Saturday, November 21, 2015
I looked out my bedroom window and saw something
white on the ground below. Damn –
snow!
Driving to Mimi’s I knew my workload had just
tripled. What leaves were left in
her yard would now be completely wet and of course, heavy. I had to get them done though and
resigned myself to making it part of a tough workout day.
I raked the remaining leaves into about 10 small
piles and grabbed my 20’ by 12’ tarp.
I’d been concerned when it was still in the package that it would not be
big enough to move leaves, but it was more than adequate. By the time I’d put half the leaves on
it and began the long haul with the tarp to the woods out back, I knew I’d
overloaded.
With probably 100 pounds of leaves and sticks, I
puffed and huffed my way up the sloping front yard, past the house and finally
through the woods to the leaf pile I’d built over the last couple of
weeks. I’d had to stop and catch
my breath a little beyond half way, which told me something about the size of
the load. I returned empty and
reloaded the remaining leaves and the piles of downed branches and as I began
to pull that load, realized I may have added the proverbial ‘straw’. Three stops and ten minutes later with
my heart pounding around 160 beats per minute, I pulled the pile to the top of
Leaf Mountain and emptied the tarp.
Done for the season and without suffering from a heart attack. It was a very good workout.
I left Mimi’s and drove to Donnas’ place in
Painesville to determine the scope of work for replacing a door on the back of
her garage. I was supposed to meet
my new movie-going friend, Sarah, to see ‘The Intern’ starring Robert DiNiro,
so I knew time was limited if I wanted to get in a workout. I opted to drive straight from the job
site to the park and do the workout in whatever gear I could find in the Jeep.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from myself for the
workout. I hadn’t done a good
Survival Workout in several weeks and that would surely mean some loss in the
reps I could handle. As always, I
began with push-ups, but only managed 73.
I was way down. I followed
with crunches, pull-ups (10), dips and biceps curls with a heavy rock. I headed down the trail aware that I was
at least 20% off on everything.
It remained that way and got worse. Where I would normally hit my second
set of push-ups at around 60, I struggled to reach 40. My third set was only 25 and as I returned
to the Jeep with 17 sets of various exercises in, I knew just how much I’d
lost. It didn’t bother me, though,
but in fact, motivated. I knew I’d
be sore the next day, but so what?
I’ve missed my workouts and writing about them and this was an excellent
kick in the ass.
I arrived late to the movies, but Sarah had grabbed
tickets to ‘Spotlight’, which was really our first choice. It is the story of the Boston Globe’s
breaking of the Catholic Church’s efforts to conceal the extent of the heinous
actions of priests who had molested children in their parishes. Sadly, it involved 70 priests in the
Boston diocese and happened with the knowledge of Cardinal Law and the hierarchy
of the entire church. A very disturbing movie, it was
extremely well done and completely thought provoking. Sarah has an excellent mind and enjoys discussing content,
as do I, so she is a perfect movie companion. We went out afterwards to talk and for me to have my last
solid, fatty food before beginning my clear liquids and laxative routine the
following day.
Survival
Workout: 60 minutes
Training
Heart Rate: 100-150 bpm.
Calories
burned: 600
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