Hey Exercise, How Are Ya?

I have not made it to the gym at all this week.  In fact I have not even done anything remotely close to exercise since Sunday.  I am not a fan of this.  Monday I had some Professional Development, Tuesday a staff meeting, Wednesday I made the mistake of sitting on the couch when I got home from work and fell asleep, yesterday I was looking at a house with Amber.  Finally tonight I will be playing goalie, so that is something at least.

I really dislike when I don’t get something in during the week.  My plan was to run on Tuesday, but it was really windy and cold at work and so I said ‘forget this noise’ and just did some extra things at work instead.  Mainly because I had only brought shorts and not any type of winter running gear.

I’m not here to ‘renew my vow of fitness’ like I see so many pledge to do, I do not need to do that.  After two years of all this I know that this week is the exception to the rule and that if it had been five degrees warmer I would not even be typing this particular post.  I just think it sucks when the fates conspire against me.

Oh I have discovered the most painful thing ever at the gym, I’ll tell you about that on the weekend!

Last Game Of The Season

We played our final game of the season last night at hockey.  The CFL flyers ended the year at 17-6-2, I was 4-1-1 as goalie, and as a skater I scored 8 goals and 48 assists for 56 points.  That is my highest total yet in a season by 10 points.

I had far more assists this year and about half the number of goals when compared to last season (my previous best year).  Part of this may have been that I moved from right wing to left wing this season.  The change in position opened up the ice for me to be able to pass on the forehand which set up a lot of goals for Jeff and Mark, but it also took my stick to the outside of the rink and I don’t have the puck skills to manoeuvre into a better shooting position - yet.  Something to work on for next year definitely.

Last season I only played one game in net for our team, and lost.  This year I played in net six times and ended up with pretty decent numbers, four wins, a loss and a tie.  All four of those wins came against the Living Hope team, and over all I had a .905 save percentage and a goals against average of 3.50.  Not too shabby!

It was our best year as a team, since the first year the league was around.  We tied our high for wins, but I think I might be the only player left from that first version of the team, and really I am a completely different player the last two years since I am in shape now.

It was a great year, I’m a bit sad that hockey is over on Saturday nights now though.  I’m looking forward to next season already!

Assessment Day (Again)

I wanted to do another fitness assessment before I did this race on April 15th and today was that day.  After work I got a chance to rest at home a bit and then head over to the gym for 6 o’clock and meet with Jodi.  I’ve talked about assessments here before, right, over… Here.

I was a bit surprised at a couple of the things on these results from today, but when I actually brought the numbers home and compared them to the last assessment I was not as surprised as I was at the gym.  Many of the things were the same, or you know, as ‘same’ as any measure of the human body can be since it fluctuates even within each day.

My heart rate at rest is still awesomely low, 40bpm, my blood pressure is fine as usual, I’ve stayed the same height (no surprises there) and even over the last year I weigh about the same (within about 2 pounds).  One thing we did change was how the scale measured my body fat percentage.  Apparently on the scale they have at the gym there are two settings to use for measuring ones body fat percentage, Normal and Athletic.  The athletic setting takes into account the fact that athletic folks do weight training and generally have more muscle mass than non-athletic types.  So while we did measure in both, I’m thinking (and so is Jodi) that we should be taking the Athletic reading as the more accurate one.  If that is the case my percentage of body fat is 8.8%!

Awesome!

My muscle measurements were all about the same except for the thighs, which I think is a bit strange.  My thighs went down by about 5cm in circumference each.  The last time I did an assessment was at the end of running season in September when I was running 10k races and such, I have played a lot of hockey since then and worked legs and started running again so I don’t know what is up there, maybe it is just leaner, seems odd to me.

One of the real successes of the evening though was the beep test.  I think I have mentioned this before as well.  Last time I ran the beep test I completed level 9.5, which is not too shabby, tonight I completed level 10.5.  That is great, if I was in the police foundations course in college or the firefighter program I would just need to make level 11 to be perfect.  Just 30 more seconds of running.  I think if we had done this assessment in the morning instead of six in the evening I would have made it too.  So that will be my next plan in a few months when we do this all over again, do the assessment in the morning, and complete level 11 or die trying.

So as with any grading or assessment I have areas to be really happy about and areas that need a little more focus.  I’m excited again to have another marker on this journey of fitness and hopefully I can get everything to where I would like it in time for the Warrior Dash in July.

When is 23C not 23C

When it is freaking March!

Today it was a 'hot' 23 degrees Celsius here in Central Ontario. 23 is not really that hot, when it is July or August, but in the middle of March, 23 is boiling. My body was totally not conditioned for this weather yet. I would have liked spring to last more than five or six days really.

I ran today after work, after being out in the sun most of the day and I could feel the searing heat of the sun battering me down with each step. I was not ready for this type of temperature yet. Midway through this run I wondered to myself 'How did I ever run last summer when it was 29 plus humidity‽ (I used it Marion!)

I finished the run however, it was a bit windy and such and seemed very hot, so my time was not as good as I would like it to be. In the end of it all though that is exactly the reason I ran the course, so the my first time running it (without snow on the road) would not be race day with just wonderings about how I finished at least one minute slower than I expected.

I intend to run this course again, probably Tuesday between work and our staff meeting. I am, as usual, endeavoring for a better time. I want to get the time for this particular run down at least under 22 minutes.

Also don't forget, especially those of you that know me personally, that you can donate to the Community Care for Peterborough Area using the link at the top of my blog.