Job news

I started a new job 7 business days ago. It's a short term job, but it's interesting and it gets me out of the house.

I'm taking the bus there, which is nice unless I have somewhere to be, since those are inevitably the days when the bus just doesn't show up. On the bright side I can read on the bus, even while clinging to a pole. 

There is a gym at work which I have not joined. Part of me wants to, but I have to figure out the logistics of getting gym stuff there on a crowded bus. I am still working out at home, and I now am the proud owner of a chin up bar.

I was planning to work on chin-ups this summer. My motivation is that chin ups were part of the warrior workout at boxing, and i was going to start trying them this fall. All I had to do was walk four houses down the street to the park to try them.

I made it there zero times. 

And then on Friday, I went to boxing and discovered that chin-ups are now part of the circuit, not an optional extra.

September me wishes July me had been more motivated.

Where I've been

This is another "wow, I haven't updated in a month" update. Let's see if I can remember what I've been up to.

The pathfinders went to a glassblowing class. We did a birthday party package, and it was interesting, but I was hoping we'd be able to do more of it ourselves. (We picked the colours and blew the gass, but didn't gather or shape it).

The resulting ornament was really heavy.

Wanda went away for a weekend and I proceeded to do exactly what I would have done if she'd been here.

I went to Montreal to go Christmas shopping. Uncharacteristically, I bought a gift. (Don't worry, I'm not done.)

There were layoffs at work. Not me, at least not yet.

The pathfinders did a craft activity at a community event.

I took three days off work but still had no time to relax.

I went to a work Christmas party. 

I slipped on some ice and hurt my wrist (not seriously). I went to boxing anyway and, for added fun, forgot my shoes. I persevered.

Speaking of boxing, they've started added an exercise between every station. Two weeks ago, it was jumping split squats. I was sore for four days.

Smart Alec

I'm a bit of a smart alec at the gym.

(Please ignore the chorus of people saying I'm a smart alec anywhere.)

Three days a week, I have an instructor who finds it amusing. It's a very joke-y class in general, and having fun distracts us from how hard we are working.

During Tuesday's class, we ended with a foam roller stretch. They look like Nerf toys, but they are very serious. You sit/lie/roll on the roller to release muscle tension - and, if you're me, you spend most of the session trying not to fall off. The theory is that if you find a place that hurts more than usual, you concentrate your efforts on that muscle.

Yes, it's just as fun as it sounds.

Anyway, that's when this happened:

Instructor: "and, if you find a place that's uncomfortable, just stay there."

Me: "With all due respect, that's terrible life advice."

He laughed.

300

My Monday class at the gym is body toning - so basically strength training. I like strength training, and I try not to miss this class.

The format of the class changes every month, and when I saw the format of this month's class, I considered changing my policy.

The plan was:

25 knees to chest (like a crunch, but raising your knees as well)

25 burpees 

50 squats

50 push ups

50 ball leg curls

50 supine rows

25 knees to chest

25 burpees

I hate burpees. If I never do another burpee in my life, I will be perfectly ok with that. (I also find them really difficult with my asthma). I talked to the instructor and he gave me a substitute exercise - skipping. Except skipping is easier, so it would be 50 skips instead of 25. That's fine - I skip at boxing (except when I've hurt my foot, but my foot has been annoying for too long, so it has to get over it).

One of my colleagues did the routine a couple of days before I started, and she was ridiculously sore the next day. And the day after. And the day after that.

I was a little concerned.

I went to class the first week,  prepared for the worst, and ... it wasn't that bad. The skipping was a little too easy, so I decided the next week I'd do 100 instead of 50, and I had to do bicycles instead of knees to chest the second time, but I survived.

And I wasn't even sore the next day.

The second week, I managed the knees to chest both times.

And this week I missed class, so I went in yesterday to do the workout myself. It took 18 minutes.

I'm almost sorry next Monday is February.

Napping

Wednesday is circuit class at the gym. In July, the instructir changed, and every single time I've gone to class since then, I have tried to convince the instructor that we needed a nap station,

Today, I walked into the gym and one of the other regulars said "you're going to like today's class". 

I walked into the group fitness room to see that five of the eight stations were:

- nap station

- breathing

- easy walk

- sit down and relax

- skip this station

We all laughed ... until we found out what they really were.

Still, it was well done.

The Best Laid Plans

I'm on vacation as of Thursday.

Last week, I was running around like crazy trying to get everything done.  However, my brain moved into vacation mode yesterday, so today I was more of the mind that what gets done, gets done, and the rest will wait.

This morning managed to be hot, humid, and overcast. We had thunderstorms last night, but that didn't get rid of the humidity - it was still really hot when I left for work.

