Into the bleachers...

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Let’s skip past Thursday and Friday since they were both days that included lots of work and no real exercise.

Thursday, I had 15 volunteers to supervise as they attempted to paint various areas of the farm.  I’m a bit of a stickler about painting, particularly when it comes to the trim where most amateurs consider close good enough.  It’s not their fault.  Having the steady hand to do the trim work around doors, windows and the ceiling takes patience and practice both of which are in short supply when you get a group of random sales people together to do a job.  I asked if anyone was comfortable with a brush and three hands shot up.  When I distributed brushes and one of the volunteers asked for a smaller one, I knew he wasn’t really comfortable.  “We can scrape it off with a razor later…right?” Um…well…we can if we have to, but ‘HELL NO’.

Friday was a long day of painting, repairs and more heavy lifting.  I received an email that one of our volunteers had some plywood the farm could have if I was willing to pick it up.  I was, of course and asked for her address.  Maureen/Mo came back to the shop with the information.

“The person with the wood lives on Bass Lake Road and his name is Jon.  He’ll be there to help you load it,” she said.

I thought for a moment.  “Is his last name Duer?”

“Yeah.  How did you know?”

“He’s my nephew,” I said, putting the pieces together.  “He’s not going to help me load that plywood, he’s going to do it alone.”

I arrived at his farm and we stacked the wood into the back of the truck.  It had been nailed into his loft and he’d neglected to remove the thirty nails which held each sheet in place.

“I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon taking these friggin nails out of this plywood,” I said. 

He smiled.

I finished the day by working four hours on a side job staining a deck.  The people are so nice and when I was told I was staying for dinner, I didn’t argue.

Saturday started with brickwork on my house.  A friend who does that kind of work stopped over and we began mixing mortar to apply to the outside of the front of the brick façade where the brick faces had been popping off.  I climbed on the roof and did the same on the chimney and we both sweat profusely.  I did introduce him to an ice cold fruit smoothie half way through the day though.

I felt like I’d done plenty, but as it got closer to sunset, I made up my mind to put a bag of salt in my backpack and head for the Mayfield bleachers for an tough climbing workout.  I’d lightened the salt bag from fifty to maybe thirty pounds and loaded it into my pack.  All told, I was probably lugging about forty pounds on my back as I headed for the bleachers.  I spent the next 40 minutes going up and down and mixing in a mile walk on the track.  I ended up climbing over 800 steps in my twenty sets in the bleachers and wondered if the groin injury would return and debilitate me the next day.  I had plans to ride two hours in the morning, but only a good night’s sleep would confirm that plan.  I was reasonably pain free during the workout and it felt awfully good to be testing myself again.  Climbing steps with that weight truly taxes the quadriceps and is excellent preparation for the Adirondacks…or the nut house. 

Bleacher work duration:  45 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  110-140 bpm.

Calories burned during workout:  500