I took about three and a half weeks off. Last thursday was my first day back in the gym, did the cardio weight routine. it was hard. yesterday I did chest, it was tough, but not super tough.
Today I tried sprints/abs, and it was ungodly aweful. Asthmatic traits were back, I was slower, and I couldn’t run nearly as hard. Not even a full month off!
Things I’ve realized in the last month:
1) Everyday I didn’t go back made me not want to go back even more. I had to break the inertia very willfully last week. There’s really something to be said for having a routine that takes on a momentum of its own.
2) I get the lifestyle thing, wholeheartedly. Had I done each routine at least once in the last month, I think my fall off would have been much slower. I had some great times boozing, staying up late, and all that in the last month. But, while there’s something inherently stimulating about flying between highs and lows, not once in the last 30 days did I really feel as equanimious as I did the morning of May 15th (my last official training day).
It’s a much more subtle high being clean, fit, and well rested. More of a presence than a high.
at some point I’ll write up a more extensive reflection of my last weeks of training, with an ‘after’ picture, and final stats. But for now, Friday Sprints/Abs complete! I’m taking the next week off training. A few bullet points:
I’ll forever have a strange, weird, and intimate connection with the gym at north boulder rec. At 6am 2 days a week for the last 14 weeks it was a space I had all to my own.
Part of me had secretly hoped my last training session would be off the hook and super amazing, etc, etc. Turns out it was just as hard as usual, lungs hurt, felt tired, crossovers sucked for abs, etc, etc. So goes training, and life.
While there’s no doubt my training was *hard*, it in many ways wasn’t. Setting up for success goes a long way.
I ended up going the entire 16 weeks sober.
Totally failed writing my screenplay, and my sitting practice dropped off as well.
I’m really happy I started in late winter and was able to FINISH in early summer. Feels good to be headed into this season healthy.
Going to miss the lovely blonde that takes the step class on saturday mornings. May go a few more saturdays just for you baby.
I’ve now done two “12 week training programs” in the last 2 years. One with a workout partner, one without. Both have numerous benefits and strengths, as well as weaknesess.
Big love to Rob McNamura, Shawn Phillips, and “Crazy” Casey Capshaw for their tips, support, and training philosophies.
I like living clean. I like getting up early. I like being strong, and my training has in many ways just begun.
Ahh pull day, my tried and true nemesis. We’ve never really gotten along or really ‘connected’ with each other, but we still hang once a week. This morning was a good workout despite not getting enough sleep last night. (turns out eating after 9 keeps me up late!)
I felt weak as hell doing dips today, not sure why, but I think possibly because I engaged with some of the earlier exercises more fully than usual.
Well, 8 last sets of sprints and some ab work tomorrow, then I’m officially done.
First things first, good god was the sauna hot today, though it almost always is on LEG day.
Not sure what the hell happpened, but I wentt in, did my lunges/press/curls/sumosquats/calf raises, and suddenly at the end felt how absolutely wiped I was. Breathing hard with a nicely elevated heart rate as I went into the sauna, which actually did feel hotter than usual. That, plus the intensity of my workout, made it a LONG 15 minutes this morning.
Totally worth it though, because that 12 second rush of blood vessels contracted when I stepped out was simply fantastic.
Happy that I crushed my last day of legs. Felt good, felt strong. And I hit 171.8 on the scale this morning (though it fluctuates up to 2 pounds day to day depending on my hydration). So that was exciting too.
This morning I seriously considered skipping. My first thought was “I’m in my last week, I’ve done well, no one would ever know”.
Then I though “I’m in my last week, I’ve done welll. Why stop now”?
And off I was to the North Boulder Rec for some sprints and abs. My first 2 sets were fully badass, I was fast, powerful, and sleek. Things slowed down a bit after that, but I came back strong for the last few.
Abs were also pretty solid, swiss ball crunches felt good today. I’m building some actual muscle down there, not much, but I can say its coming slowly but surely.
16 weeks after startinng basecamp I’m not exactly huge or cut, but there is a good deal muscle mass. And making this routine into a sustainable lifestyle will is going to continue changing my body for sure.
Final week. At this point I’ll say that I’m DEFINITELY excited to take next week off, and the idea of sleeping in is quite lovely to me. However, I have to admit to myself that I feel better when I’m training than when I’m not. So while this may officially be the last week of the routine, I’m going to continue on pretty strongly after that. Life is momentum for me, and the simple act of committing to get up each morning and move heavy weights around has created some in my life and i have no desire to waste all that energy.
Chest was pretty good this morning, dumbbell bench press was quite tough, I was reeeeaaally struggling by the final reps. Fantastic. Had a great couple of sets of bicep curls as well, it blows me away how much less weight i’m doing than I used to, but how much more intense they are with proper focus at the proper weight. No cheating.
Suckerrific. This morning was aweful. I was out of breathe and cramping up by sprint 5, felt very sluggish the whole time, and just felt tapped out. Abs were no better, I felt just as weak and unpowerful.
So definitely one of those low days I’ve written about before. Performance wise if you actually timed my sprint and witnessed by ab exercises my guess is they weren’t actually all that much more worse than some other days. But they sure as hell felt like it!
Not too much to say about today that I haven’t already said about pull day before. I considered it to be a 7/10 on my workout scale, not a bad day, but not exceptional. The next few months are likely going to be very chaotic, so I’m enjoying these last days of uber stable training as much as a I can.
One week till the Sex, God, Rock ‘n Roll Boulder Theater premiere and end of my 16 weeks of sobriety! http://tinyurl.com/sgrr515
Don’t know if it was becauase I didn’t get to bed until 11 last night, or because I worked out harder than usual, but for whatever reason legs absolutely kicked my ass today. That’s not to say I didn’t give them a run for their money, but at the end of today’s routine it took me a good 5 minutes to catch my breath and I absolutely fried in the sauna. Lunges started off a bit rough, but by the end of the leg press it was fully on, and I pushed out quite a few more reps than I had the previous week.
There’s something dreadful and magical about having LEGS be on hump day of the work week. Tomorrow I’ll be all excited in the morning because its just “pull thursday”, and then friday morning I’ll be cursing the fact that it’s friday and I’m up at 6am doing sprints. It goes on and on and on and on!
