serinde

Am now on week 6. This is dropping back somewhat from Friday's "run solidly for very long time" experience, and returns to a run-walk-run pattern. Therefore, I picked up the pace somewhat, so we had:
5 min run @5.2mph
3 min walk
8 min run @5mph
3 min walk
5 min run @5.2mph

And then some weights:
modified shoulder press, 2 sets of 10 reps at 2#
lateral elbow shoulder raise thingy: 2 sets of 10 reps at 1# <-- less weight, more reps
assisted dips, 2 sets of 10 reps at 115#
assisted chin-up, 1 set of 10 reps at 115#

I may raise the shoulder press and the dips to 3 sets next week.

Up 3lbs. afkdfjkldfblfjkd I knew I was eating bad things this weekend, but did not think I'd had THAT MUCH.

I ran for twenty minutes without stopping (at a constant speed of 4.5mph, pathetic yes, but I refuse to set myself up for autofail). I didn't think I could, and wasn't even sure that was what I was going to attempt. At 5 min, I thought I was too tired to even keep going for the lower-level routine. At 8, I thought, just push on a few minutes more to halfway, then a brief walk, then run the rest. At 12, I thought I could go on forever. And at 18, I thought it was getting awfully hot in here but why stop so close to the end?

Sheer cussedness had its part to play, as well as a certain...I think the way to phrase it is, an abjuration of the entirely too common waves of Fail currently at work in all aspects of the world around me. People abnegating responsibilities, both to themselves/their well-being and to others; can't-do attitudes, passive-aggression, locks into imaginary prisons of the psyche, blah blah blah, it goes on and on and if I can't do anything about anyone else's attitudes and states of mind then at least I can Not Be That.

Perhaps that's reading a bit much into a jogging session. But I felt a hell of a lot better within and about myself for having stuck to this and accomplished it.

Afterwards, some weights:
- 2 reps of 10 assisted dips at 115#. This was MUCH easier today, don't ask me why, and thus also:
- 1 rep of 10 assisted chin-ups, also at 115#. Much harder.
- 1.5 reps of 10 (heh) on a lateral something which strengthens the shoulder muscles. I figured it would do me no harm to extend a bit of love to my rotator cuffs, though they've recovered for all practical purposes--it's only some aikido holds that are telling me I am not what I was.
- 2 reps of 10 on the modified shoulder press, still at 2#.

Don't know about weight, as again at sweh's. Probably not too great, as I had black pudding and white pudding and other deliciously evil things last night. But now I find some of my work slacks are also getting loose, so it would seem that progress is ... progressing.

I was monomaniacal about a project today, so by the time it was running time, the gym was closed. Ergo, I went unto the river.

Five minutes brisk warm-up walk got me to 71st and Second; from there, I did the 8/5/8, which got me all the way up to the park that is over top the FDR when you get beyond 79th St., which is, um, er, *google*, Carl Schurz Park. Whoever he is. I went partway through the park, then across it, then up the hill (oh god oh god) on the street side of it back down to 79th. I had to break in the middle of the second 8 for a fifteen-second breather, so ran an extra 2.25 minutes in compensation.

At this point, my Session[tm] was done, but I still had a fair way to go back to campus; so I walked 5, ran 3, walked 5, ran 3, went splat, changed, realized I did not have time to have lunch before my next meeting, and scarfed a string cheese.

I really like running along the river, particularly on such a beautiful day, but it occurs to me that locomoting alongside the FDR Drive and its masses of stopped traffic belching fumes is Considered Harmful. Certainly I noticed the fumes a lot more than I have while just walking there.

I am going to do the same sequence tomorrow, rather than try the next one, which is run 20 minutes without a walking break. Srsly.

Down 1.5lbs this morning, though that could be 'cos I didn't really have dinner last night.

ObMusic: My amazing psychic MP3 player threw that at me as I finished up. Har har bloody har.

(This post actually covers yesterday's endeavors. Please adjust your set accordingly.)

In which I discover that going down to the gym at 12 sharp, when Open Time begins, is suboptimal because everyone else does it too and therefore you may have to wait for a treadmill. Happily, I didn't have to wait too long. I did the same routine from last week. I realize that even though it's still really (if variably) hard mentally (or emotionally, perhaps; something like that), if I look past the Wah and Ugh and I Can't, I'm actually holding up better to it physically. Still overheated at the end, but not as completely flat.

Then did a bit of weights to finish up:
Modified shoulder press: 2 sets of 10 reps at 2#
Assisted dip: 2 sets of 10 reps, at 155# <-- that was super hard.

Was up half a pound, no big deal. I don't know about today, because I was at sweh's and his scale has always been quite different from mine.

Today I'm slated for the Yoga class they offer. I'm kind of ambivalent. I am feeling a strong urge to exercise in a much more energetic way, but on the other hand, the stretchy and meditative-ness of yoga is probably something I could really use right about now.

I went running in Central Park today. This was, for some reason, much more difficult (physically) than the gym. I don't know if it was having to watch out for other traffic, the fact that I didn't have an actual route, the very un-level terrain, or a combination; but I was making heavy weather of it. The fact that my anklet got caught between my flesh and my shoe, and thus gouged a big bleeding hole in my heel, did not help much.

But, did it. I am not convinced I'm ready for the time upgrade, but maybe I'll try it slow-like tomorrow.

Down a half-pound this morning.

In which I learn that Tetsuya's is like unto the French Laundry, and calling for reservations a mere month in advance is wildly insufficient. (Their next open slot is July 22nd.)

