Change Hurts

At the gym anyways, but it’s GREAT.

I had been doing the same program of 4 workouts at the gym since mid March.  Four months!  That is a loooooooong time.  I had wanted to get a new workout about six weeks ago, but at the time Amber was considering starting up with Jodi and so to not spend as much money at once on the extra sessions with a trainer I held off getting a new routine.

Yesterday I started a new set of workouts at the gym aimed toward giving me an extra gear at hockey.  I told Jodi that I wanted these exercises to enable me to explode past ‘that guy’ that I was trying to beat on defense.

I don’t have a single exercise at the gym that is the same as I have been doing for the last four months and I was (and am) in much soreness now.  It’s fantastic.  For weeks I have been going tot he gym and doing my thing for an hour or more.  I would be tired, but not sore, I wasn’t working any new muscles or anything.  The workouts took a while but my body was so used to them that they were “easy” to complete.  My body knew what it had to do and nothing was all that difficult anymore even though I upped weights every three or four weeks.

Thursday I will be shown my two cardio workouts to go along with these two muscle building ones.  As I have mentioned I will be doing a 10km run in September and I need to have the power to do so.  I’m looking forward to all new kinds of pain on Thursday!

I Stink at Slo-pitch

Many, far too many years ago I was a pro-star at 3-pitch.  I played in Buckhorn for a few years in a row when I was in grade 7,8, and 9 I think.  Grade 8 for sure, I remember that clearly due to the Stanley Cup finals.

Commonly I would play first base, and be the pitcher for our team.  I could hit the ball too.  Back then you used to be called out if you hit it over the fence in 3-pitch, maybe you still are, if kids even play ball anymore, I did it twice I think.

When I was good

I had thought about playing ball for a couple of summers and just this week finally found someone looking for players in a slo-pitch league on kijiji and replied to the ad.  It’s a fairly similar way to how I started playing hockey, but that’s another story.

I went out to play tonight, and apparently in the first game we played we were against one of the best teams in the league.  Luckily for me the team I was on seems to be all about just having some fun.  I say that because somewhere in the last, oh, 18 years or so I seem to have forgotten how to catch anything.  Which is surprising to me a bit because my goalie skills have not gone nearly that far down hill.

I got on base alright, I never really got a hold of a pitch, but I did make a base 2/3 times at bat, so that’s not too shabby.  It was the fielding that was so, so bad.  The first ball that came my way I nearly had but it was going fast enough to twist it’s way out of my glove.  I make the play well, but just couldn’t hold on to it, fine.  Then I dropped a fly ball, flubbed a grounder that I was charging and bruised my hand trying to snag a drive (that then bounced out of my glove) it still hurts now!

Our second game the other team didn’t have enough players, so they forfeited the actual game, and we played pickup.  I made a few catches there and hit the ball ok again.

I’m hoping to not be so bad next week.

The Flash

I run now, I think three times would include me in the group known as ‘runners’.  A friend asked if I jogged or sprinted, and I thought, neither, I run, it’s in between, fairly self-explanatory.

On Wednesday I ran after work in the ridiculous heat we have right now and was only two seconds faster than the first time.  Today my goal was just to be faster than Wednesday and here I was pretty darn quick.  Today I ran for the third time on my 5.2km route I took 30 seconds off my time since last week!

It took me 23:16 to do the run this time around, but in the end my ankle hurts like mad.  The ankle that I snapped over playing hockey about 10 years ago or so.  Now I did do a little something to it at the gym on Tuesday night hopping over the barrier that you are not supposed to hop over to get to Jodi’s class quicker, but I think that is more of an addition rather than a cause.

So today I bought shoes, actual factual running shoes, not the $30 sneaks I usually buy at Wal-mart.  I bought these:

They cost me as much as I would spend on three pairs of shoes usually!  I hope they make a difference, not so much for speed, but for comfort and no ankle pain.

I also finally bought an Under Armour shirt.  I had thought about it for a while but was, hmmm, insecure about having a super tight shirt on.  But after trying one on last week I couldn’t not buy it.  So soft, comfy and apparently I look pretty good in it according to a couple of people.

Eventually it seems that I may actually be a superhero, all I have to do is save someone.  I am very glad to see my fitness having real world applications though now, not just progress in the gym.  If I have to out run a friend because a bear is chasing us and I want to live, I can totally do that.  If I have to lift a heavy thing that is crushing my kid later on in life I won’t necessarily need that rush of adrenaline that old ladies use when one of their ten cats is trapped.

All I need is a red shirt with a lighting bolt on it!

Oh wait, I have that!

Tired

I am tired.  Just like I was last summer, which seems strange.  Last year I attributed my tiredness to the fact that I was eating basically nothing and working out.  This year I eats lots, but the last few afternoons my energy level has been so low it’s ridiculous!

I was perfectly fine while supplying for day care and out of the nine days I have worked so far it’s only been a few so I don’t think it’s that.  I hope I figure this out soon because I want to be able to have the energy to do things in the afternoon or when I get home from work without having to feel like I’m swimming through lead or something.

It could be just the sun I suppose, I don’t like the heat and yet it has been hot for 2 week straight now and I’m out in the sun for quite a while some days.

I also wonder if it is inactivity.  On the weekends I’m doing the gym or something that raises my heart rate either in the early or mid morning  I wonder if that makes a difference?  Because I did run on Wednesday and got to the gym yesterday after work and once I had done those I felt fine.  Or I wonder if it is that I need some sugar at lunch, next weeks solution is going to be bananas at lunch time to see what happens.

Anyone have ideas?