summer un-vacation

This is the end of summer vacations for me.  I thought that when I was working for Pepsi THAT would be the end of summer vacations.  But with top-notch BBQs (really, they were very awesome) every other Thursday and half-day Fridays, it wasn't half as draggy as grad school.  In grad school, everything's closed.  The co-op, where I can get my bean burritos and dried fruit and nuts to snack on should I get hungry, is closed.  It's so sad.  However, despite the lack of students and good hippy vegetarian non-mall-foodcourt food, there are still rarely enough treadmills in the gym.  I got stuck to the stinky guy who smelled like sweated-out garlic and curry and wayyy too much aftershave.  At least the smell kept me concentrating on not losing my lunch instead of how boring running is.  

Maybe I should just be thankful that I wasn't behind someone who had the running farts.  (You know, with every step, thhbthtbh, thhbthtbh, thhbthtbh... don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about because you do.  And if you don't, you're lying.) 

Anyway, I'm strongly resisting any kind of routine (which suits me).  That being said, I need to fit in a good sports bra shopping escapade.  Last weekend, when the gym was all but deserted Saturday morning, I sloped into the weight room with my jumprope.  In between sets, I jumped rope for 1 minute, and there's nothing quite like jumping rope in front of a full-length mirror to make you realize some pretty idiotic things.  

(1)  I look COMPLETELY RETARDED jumping rope.  

(2) I need better sports bras because if I put this off for much longer and continue jumping rope, my chest will be in my pockets by age 40 and in my shoes by age 60.

(3) I have some pretty tight calf muscles with some nice definition.

(4) The same cannot be said for my thighs.

However, I'm used to looking completely retarded and the rope jumping is a pretty brilliant and difficult workout so I won't stop.  Instead I'll keep jamming in gym time between experiments in lab, trying to fence, and generally hoping for the best. We shall see...

Oh, and I got my blades today!  They're all shiny and pretty and new, and I'm gonna hook them up and mess around with them!   I'm so excited.  :)  

Rock-Climbing

If at any point you start to feel like, "Hey, I'm looking pretty good!" the ultimate way to keep your pride in check is to realize that it's time to do laundry, all your normal gym clothes are rank-smelling, sweat stained, and unfit to wear so you have to wear spandex (death!) over your compression shorts and under your climbing harness.

First of all, compression shorts are amazing pieces of clothing. They're amazing if you have a problem with continuously pulling your hamstrings or other muscles in that general region. As the name suggests, they compress. I'm 5'11" and have weighed everything from 135 to 168, and there has never been a time when they have not generated a fat roll above the waistband or cut into the back of my thighs. Normally, I just think "Oh..." pull on thin warmups/baggy shorts and get on with it because this is a workout, not a fashion show.

But I was going climbing with the bf, and I needed to wear something. My legs weren't in a bare-able state, so spandex it was. I pulled the black spandex leggings on over my uber-strength Champion compression shorts (that almost come up to the bottom of my sports bra), topped the whole thing off with a wife beater, and I was pleasantly surprised enough to think, "Ok! Not bad! I'm hot!" We're not talking Doutzen Kroes hot, but it was still pretty good. And we drove off to the climbing gym.

After tossing our things in a locker, I tightened my harness, picked out my not-so-badass route on the wall, and up I went. The harness has a tendency to enhance the male - shall I quote Anchorman? - crotchal region, cut into thighs 75839 million times worse than compression shorts, and make your girl parts go numb if you're not careful. And I didn't much care, until (a) things down south were getting numb, and (b) the best climbers tend to be petite waify ladies with uber arms and shoulders, sans giant fencing butt muscles.

You know that feeling of "oh holy crap, what on earth am I doing here?" It flashed through my mind. First of all, I'm like 8 feet tall compared to every other lady in the place. Second, there's a certain rock climbing chic that I can't do mainly because I am 8 feet tall and all those tank tops would barely cover my chest, never mind make it all the way down to the waist band of my pants. Third, I am the opposite build for this sport. Rock climbing is good for upper body strength, which is why I do it at all (that, along with making Danny happy, and belaying him), and if I could somehow climb with my buttocks or thighs, I would be awesome. But given that my opposable thumbs are on my hands, I have to use my arms to do this so I suck. I had one moment of glory when I did a pullup on the wall, walking my feet up the vertical surface as I attempted to heave my bulk 2 feet closer to the ceiling. Danny told me it looked cool. It felt idiotic, but whatever. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is the closest I will ever get to doing a real pullup.

But I just felt ludicrous, mostly. It was a what am I doing here, all spandexy and pear-shaped, with this stupid harness outlining my already noticeabley large butt and cutting off crotch circulation kind of day. But I climbed until my fingers were red and sore, and beyond feeling idiotic it was a fine few hours. I ran and ellipticalled afterwards, throwing in some weighted step-ups so my lower half wouldn't feel neglected or hated on too much.