The air conditioning in my car isn't working, so it was a hot & sticky drive in.  Work was warmer than usual, as well - it takes the heating and cooling system a while to adjust to temperature fluctuations, and no one was in on the weekend.

I took off my sweater for a few minutes until I cooled off, then started my day. 

At 9 the power went out.

A few seconds afterwards, I heard the generators start up and the emergency lighting came on.  (I'm on the 9th floor. Those generators are loud.)

When the power goes out like that, I always expect it to go on before too long, but that didn't happen. After about 5 minutes, we started opening our docked laptops so we could work.  (Our monitors were dead, but the laptops still had batteries.) My plan was to work until my battery had about 30 minutes left, then go home. I didn't really want to do that because I wanted to go to the gym, but I couldn't really justify sticking around just to go to the gym class - especially since the gym didn't have power, either.

The computers worked, but the water cooler didn't. And the guy who stocks the kitchen on Monday didn't show up - my guess is he didn't want to carry three carts of beverages/snacks up 9 flights of stairs.

The power came back on at 10:15.

At 12, I went to the gym, only to discover that the power was back, but the a/c wasn't. It was hot.  And humid.

Luckily for me, I am used to exercising in those conditions, since I box above a pool, but it still wasn't much fun.

When I left work, it was dark, but dry.

By the time I got to the Queensway, it was starting to rain.  For the next 20 minutes, we went from the first sprinkling of rain to harder rain to a full-out thundershower, and back again.

When I parked in my driveway, it had almost stopped.

What a weird day.

Last week was extremely cold here in Ottawa - the kind of cold where it's hard to scrape the car windows because there's so little moisture in the frost. I actually plugged in the car for 3 or 4 nights in a row - and there are years where I don't plug in the car at all.

It started warming up on Friday, and the weekend was much nicer. I even went cross-country skiing this morning.

(I tried to talk myself out of it on the grounds that we haven't had any fresh snow in a while, but ... this is Ottawa. It's either too cold or so warm it's melting or there has been no snow since we last got freezing rain. You have to take your opportunities where you find them.)

While I was on my way to the park, I ran into one of my neighbours walking their two dogs.

Now, I know these dogs. I see them all the time, and when I go over to their house, the dogs are thrilled to see me.  In fact, Oliver immediately goes to get his tennis ball so I can throw it for him.

But for some reason, when I see them outside of their house, Oliver barks like crazy at me. He's even been known to run from his house to my house when I'm outside just so he can bark at me.

It's ... well, it's pretty funny, actually.

So when the dogs saw me, naturally they had to come over to bark at me. As always, I offered to pet them, but they were far too excited for that, so I continued on my way while they got distracted by a piece of garbage.

I got my skis on and started on my way.  The snow was pretty dry, and it actually made for quite an easy ski.  I skied to the end of the park and back and then walked home.

Next week I might even venture out on an actual ski trail.

More Random Thoughts

Remember how I resolved to do some exercises every day in August? And then I went to Europe?

I didn't make it through the month.  Once I got on the ship, I kept forgetting, and eventually I just gave up.

* * * 

A conversation with my niece:
B: I want to take tae kwon do.
Me: That sounds like fun.
B: Yeah. Then I can hit and kick, and you can just hit.

* * * 

I usually go to the gym at lunch, but I didn't go today because they were giving away free frozen yogurt there was an employee meeting.

When my instructor asked yesterday whether I'd be there today, I said, "I don't know, there's a rumour we're getting ice cream tomorrow."

She said, "I'm competing with ice cream?"

Yes. And losing.

* * * 
Wanda often buys the Glee soundtracks, and we keep them in the car. Right now, we're listening to Glee #9583023, which contains the most randomly-shoehorned song in the show's history, "Last Friday Night".

I'm not sure whether there's a doll on the BBQ, an Australian BBQ on the BBQ, or whether they killed someone named Barbie.

Any way you look at it, it's weird.

But catchy.

I'll be the one limping

My foot hurts.

It started hurting yesterday on the way to the gym for this month's class of torture (30 seconds squats with shoulder presses, 30 seconds alternating row, 30 seconds alternating chest press in the bridge position, 30 seconds lunges, 30 seconds lunges on the other foot, 30 seconds renegade row, 30 seconds pullover in the bridge position with alternating crunch-like things with your knees - then repeat the whole sequence another 5 times).

Naturally, I went to the gym anyway - it didn't hurt that badly, and I hadn't really done anything, so I figured it would be fine.  It didn't hurt at all during class.  (Um, that may have been because everything else hurt - see above).

This morning, it started hurting again. Naturally, I went to the gym for cardio class.

