ten minutes.  Obviously my legs were pretty shot but my lungs stayed not-too-upset the whole time.  Same for my heart rate.  My cardio is not in as terrible a shape as I thought.  That said, I remember how fucked I was at Yuk practice.  Spring really will require focus, deep focus, on hitting the hill, hitting the track and getting to a place where I can compete with college kids who are just gearing up for Regionals, Nationals what-have-you.

Let's do this.  Doin' Work,
~#28

Get Faster last night.  Slightly faster.  very slightly.  But I'm happy.  I had a TERRIBLE day at work and was in a foul mood all day.  I watched a trailer for The Blueprint (hodag repeat DVD) and got amped before walking out the door, driving straight to the gym and getting changed.  I stretched (a vaguely dynamic stretch, but mostly a weird hybrid dynamic/static thing) and hopped on a treadmill.  7:30 later, I had run a mile at a 3% grade.  Next time it's a 4% grade.  After 4% i'll have to make a decision about whether I want to up the grade or the speed.  Moving from 8 to 9 mph could do me good, but I think I'm more likely to prefer the uphill running to increase.  9 mph is nowhere near my sprint and I don't think I really do much for myself other than cardio by running a mile at that speed.  When it comes time to do speed work, it'll probably be on the Tufts track.  Hopefully, I'll be able to maintain most of a base through treadmill work.  Maybe by February I'll be running 2 miles or something.  I kinda doubt it though.  I'm happy focusing on strength and agility and then getting out to do Tabata hill sprints in the month before tryouts.  Yeah, that sounds reasonable.  Hoping to hear from Ken about training today after work, otherwise I'll just do it myself.  Getting frustrated, I am.  But if I can work things out with Ken, it'll all be good.

~#28

Got Stronger yesterday.  Pretty funny too.  After my legs ached all day and I stayed on my feet an equivalent amount of time, I got to the gym, knowing only that I wanted to do anything BUT legs.

Naturally Ken decided it was a leg day.  It was fast work, so I didn't take down weights, just exercises but Ken mentioned that my quad extend has gone up like 50 pounds.  I think he's wrong, but I'm sure I've added about that to certain lifts.  And that's awesome.  He teased some jumping work.  Of course, after the one day of functional lifting, he hasn't returned to it, so....

Just having the thoughts now, after a day of reminiscing-

I'm not really sure what role I played yesterday.  I certainly wasn't a handler.  I pushed back anytime i was asked to handle, to the point where I think I might not have been called a handler all day.  I think maybe I spent most of my time set up at the front of the stack, waited for opportunity cuts back to the disc or to the break side and then went out to play some D.  I know against Zone D, I was in the middle taking up a lot of space (and pissing off my fellow cutters) trying to get open for our handlers.  I have memories of catching goals and throwing a few, but I think mainly I worked the midfield.  That's really strange, and it's just as strange that I can't remember what exactly I did.  Other than pull.

Not much to say.  5-0, Div 2 Champions, winning every game we had.  Couldn't jump to Div 1 so we won as best we could.

I'm feeling great about these wins, especially since I played a real part in all of them.  I felt strong and fast the entire time and I covered whoever got thrown at me.  I shut down a good number of cuts and I got open almost all the time.  One guy did completely shut me down for a while in one of the games, but it got dealt with.  I also had a number of points where I just did nothing.  Motivation completely failed me.  I'm...okay with it though.  Not sure i should be.  I don't know if it's related to the weather or the fact that I felt like we were winning and trusted my team to get it done or what, but I just didn't feel as bad about completely not contributing as I should have.  There were multiple points where I would stand at or near the front of the stack and just stare at my handler.  Sometimes they'd clearly motion for me to cut to the break lane, and I'd do it, but usually I just followed the play most of the way down the field.  It was pretty lazy now I think about it.  Oh well.  Like I said, 5-0.  Jobs got done.  Work got done. 

I...really don't remember how many D's I got.  I just know I got a number of monster point blocks.  Once on Gary somehow in front of his body.  Once a full hand across a backhand huck- I can still see some marks from where i took the hit.  Anytime a disc stays flying for like, five more seconds AFTER the point block, you know it's done some serious damage.  It was three points or so of my hand down my pants after that just to get feeling back.  Surprisingly, I don't have a bruise on the tip of the finger.  I thought I would.

