3.5 Miles Going Uphill Both Ways

Met up with the Rucking Group last night after work on the east side of Oakland County.

It was raining, because of course it was.

That is a photo of me taken during the previous ruck group jaunt in the rain in October. I looked pretty much like that last night.  Except that I did add a blaze orange hat for yesterday's ruck .

The rain eventually petered out, and we continued on without it.  The rain made the roots and rocks a lot more slippery, and it was full on dark as we rucked through the woods. The pace is considerably slower in those conditions.

We went up hills, went around the trail and then did the same hills again.  Then the group leader indicated he wanted to do the hills one more time for good measure so we all obliged. 

Quite a good workout and a good bunch of guys.

Great Customer Service From Hydrapeak

My Hydrapeak bottle, which has been excellent in keeping cold water available, and I use regularly at jitsu, developed a problem. It somehow got water in between the inner wall and the outer wall of the bottle.  It wouldn't drain out and added a bit of weight to the bottle, not to mention water stuck in there sloshing around and probably mixing with the drinking water inside probably wasn't very healthy.

Turns out Hydrapeak has a great warranty on their bottles and they stand by it.  I contacted them and after sending them some pictures they sent me a new bottle at no costs which is rather impressive.

So yep, I can definitely recommend Hydrapeak as a water bottle.

So, This Happened Last Night

After class and after the rolls,  I got called up in front of the class.

My belt now looks like this:

That second stripe took a long time to be earned.  Time off for surgery and recovery turned it into almost two years, and then over 100 hours on the mats to get it.

It's both interesting and amazing how much a little piece of tape on a belt means and is worth, and at the same time is not really meaning anything at all in the grand scheme of things.

Now to work on continuing to improve, and to try and earn stripe three.

Getting The PT Talk

Had a PT session today.  

Went well  and I always try to push it as hard as I can and always try to get some extra reps in and try to do better each time on every exercise.

Got all the exercises done and the physio therapist is going to up the difficulty yet again.  Good.

Leg Press weight is going up which is good as 30 pounds is now too easy, and other exercises are apparently going to get more difficult and he has thought of new ways to make me work harder.  Bring it on, and let's get this hip back in shape, I say.

The Therapist did have a talk with me though.

He said he's been noticing that I'm not phoning it in like others doing PT and I'm always putting in the effort to get better. (I do after all have a really good role model for always giving maximum effort in PT).

He then said I'm 6-8 weeks after the Hip Surgery which is apparently the most dangerous time for people like me. 

Apparently, since we're really working the process, we're starting to feel better and stronger at this point in time after surgery and its right about now when we do something stupid thinking we're in better shape than we actually are, and we hurt ourselves and get a major setback.

So, I got strongly advised to maintain all the hip caution protocols, not try and over exert myself, take it easy, and be really careful to avoid falling.

All good advice and I'll take it.  

Overall I am getting better, still hurts but its very manageable pretty much all the time.  Some things do hurt, like lying on either side rather than on my back for example, or sitting or standing in one spot too long. Driving is fine, but getting into the car hurts a bit, and there's now a little limp when walking unless I concentrate on not limping.  Biggest daily hassle is no bending as I can't easily pick things up that fall, that the dogs get into, etc. 

I will be careful as I do want to keep progressing and avoid a stupid setback from having a case of the dumbs.

PT is still going to be done at maximum effort though.

Scary things in the Gym

In my efforts to get in half as good shape as Lagniappe's Keeper, among other things I've been going to the gym.

I get there and do my cardio and head over to the weight area and start working out.

There's a felow there with no neck.

Really, NO NECK.

Muscles from the shoulders are touching the head.

He could play head and shoulders, knees and toes no problem, and he'd win as there is no neck between the head and shoulders.

I'm strangely fascinated by this, wondering if some new evolutionary trait has been found - no neck means one less vital area open on a human body to attack, but it certainly cuts down on swivilleng the head to search fro predators so it may be n evolutionary dead end. On the other hand, maybe the Neaderthals didn't go extinct, they just went to the gym.

The guy is doing multiple one-handed pullups while holding a big weight in the other hand.

Quite expresionlessly and without any real apparent effort.

I'm half expecting either the MLB Officials or Imperial Stormtroopers to show up:

"Look Sir, 'Roids!"

At least he wasn't wearing spandex.....

Exercise update

Ah the joys of Exercise

As I mentioned back in November, I've gotten back into exercising. Not as often as I'd like, with two kids and a busy work schedule its hard to fit the gym sessions in, but I try to fit them in when I can.

Progress has been made.

Since November, in these last 6 months I've:
- lost 10 pounds and kept it off;
- dropped over 3 minutes from my 1.5 mile run time; and
- the sit ups and push ups are also getting better, with a small sidetrack on the push ups due to a shoulder injury that has since been fixed and I'm slowly restrengthening my upper body now that I'm allowed to do the exercises again.

I'm still not at my goals listed in November, but I will continue on my way to meet and beat them.