Yes, I am a slow learner.

(As an aside, I've never done the cardio class before.  It was basically low-impact aerobics, and it was ... fine.  Not my favourite thing, but fine.)

Now? My foot hurts.

I'm starting to think signing up for the work Olympics (which seems to involve bouncy-castle-like-things for adults) might not have been the best idea.

But I'm going to be there tomorrow anyway.

Like I said, I'm a slow learner.

Sigh

Guess what I totally forgot to do yesterday?

If you guessed the exercises I resolved to do 24 hours earlier, you're right.

(I did them this morning, then again tonight.)

In which I take ages to get to the point

Back in June, my right knee started to hurt.

I had injured it years ago (back when I still was working at the big telecom company and doing Irish dance once a week), had physio, and, although it has never fully recovered, it pretty much didn't hurt unless I tried to keep it bent. (I am fun to sit beside on airplanes and at movies.)

But in June, it started to hurt again - mostly manifesting itself as stiffness after I'd been sitting for a while - and I thought "oh well, haven't been to physio in months", ... and then did nothing about it.

In July, my Monday class at the gym started doing a really painful workout. Six rounds, with one round being:

• 30 seconds shoulder presses
• 30 seconds front squats
• 30 seconds dead lifts
• 30 seconds bent over rows
• 30 seconds split squats (leg #1)
• 30 seconds split squats (leg #2)
• 30 seconds push up/mountain climbers (so as you lower yourself into the push up, you also bring one leg up towards your elbow.)

Everybody (including me) was sore the day after we did this the first time. And the day after that. And a little the day after that.

The thing is, while I was doing the dead lifts, I noticed that my right hamstring hurt, but the left one didn't. My whole  knee issue wasn't my knee at all - it was actually the hamstring.

And after I started doing this workout (3 times in July so far), my knee stopped hurting.

So, after the longest intro ever, I'll get to the point.

In order to hopefully fix this more permanently, I'm going to do hamstring exercises every day in August.

I'm also going to do some shoulder/flexibility exercises, because ... well, it just seems like a good idea.  I have no natural flexibility.

Day 1 is done. 30 days to go.

Ouch

This weekend, I went over to a friend's house and tried the Wii Fit.

Long story short, I now have a Wii Fit. (Oddly, I don't actually have a Wii. Luckily, Wanda does.)

I'm enjoying it, although I wouldn't really consider it a workout. I mean, it's better than sitting on the couch, but I used it for a couple of hours this weekend and I never broke a sweat.

I also went for a long walk yesterday since it was so nice out.

Between the two, I'm so sore today. The muscles in my upper back are sore (Rythym Kung Fu), my forearms are sore (the marching one with the drums), and the muscles on the outside of both ankles are sore (that might be the walk).

Do you know what the problem with having two sore ankles is? That's right, it's hard to limp.

Tonight I tried the one where you're flying (Bird's Eye Bull's eye, I think).

I shudder to think how sore I'll be tomorrow.

Why I Can Never Change Jobs

Now that I'm a regular employee, I can access the company gym for free. Free.

There's more.

Not only is it free, but it's at work. This means I can go to the gym at lunch. I can even do classes at lunch.

Over the past week, I've done four classes - circuit, strength and stretch, core, and body toning.

You know, I used to think I was in pretty good shape. That was before the day when my lower back was sore - not because I injured it, but because I'm not used to working that muscle. I'm not actually sure I knew there was a muscle in my lower back.

Since I'm taking a little longer for lunch, I stay a little later. That means I don't leave until 5, and I don't get home until 5:30.

At the other gym, my classes didn't start until 5:30. My evenings are endless. I'm going to need some new hobbies.

More babbling about the gym

I finally got back to the gym.

My typical schedule is BodyPump (i.e. strength training) on Mondays and Thursdays. Tuesdays I don't go to the gym. Wednesdays is boxing - or, when I procrastinate enough that I have to box on Saturdays, I either do a spin class or do my own thing on the bikes. Friday I either do Zumba or an abs class - although so far in 2012, this is only theoretical.

My Monday and Thursday classes haven't changed in two years - until now. This session, my Monday class is unchanged, but my Thursday class has moved from an hour to 45 minutes, and they've added a new CRX class afterwards (for another 30 minutes). Many of the people in my pump class stay for CRX. Last week, I stayed as well.

CRX is an ab/core workout. It's only half an hour - if you can use the word "only" in reference to a 30 minute ab class.

The first week, I had trouble following the instructor, so this week I moved up to the front of the class. It was definitely easier to follow - not such much easier to do, but easier to follow.

The surprising thing about this class is that there's no stretches afterwards. I guess that in theory you're supposed to stretch on your own.

