Frowny Face

So, come here often?

I'm here because writing in my blog is far easier than writing the proposal for funding that I should've written this past weekend but instead was writing the literature review for my thesis. Which led me to discover PhD Comics. Their second movie is coming out. First I want to see the first (lots of creative writing going on here). I think I might do a screening of it with the grad students in my department to blow off some steam. When we get time that is. Like never. Maybe I'll just watch it alone when I'm suppose to be writing the second draft of my literature review.

This past weekend I did in fact discover that I am slower than my older Garmin led me to believe. It's been a serious blow to my ego and in an effort to undo the psychological damage, I have decided to start training harder. I have less than a month before taper. More on taper later, that is not the subject of today's discussion.

While I warmed up this morning on the stationary bike at the gym, I watched a guy beat the crap out of a punching bag just 5 feet from me. My gym is in a state of remodel, complete with new equipment. Weeks ago, the owner witnessed me vying for a turn at the pull-up bar and was excited to declare that soon we would have this super cool new jungle gym type thing that had all sorts of do-dads on it. "Yeah but will it have just a plain pull-up bar?" I asked. "Oh yeah, it'll have one of those."

When the new piece of equipment arrived, I walked laps around it with everyone else, scoping it out. I spotted the pull-up bar. I had to do a double take. It was ten feet off the ground. Mind you, I'm not much more than 5 feet tall and my arms are definitely not another 5 feet each (supposedly your wing span is your height- doesn't help when you need one arm to be 5 feet long).

I stood under it and looked up. I pulled up a stool and stood on it. Still couldn't reach. I took a chance. I jumped. I did a few pull-ups, then hung there for a second, contemplating my fate. My feet must've been at least 4 feet off the ground. I have reached an age where a drop from a height of more than 6 inches is a scary thought. I considered taking a leap of faith and jumping back onto the stool. If I missed, I would be chewing on the ground real quick, and I don't know who'd I'd have faith in to begin with. My own grace and coordination? Ha!

I pointed my toes as far as they would go. I could feel the stool underneath me. My heart started racing. Do not mess this up. I let go of the bar. And found myself safely on the stool. And I walked away never to go back.

I digress. Severely.

In any case, there I was on the bicycle, warming up for leg day. I pondered how I was not as fit as I used to be while on the crew. I am not as fast, my body fat is not as low, I am not as muscular, I am not as strong. I'm probably not as intimidating. But then I realized, in those days, I was paid to be fit (essentially). My work was highly physical. I would go lift weights before work, hike or run before the crew made it in for the day, and then hike or run with the crew, then spend the day cutting brush or chasing fires up mountains.

Now I am a grad student. I sit at a computer and pretend to write proposals and literature reviews. I eat chocolate and cheese. I took on this massive project called "Master's Degree", so of course something had to give. That something was my hours of working out every day. My max pull-ups used to be 7 (the real kind, not the cross-fit kind), now it's more like 4 or 5 depending on the day. I won't talk about my squat since going to a full depth squat significantly decreased the weight I could lift anyway.

So while pedaling away on the bike, I realized, you can't do everything. As much as I think I can sometimes.

I went off and had a kick ass weight lifting routine, then headed home to run. I don't know if you've ever tried to go do a hard run after a hard leg day at the gym, but it is not nearly as inviting as eating half a chocolate cake. Fortunately I had no chocolate cake and my day was already threatening to do me in. I mean it is Monday after all.

I ran anyway. One mile warm-up, 6x 1 mile repeats...at well....whatever, fast. And then a mile cool down. I was going to go a little easy on myself the first couple of miles since I really have no clue where my splits stand these days (faulty Garmin and all), but they all ended up at 7:20 per mile or faster anyway, so it went well. Tough enough to remind me that I did indeed compromise my tendons with that hamstring tear a year and a half ago. You know how your hamstring originates up in your butt area (ok, maybe you didn't know that, but now you do)? That tendon is apparently permanently unhappy with me. Imagine that. Permanent butt pain. Fun.

I managed to get home, eat, shower, run errands, and make it to class on time. I finished my literature review half an hour before it was due. Made it through class without having a break down (and surprisingly, the teacher didn't have a break down either), and then came home to attempt to write a proposal for the Joint Fire Science Program to fund my research. And.....here I am blogging because I've re-written the first sentence 7 times now and just saved it with a half sentence on the page. I'll try again tomorrow when I'm fresh. After the gym.