Anyway, I played well today.  I'm really happy.  I don't know what it means, given two games were against high schoolers and one game was 123 Frisbee, but we won them all and I scored a lot of fantasy today.  I don't really know how many turns I'm responsible for either, but not a huge number.

Oh, also my pulls were commented on repeatedly.  I don't know where it came from, but I was semi-routinely dropping them in the mid-endzone depth.  I was really surprised but I was definitely gonna take it.  I also put up a few nice deep shots.  A few not-so-nice deep shots too, though.  I had a few I was really happy with.  One in particular, where Toad got block on the dump as I marked, I called him off as he went for the disc and then I bombed it to him perfectly.  That one felt really good.

Man, I was so psyched to win and do it with a bunch of my good/best friends.  Becca was in town, Katie cleated up (and played like a beast out of the gate, getting a point block on her first mark), Toad as well.  It was a fantastic time when I wasn't noticing how incredibly cold my hands were.  Keeping a handwarmer in my pocket was an excellent idea.  Gonna hold onto that one.

I'm happy.  I did work.  Let's keep ballin'.
~#28

Got Stronger last night, but not a lot.

I've decided to start letting my shoulder recuperate.  It's been bothering me for almost four months now and that's way too long for me to be complacent about it anymore.  I need to start taking steps to let it chill out.  I don't know exactly what's wrong, my worst-case fear is partially torn rotator but I'm leaning away from that given the normal amount and frequency of pain (in both cases, relatively low).

     Step one is to ease off lifts that tax my shoulder, especially where the tendon moves over the joint, which is where the pain is.
    Step two is fixing how I sleep.  This one is much harder, especially given that I'll be, y'know, unconscious...I normally sleep on my stomach with my right arm up and my head resting on my forearm.  This keeps my right shoulder in a flexed position all night.  I'm going to work to make sure I start sleeping on my back, at least for now.  It's really unnatural, but hopefully it'll work and things'll improve.
     Step three is recommitting to an advil/aspirin regimen.  I try and try and try but never remember to take advil every night.  I'd really like to give my body a better chance at healing by taking the anti-inflammatory right before bed, then letting my systems heal while they aren't inflamed.  The analgesic properties are useful enough, I guess.
     Step four is keeping up with my pills.  The Centrum especially, though the flaxseed oil can't hurt.

Alright, that's my plan.  I'm still jazzed for GHHH.  I've been jazzed for days and now it's all i can do to keep from constantly thinking about it.  Every minute not spent on work is spent thinking about how I'm gonna play.  In all my visualizations (so much less creepy a word than fantasies), I neglect the weather, which will inevitably be cold and taking a toll on my lungs.  Hmm.  Well, no point in picturing myself in pain, I'd never be able to do it anyway.  Might as well just keep pretending it's the middle of June.

~#28

The weakness of the Faster, Stronger, Better system reveals itself now.  I hit the gym last night, as planned, Got Stronger and went home.  I wake up, now, rather weaker since what I really did was put a bunch of micro-tears in my muscles which now need to heal.  When I'm really Getting Stronger in these few days AFTER the gym.  I can say this with certainty because right now, I'm feeling preeeeeeeeeeeetty sore.  In a good way, but sore nonetheless.  Especially in the calfular region, having hopped on the standing calf raise for the first time in a while and topping out at 10x215.  Fun but painful in the aftermath.  I also hit the OH squat clean which was alright but in dropping the bar back to the clean position, I tweaked something in my left shoulder which is now also slightly weaker.  I'm less worried about that one, since I'm not going to use my left shoulder for....anything in the near (next 30odd hours), it's just annoying.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with my workout.

Oh, forgot to mention, I've got my little Corner of Athletic Usefulness at work now- my gatorade, some flaxseed oil (for Omega-3s) and Centrum Silver (for combating osteoporosis and also just getting regular vitamin supplementation).  Makes me smile.  I'm taking a set of pretty huge pills every lunch now, and that's kinda balls, but it isn't really that hard.  And again, dividends get paid in April, not over the winter.

Rest day today, nothing planned, no gym, no treadmill, just chilling out and probably gonna try to get to bed early (we'll see how that works out...) and hopefully I'll be at 100% on Sunday.  Should be possible if I don't do anything stupid or get sick.  The latter is looming distressingly large over my life- yesterday I was in a meeting of 5 people, only 2 of us in this tiny conference room weren't sick.  Ugh.

Well, whatever.  Let's Do Some Work,
~#28