(In practice, I forget about it long before I reach the shower.)

I haven't decided whether I'll continue with this one. I'll probably give it at least one more week before deciding.

Back to the gym

The week before Christmas, I planned to go to the gym on Monday. My flight was on Wednesday, so I knew I'd miss my classes at the end of the week, but Monday was totally doable.

Except ... I was starting to get a cold, and I had a lot of stuff to get done before I left, and it was the week before Christmas. I didn't go.

The next week, of course, I was out of town. No gym visits that week.

When I got back, I totally intended to start back at the gym right away.

But ... the first day back was the New Year's Day stat. No point in going then, the schedule'd be all messed up.

The next day, January exhaustion set in. I didn't have the energy to go.

Wednesday I was still really tired. I didn't go.

I had physio Thursday morning and my ankle was hurting. Clearly I needed to rest it.

Friday ... well, I could have gone Friday, but I'd already missed the whole week ....

Saturday was the first boxing class of the session.

I went back to the gym today.

Goodbye, My Love

I think this will be my last session of boxing.

As anyone who's ever made the mistake of asking me "How's boxing going" knows, I used to love it. It was the event I worked my schedule around. Boxing was the reason I went to the gym the rest of the week. It was the way I dealt with stress and the reason I was in such a good mood the day after class.

I'm in level four. I've been in level four for about a year and a half.

After the May/June session, my coach K offered me a choice - move up to level 5 or stay in level 4 one more time. I chose to stay - I didn't feel ready to move up.

I did the summer session. No one moves up in the summer, so I did level 4 again in September/October. I had a different coach, C, and with him it was a straight "not ready to move up yet, you need more intensity".

Up to that point, I had been going in and working as hard as I could. Once I found out I was not moving up, I stopped. I still showed up, but I just didn't try as hard. Now he says things like "good intensity" when in my mind I'm only working hard enough to stay awake.

Yes, I know I'm sulking. I'm also bored, and I'm not getting a good workout.

It's time for something else.

I'm picky, though. It has to be an intense workout. Classes work better for me than doing something on my own.

Roller derby still appeals to me, so that's a possibility (if you can start in January), but I'm not sure what else is out there.

Any suggestions?

Rollin'

Remember when I used to do new things? By the end of the year, I was all "oh, it's so much easier to do new things now".

Then I stopped.

This week (last week? Sometime recently) I heard about a roller derby open house. I've always thought roller derby looked like fun, but I didn't want to buy all the gear, and I was afraid I'd hurt myself.

When I found out I could rent shoes, I was in. After all, I didn't think I'd get terribly badly hurt the first time.

Today I left work, promised I'd be back on Monday if I didn't kill myself at roller derby, and promptly picked the worst possible route home. (Stupid construction.)

When I got home, I just had time to change before Wanda and I were back in the car. It was good to have someone along to keep me from chickening out.

We got there, paid our $15 for the time & the shoes, and started getting ready while the people who knew what they were doing did some sort of loaves and fishes thing with the other gear. ("We're out of knee pads ... oh wait, here's some more.)

I got gear before Wanda and went for a lap around the rink.

Have you ever taken someone who has never seen snow ice skating? You know how they kind of shuffle along as steadily as a boulder balanced on a stack of tea cups? That was me.

I eventually made it around the rink and back to where Wanda was still getting ready. By that time, I was tired and would have happily gone home. That seemed kind of pathetic, though, so I talked myself into staying.

I got a few tips from people and tried it a few more times. I had conversations with other new people about how much harder it was than it looked, and how none of us knew how to stop. Wanda finished getting ready and joined us and we skated around again.

Eventually, we broke up into groups - people who had been there before went off to do something involving exotic skills like stopping while the rest of us learned how to fall, stop, and, eventually, skate.

After a while, the entire group came back together and did some things in groups of five. One of them involved 5 people in a train with only the middle person skating. Another was "pass the gross thing". I'd explain, but I'm sure you can imagine how that worked.

By the end of the night, I wasn't good, but I was a lot better than at the beginning.

It was a lot of fun.

Despite my fears, I never felt like I was in danger of hurting myself. Between the knee pads, the elbow pads, and the wrist guards, I felt pretty secure.

But I'm pretty sure I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

Camping

As I mentioned, I went camping last weekend. There were 10 of us in total - 6 adults, 4 kids.

There were a few mishaps (a downpour on Friday night, a child who woke up with the sun at 5:30), but everyone had a good time.

On Friday night, I noticed a trail to the Lusk caves, 3.5 km away. Saturday morning, some of us decided to go for a hike. We didn't plan to make it all the way to the cave and figured we'd turn around whenever we got tired.