And don't even get me started on the barefooted (ewww!!) shirtless (and many have physiques that should definitely be contained in a tshirt) climbers who literally CLIP THEIR TOENAILS WHILE SITTING ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. Gross. So gross. Oh lord, and the climbing jargon. They don't even have the brain cells to steal the word "gnarly" from surfers in full. In context, the phrase would be, "Dude, that move was gnarly!" In brain-dead climber speak, it would be, "Dude, that move was totally gnar-gnar!" Gnar-gnar. I will soon no longer be able to stifle the urge to choke someone who says that in my presence.

I really hate climbing culture. Everyone bills it as noncompetitive, but that's a huge lie. It's passive agressively competitive. I much prefer the lecherous, bacchanalian, hyper-competitive, in-your-face fighting culture of fencing. It's honest.

Be-All End-All Cholesterol

So, the NY Times recently put out a very interesting article.  It deals with people who get a diagnosis of a serious life-threatening disease and suddenly become uber-athletes because using their bodies makes them feel like they're doing something, anything, that may give them a few more years alive, or at least makes them feel like they're getting something out of the time they have.  

The individuals profiled include a diabetic, someone with brain cancer, a breast cancer survivor who hardly exercised a day in her life, and someone who was a regular in his hospital for recurrent cardiac issues.  And they all reached the conclusion of "hell, I have this body... it's not always going to be here... might as well make the most of it!"  

Don't you think we should strive to arrive at this conclusion a tad before we're right about to kick it?  I mean, it's commendable to reach it at all, but, well, I think people can do better than that. 

Ever since I was old enough to register these things, my dad was on cholesterol and blood pressure meds.  He's 6'2", 180 lbs at his heaviest, and eats like an Israeli - tons of veggies and fruits, olive oil, lean meats, etc.  There's no explanation except genetics.  That's it.  He could get more exercise, but he walks at least a little bit every day.  I always was and continue to be his mini-me.  I look like him, I act like him, I like the same foods as him, etc.  There's a pretty good chance that along with having exactly identically shaped feet, we also have identical genes for blood pressure and cholesterol management.  The former has given me textbook perfect gait as analyzed by running specialists, and the latter will likely put me on cholesterol and blood pressure meds by 30 or 35.  

That's how it is.  There's also a nice cocktail of colon cancer, stroke, and diabetes on both sides of my family, so there's that as well.  My relatives die in their 80's, but still.

In high school, I remember thinking, "Well, there's no way out of all that... I might as well give my body the best fighting chance to avoid all this crap for as long as possible."  I was 5'9" and barely 120 pounds at that point, and it never entered my head that because I was skinny, I was home-free from all this health stuff.  I had a biology teacher in high school who lost his father when he was 17 to a heart attack because he had uncontrollably high cholesterol.  My teacher was slim and ate well, but he had the same thing.  He was treating it with meds, diet, and exercise because he didn't want his son to suffer the same tragedy.  

It's very foreign to me, this absolute idea of skinny = healthy.  Skinny = a higher chance of being healthier longer, but there's nothing absolute about it.  And, you know, anyone might keel over at any point, or get a diagnosis of cancer, or some equally tragic thing, but I've always found it easier to be able to do the best I can so if that's ever me, I can say, "Hey, I gave it my best shot, and imagine how bad it might have been if I didn't try at all."  

So, there's all that heavy shit.  But it's infinitely easier to deal with if you sit down and really give it some thought.  And science and nature aren't perfect, either, so we're equipped to deal with moderate assaults.  Civilizations have been imbibing alcohol, getting sick, and eating weird things for thousands of years, yet we manage to reproduce and live.  Instead of using lead as a sweetener or bloodletting, we have aspartame and Botox.  We're a pretty silly bunch of animals, that's for sure.

(To stick it to evolution and nature, what's with all the junk DNA?  There's all the retroviral DNA we've accumulated over the course of time for no apparent reason mixed in with our functional DNA.  We have SO MUCH junk DNA it's ridiculous.  The energy expenditure in replicating it all along with our functional DNA when cells divide is astronomical.  But we keep it.  It's there.  For some reason or another.  No one knows.  Nature and evolution are big nebulous terms we like to throw at things we don't understand.  (The difference between science and religion is science continues to poke at the misunderstanding and religion is content to let it lie.))

So, you know, all anyone can do is their best.  Nature is weird.  We're weird.  It's a total crapshoot, so absolutes never did work, they never do work, and I don't see them ever working in the foreseeable future.  

I'm going to the gym.

Who wants to leap buildings in a single bound?

Oooh!  Me!  I do!

So, I'm going to start doing some of these exercises I found on my friend's blog.  (I also take fencing lessons from him.)  Because I would love to leap buildings in a single bound, it stands to reason that I want legs like a US Olympic fencer.  Tim Morehouse is featured here.   

Check it, yo.

Video 1

Video 2 

Video 3

Video 4

Stretching

There are two things that may happen when I try this.  I will either bust the crap out of my quads and hamstrings, or I will grow massive giant leg muscles.  Because, like, dude!  Olympic-level personal training!  In the public domain!  That I can manipulate to fit my strength!  

Is it ridiculous that I get really happy when I see things like this?