New Years Eve

2mi in 13:48 (6:00, 7:48)
60 minutes yoga

New Years Resolutions:
Lead by example.
Win the head game.
Focus.
Flip the switch.

Better

No more waiting.

Bench press: 5, 6, 6, 5 at 120lb

More to come.

Pickup

Still not feeling better, but it was too nice a day to pass up some pickup so I decided I was well enough to play. We had enough for 7 on 7 at the high school turf field, and split up alumni vs current (but we had to give them one or two at a time). It was fun--I didn't have much energy, and I am VERY rusty (which was made worse by the stiff wind), but I got to run around and throw a few goals. Get a sky D in the endzone. Make unforced errors. It's embarassing how out of it I am, and depressing to think about how long it will be until I can play in good conditions, and with my left hand at 100%.

Guess that means I should start playing well now. Why wait, right?

I ehat being sick

Headache, stomach pain, no energy.

The smell of any gran-based product made me feel sick(er). I couldn't eat anything, except a few raw green beans and some lettuce. Gestern habe ich den ganzen Tag geschlafen, weil ich so krank war. We had to cancell our ski vacation. Haven't been able to do anything.

Bonus points for getting the title reference.

Christmas Eve Tabata

Pushups: 21, 16, 10, 10*, 10*, 8*, 9*

Jog, Stretch

1mi in 7:39
20 minutes stretching

300 Circuit

10 rounds for time:
10 pushups
10 crunches
10 double-DB hang clean + push press, 15lb

Completed in 15:00
(including 2:30 rest between the first 5 and second 5 sets)

Things shouldn't be this difficult

Took a few days off after finals to get resituated in the home.
Couldn't wait any longer.

10 pullups, 4 parallel grip pullups, 4 chinups
Stairs: 10 minutes straight, every step
then (no rest) 5 minutes straight, one leg only for each flight

Later, the most difficult tire-change of my life, in 20 degree weather. Rusted bolts, stripped lug-nuts, a dinky little jack, more than two hours and we still had to get towed. Annoying.

Lift

A few pullups and ab rollups as part of the warm up, then:

8 squats 45lb
8 overhead squats 45lb
8 squats 95lb
8 squats 115lb
10 squats 135lb
8 overhead squats 45lb
48 incline medicine ball situps w/ throws, 8 twists
24 incline medicine ball situps w/ throws, 4 twists
16 incline situp + military press with 25lb plate, 16 twists

A little something

20 minutes stretching

1 meeting to discuss possible TiV trip

150 pushups, in sets of 25

Big Chill, then Pickup

5k race in 19:59
6:10, 6:40, 7:09 (6:26 pace)

46th place
44th out of 706 men
33rd out of 348 men 18-24

One 14, one 15, one 16, one 17, two 51s and one 53 year old beat me. So did a 41 year old woman, and a girl in my grade on the Rutgers women's track team--she ran an 18:30. But I ran under my goal time and this was about beating myself, so I feel pretty good about it.

About pickup, not so much. 6v6, I made a few nice plays, ran down a few hucks, but couldn't catch up or couldn't catch a lot more. Drops, bad throws, a couple bad choices, and (only) one (bad) layout. I handblocked DB's extension backhand, and later boxed him out for a goal. I got tackled mid-jump from a stationary position for a high blading backhand, and the >6' dude contested. I was pretty upset about that, once I realized he was not joking. His argument was that he "got the disc first." Despite all my mistakes the pickup was fun, not as cold and windy as I feared it would be.

Getting Ready

1.5mi run, increasing speed
20 minutes stretching

Lift

Went to Werblin with DB

Bench press: 8 at 45, 2x10 at 95, 8 at 105
15 medicine ball slams
10 each side medicine ball throws
15 medicine ball jump-shots/catches
10 hanging ab-rollups
15 vertical leg-raises on parallel bars
20 pushups, alternating one hand on medicine ball
15 pushups on bosu ball
10 pushups

Climb, Throw

I don't know whether it was a good idea, but I went climbing tonight with the guys. I made it up a G1 and maybe 3/4ths up another G1, tried to be conservative with the thumb but may have put a lot of stress on it at one point or another. I'm scheduling physical therapy for it soon, and I am really looking forward to being stronger than I was pre-fracture.

After climbing, we threw for maybe 45 minutes, much of it doing thrower/marker drill indoors. I marked one-handed, and tried to hit a specific spot on the receiver's body with all my throws. Many were successful, got handblocked a couple times, and determined that it is much harder to pivot back and forth in sneakers on hardwood.

I hope it's warm this weekend.

Swim

Warmup:
50m free in 44
6 seconds rest
50m back in 1:04
56 seconds rest
50m breast in 0:58
6 seconds rest
50m fly (untimed)

3 minutes rest

Workout:
250m free in 4:55
250m back in 7:35
30 seconds rest
125m breast, 125m fly in 7:30
30 seconds rest
250m free in 5:50

Total: 1200m

During the last 150m of the workout, everything took on a blue tinge. After I got out of the pool, I couldn't walk straight...my legs were were wobbly and I kept feeling like I was going to fall over. I had to lean over the water fountain for a minute or so and take it real easy walking back into the locker room. I peed, rinsed, spent a few minutes in the dry sauna, showered, and felt okay by the time I walked out of the gym. But that was not a feeling I enjoyed.