I called off Friday, which meant I didn't have my sports bra all weekend, so my perfect weeks are now skewed, feh. I did the same as last week: 3/1.5/5/2.5/3/1.5/5. Today I found I could do the first three-minute run almost easily, but the subsequent ones were much more like work. (Except when I listen to "Domino."[1]) I haven't made up my mind whether to do that for all of this week, or plunge directly into the next week, which starts getting Funky. The next episode, if I moved forward, would be run 5/walk 3/run 5/walk 3/run 5, and the running starts increasing from there. Hmm.

Point of Self-Aggrandizement: I increased the second three-minute run's speed by .4 mph, and lived. It made the remainder much more difficult, however.

I'm also mournful about spending my lunch hour in the underground, cement-lined, stuffy gym, and wonder if I'm l33t enough to attempt running on the street. There comes the problem of negotiating through the other bodies on the street. If I can make it to the riverside walking path, that's not too populated; but that's nearly a mile away, which is, well, half of what I cover in the running portion of the show at this juncture. Perhaps I should hold off. (Or I could go to Central Park, which is less than half a mile, but...RIVER!) If I do this, I should unquestionably haul in my Camelbak.

Down two pounds. Scarcely eating for three days'll do that.

[1] Mem.: I should turn the Blue Garden cover into an icon.

Due to stupid scheduling, I couldn't run yesterday during lunch (and I'd fixed on doing that, rather than in the morning, because I stayed up WAY too late Tues. night), so did it today instead. It was... Yes, I'll say it was a little easier, though I drove myself to go faster (HA HA HA by which I mean keeping at or above 5mph) during the running bits. The Stupid Obviousness Department reports that it helps my mental state a great deal to concentrate on why the sodding fuck I am doing this instead of "wah so tired and hot and this sucks wah wah wah". I found myself slightly shocked and even vexed when suddenly the treadmill dropped speed for the cooldown phase. NO RUN MORE MAKE ALL THE PUDGE GO AWAY NOW!, etc. But was exceedingly red and overheated, so it was right to stop. (Still am, a bit. I may go sit out in the 17 degree F. windchill until my body temp returns to normal.)

Forgot to weigh myself this morning. Probably would have been high-ish, anyways, since That Time is coming.

At the request of the Beloved Husband, I have been installing Plone. Fine, it is installed. We can haz test instance.

I would like to state that the documentation for this beast is shit.

There are reams upon reams of it, helpfully categorized. But it's all special-cases. There are all sorts of serious, elaborate instructions on how to have it use LDAP, or Active Directory, or specify this, or reject that--but there is NOTHING I HAVE YET FOUND that has the basic. user. creation. process.

This is your future! It's easier! Can't you tell?

Edit: But wait! There's more! By default you can self-register...which I don't want, but I'm willing to poke at in the testing stage...but it does its thing by sending mail. And the mail is bouncing because the sender address is rejected. Is there any documentation about this problem? WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Edit #2: My Mongolian Hordes, let me show you them. I grepped for "postmaster@localhost", which is what it's sending as, in the relevant directories. You know how you change it? BY LOGGING IN AS A USER. WHICH YOU CAN'T CREATE.

I'm guessing that this is some degree of NetBSD pkgsrc Fail. I am guessing that there is some compile time option that lets you change this that I was unaware of (but I don't know because I haven't turned up any documentation talking about compile time options!). Either that, or the developers have their heads so far up their asses, they think that ISPs are accepting mail from external "localhost"s these days.

Edit #3: No, I have done a disservice to NetBSD. The Plone developers really, really think that's a reasonable default. What the fuck?

Edit #4: Okay, so, it automatically sets up an admin user with the same login combo as your Zope admin user. Nice of them to tell you that. The closest reference is "provided during the Plone install", which, thank you, it was not.

Today, I adventured the gym's weight machines, after a 12-minute warm-up on the elliptical. (It is interesting to note that, at least according to the amazing electroscopitron, I move at a much higher speed walking on the elliptical than I do running on a treadmill. To the tune of 3mph, at that. Fallacy somewhere, I fancy.)

My arms are feeble. I knew this. But they are really, really feeble.

Some Press Thing I Forget, Next To The Pull-Down: 2 reps of 10, at 2#
Lat pull-down: 3 reps of 10, at 25# (lats {duh}, biceps, deltoids)
Shoulder ("incline") press: 2 reps of 10, at 2# (deltoids, trapezius, triceps)
Dip Assist: 1 rep of 10, with 100# of counter-weight (triceps, biceps, shoulders). Barely.

That latter device is an interesting one. It can be used for both chin-ups and for -- Well, imagine being a kid on line at the amusement park, and you're in the cattle chute corralling the line, yeah? And you're bored out of your skull so you put one hand on the rail on either side of you, and you lift your feet off the ground so you're held up between the railings just by your arms. Now, instead of fucking around, start doing push-ups. That's a "dip". So, what the assist machine does is, instead of having a dip or a chin-up be strictly Your Arm Strength Vs. Your Body Weight, it provides some counter-weight so you have, well, an assist. (It is backwards of what I expected, 'cos I didn't think it through: I set the weight to the second-lightest thingie, like I did for everything else, and had an amusing episode of Fail.)

What is driving my sudden pumping of iron is the fact that I am too goddamn feeble to do a single, solitary chin-up. (You could say weight is a factor, aheheheh. Except that I could not do this at my thinnest--size 6--in high school, either.) (Did I mention how, even at that thinnest, I was still convinced I was overweight? Not to the crazy anorexic point, but just sorrowfully resigned? Because I always had been, and because my boobs were still huge. But enough about my body image issues.) I don't want to be some scary body-builder, I don't even want to be ripped, but I want to have some basic level of tone and fitness in my arms and upper body.

I was fine at the time, although did less than I thought I was capable of because I know how this works, but now I am full of the ache and the ow.