Now, when I picture a hiking trail, I think of a path that goes up and down, one that curves and meanders through the woods.

That was not this path.



This path went up, then curved, then went up, then flattened out for a few feet, then went up ... it was basically 45 minutes of walking up a hill. (We didn't make it to the caves, we just turned around after 45 minutes.)

Do you know what comes after 45 minutes of walking up a hill? That's right, 45 minutes of walking down the hill.



Now, I'm in pretty good shape, but by the time I got to the bottom of the hill, my legs shook when I tried to stand still.


I joked that my legs would be so sore by Sunday that I wouldn't be able to help pack up, but that wasn't the case. I was fine while we packed up.


Getting out of the car when I got home was another story. My calf muscles were stiff. So stiff, in fact, that every step hurt.

I didn't walk much on Sunday.

Monday was a bit better, but my legs were still sore. By the time I got to boxing on Tuesday, I was fine.

Tonight, I tried a spinning class for the first time.

It was an excellent workout, but I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

I guess I never learn.

Timeline of a Bike Ride

4:45 I know, instead of going to the gym, I'll go for a bike ride
5:00 Sitting on the couch checking twitter
5:10 Clean dust of bike helmet
5:11 Locate appropriate footwear (well, sports sandals, not really appropriate footwear)
5:12 Wrangle bike from the basement to the backyard
5:14 Pump up front tire
5:15 Fill water bottle; place on bike
5:15 Put on bike helmet; notice it is far too tight
5:16 Deduce helmet problem is caused by ponytail; change to low ponytail
5:17 Notice front tire is flat. Crap.
5:17 Take off bike helmet, grab keys
5:25 Purchase new tire tube
5:26 Stupid traffic
5:38 Take of front tire; pull out old tube
5:38 Read size of old tire tube; note it is 2 inches bigger than the newly-purchased tire
5:43 Back at Canadian Tire
5:45 Correct size tire located; waiting in line at customer service
5:55 Tire successfully exchanged
5:58 Traffic successfully avoided
6:05 Tube replaced
6:05 Notice part of mechanism that attaches the tire to the bike is missing in the lawn
6:06 Found! Attach tire to bike
6:07 Put on bike helmet
6:07 Get on bike
6:12 Adjust seat
6:15 Hmm, the seat is slipping
6:15 Ignore moving seat
6:23 Why is everything uphill?
6:40 Home at last
6:41 How does this bike fit into the shed again?
6:42 Hey, I didn't have any water! *inadvertantly pulls the entire lid off and spills it*

Colette's Exercise Tips

1. Figure out what activities you like.
If you don't know, try lots of things. Personally, I've tried step aerobics, low impact aerobics, water aerobics, archery, boxing, strength training, cycling, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, Irish dancing, belly dancing, ballroom dancing, yoga, zumba, gliding ... there are probably more. Sometime this summer, I'm going to try spinning (*cough*).

2. Figure out why you like them.
I like boxing and strength training because they make me feel strong. Everything else I do is to support those activities, because that's what motivates me. Maybe your thing is yoga because you like feeling flexible. Maybe you like biking, because you like the wind in your face. Figure out why you like what you like and you'll know what motivates you.

3. Figure out when (and how) you like to do them.
Are you a person who is fine with exercise first thing in the morning before you're fully awake? Do you like doing 10 minutes here and there? Are you the kind of person who needs to exercise on the way home from work? Do you need a class because, like me, it's too easy to make excuses to stop or work less hard if you're on your own? Do you like the freedom of being able to start and stop on your own schedule?

4. Put it together and come up with a plan.
Maybe you're going to swim at lunch 3 days a week. Maybe you are going to get up 1/2 an hour early and spend 20 minutes on the elliptical. Decide what you're going to do and commit to it - maybe to someone else, but mostly to yourself.

5. Follow your plan.
If your plan is to swim 3 days a week, pack your swimming stuff the night before so that you're ready. Change your alarm clock so that you get up 1/2 an hour earlier. You've committed to exercise, and it's as important as any of the other day to day things you have to do, so treat it accordingly.

6. Stuff happens.
Yes, exercise is as important as the other day to day things, but sometimes it's not the most important thing. People get sick. Cars break down. Sometimes there are urgent things that derail the plan. That's OK - start again the next day.

7. The Yoga Corollary
If stuff always happens at the same time, you need to rethink the plan. Either you didn't pick the right time, or you didn't pick the right activity. Personally, I dropped yoga after I noticed that days I had yoga were always the days I had to work late. Work wasn't the problem - the problem was that I was doing yoga because I thought I should, not because I liked it.