Pickup, Lift

Buccleuch Pickup, took a break to go house-hunting with other guys from Machine, then got back in time to play 8 more points before everybody called it quits. Felt pretty good, break throws were working but my regular throws were a bit off. I didn't get the chance to make any bad decisions deep, and maybe threw one huck at the most. I caught a few, though, threw some goals and scored some as well, tipped a huck but didn't get the D, played good defense on a quick new player, got boxed out of for a huck to me that bladed short. Moved the disc pretty well, and was overall satisfied. I've been feeling lately this pent-up aggression, and it isn't the first time. Fencing used to be a good outlet for me in the winter--I got to fight and stab people every day. Endurance workouts aren't really an ideal outlet for me because they're more about pacing and enduring pain, rather than causing it. I'm looking forward to the next phase of the journey.

After pickup, DB and I hit the gym:

12 pullups
6 pullups
8 BB hang pulls, 55lb
8 BB pulls, 55lb
active rest: incline situps
8 BB deadlift to hang pull, 65lb
20 vertical leg-raises (partner throws legs down)
15 vertical leg-raises
32 situps (every other 4 are to alternating sides)

Later, 100 pushups. 20 for getting boxed out, 20 for not getting that D, and 10 for miscellaneous. 50 for failing a teammate on his own time--even a receiver drop is a thrower error.

Throw, Lift

Threw with DJ and JK for half an hour, focusing on hucks. Then:

8 pushups, 8 bench press 45lb
2x8 bench press 95lb
8 bench press 105lb
bench press: 1 rep at 115, 1 rep at 135lb
8 pushups, hands on medicine ball
16 pushups, feet on bosu
16 body weight squats
16 pushups, alternating one hand on medicine ball
8 one-arm pushups each side, other hand assisting
3x8 BB overhead squats, 45lb

"Other hand assisting" means I stretched the arm out and wrapped my hand around the handle of the small medicine ball which has a handle. Stretching it out puts most of the weight is on the other arm, but not all--I'm trying to work towards one-arm pushups, but can't do them yet. By the end of each arm's set, it took me a couple tries to finish a rep...I was tired. My shoulders were the weakest link in the chain. I'm happy about the benching, though--135 is my personal best, and today I did it after a couple sets that weren't exactly easy to push out. I can tell that my shoulders are getting stronger, too, because the overhead squats aren't as difficult as they were before. I think that shoulder-girdle stretch really helped.

Practice Cancelled, so I'm Running

4.5mi in 36:49 (8:11 pace)

1st 1.5mi in 12:26 (8:17 pace)
2nd 1.5mi in 12:46 (8:31 pace)
3rd 1.5mi in 11:47 (7:51 pace)

That second lap was rough.

Is anybody watching this Rutgers-Louisville game? 49-0 in the first half...

Lifting Clinic

0.25mi warmup, stretch
various demos of squat, deadlift
two sets incline situps
8 BB overhead squats, 45lb

Run, Practice

Ran to practice:
3.1mi in 23:40 (1.5 in 11:30, 1.6 in 12:10)

After warmups and thrower-marker, we split into 5 teams for a round-robin mini tournament. I did half the warmup, meaning the jog and stretch but not the dynamics. I threw, but opted out of thrower-marker to save the thumb from potential catastrophe. In mini I ran the gamut, from playing conservative and moving the disc quickly and efficiently, to putting up blade flick hucks and big hammers for goals. Many of the shots were successful, some were barely out of reach (receiver error! okay maybe not) and some were just bad decisions. My short throws were good, though, and I get open when I wanted to. I played good defense most of the time, occasionally sagging after the point dragged on, but I played really good deep D. Most of the time I boxed out really well, but I also got two huge sky D's with my left hand, wrapped in an ace bandage, at the peak of my jump. Both were against taller opponents, so that felt pretty damn good. I also got a handblock, which was a little surprising because I could only put up half a mark, with my left hand usually behind my back (or at least out of the way).

But my team lost all but one "game"--even though we won a decent number of games to 3, apparently only the first one counted each round (who set up this tournament?). Did I mention, I think teams were unfair...the only team we beat definitely got the short end of the stick, but my team was mostly bottom-of-the-barrel returners. The captain that picked teams definitely gave himself the strongest team, and (no surprise) went undefeated. C'est la vie, it felt really good to play despite the frustration I had for the leadership. This included the way that the team each round with a bye ran some handler-motion reps, but they were being taught by a guest coach who did not do things the way Mio has taught us. A little weird, but luckily my team got that out of the way in the first round.

Lift

With DB:

1mi warmup (moderate increasing to fast, untimed)
30 partner-clap pushups (15 each side)
20 med ball side throws (10 each side)
30 partner-clap pushups (15 each side)
15 med ball slams
8 hanging rollups
2x8 hanging knee-raises
2x8 DB shoulder press, normal to the incline bench, 20lb (unilateral)
2x8 DB shoulder press, normal to the incline bench, 25lb (unilateral)
2x15 pushups on bosu ball

Partner-clap pushups means, two partners face each other, push up, clap right hand to right hand, return to start, repeat. "Normal to the incline bench" means you're in the middle of an incline situp, perpendicular to the bench, and you do the presses from there--unilaterally means, using only one dumbbell, do the set of 8 on one side and then on the other. I really like these, and the medicine ball throws as well.

20 minutes throwing, focusing on catching with one hand.

Tonight I caught a disc with my left hand only for the first time since I broke my thumb...it was the first catch of the throwing session, on a very floaty backhand, and even with that soft stress I could feel my hand was unhappy. The throwing session evolved into a game, which we are calling "hands." Two opponents stand facing 3yds or so apart. Serve the disc by throwing any throw between the opponent's knees and face, players catch and throw back any throw within the circle of stationary catachability. One hand only, throw with the same grip used to catch, any throw counts, no chumps. For a more advanced version, opponents must maintain eye contact. I am convinced that these games improve a player's reaction time and catching ability. Plus they're fun, and a good way to end a throwing session.