My new gi is one of those super-light Vulkan ones. I've only worn it a couple of times, but I like it a lot. It really is soft and light, and it's going to be great for summer training. It's slightly bigger than I'd like -- mostly it's just that the sleeves are too long -- but that's fine, I'll have the Atama women's gi to compete in. My favorite thing about the Vulkan is the pants. They're not too short! They're not too wide! The drawstring is a delightfully effective implementation of pants-closing technology!
Moving and its related responsibilities have kept me away from the mat more than I wanted in the past few weeks, but I think I've settled on a sustainable sports schedule. BJJ 3 times a week, biking to work 3 times a week (non-BJJ weekdays only, for scheduling reasons), and strength training at the Lady Gym twice a week. It sounds like a lot, but it feels like a light schedule compared to when I was also trying to work in that boxing class. It helps that I'm getting more used to the cycling, too.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Hey wow
I don't want to speak too soon, but I think I've finally gotten used to the biking. I biked to work yesterday (and back, of course), and I was not exhausted afterward! I was tired, but I was still capable of doing things like cooking dinner and hanging out.
The bike still needs some adjusting so it will fit better (I feel like the handlebars are too far away). But yesterday any soreness I had was from that, not from the actual exercise of biking. Maybe that means I should dial up the effort a bit, now that I've settled in. I would like to work on getting faster.
My parents are in town and we've been talking about wedding stuff. At the risk of cross-pollinating with the Other Blog, I will tell you what's up. First, I had ordered some sample invitations from Saima Says Design. They arrived, and were awesome. Second, Mom and I started talking about where and how to plan the mehndi party (my mom gets to be in charge of it). It will be extremely fun, but difficult because we don't have a house locally. We're thinking of getting a B&B for the day instead. That would be exactly the kind of living room environment we need. Alternatively, I bet we could ask a hotel to set up a meeting room with couches and coffee tables instead of the usual conference chairs.
The bike still needs some adjusting so it will fit better (I feel like the handlebars are too far away). But yesterday any soreness I had was from that, not from the actual exercise of biking. Maybe that means I should dial up the effort a bit, now that I've settled in. I would like to work on getting faster.
My parents are in town and we've been talking about wedding stuff. At the risk of cross-pollinating with the Other Blog, I will tell you what's up. First, I had ordered some sample invitations from Saima Says Design. They arrived, and were awesome. Second, Mom and I started talking about where and how to plan the mehndi party (my mom gets to be in charge of it). It will be extremely fun, but difficult because we don't have a house locally. We're thinking of getting a B&B for the day instead. That would be exactly the kind of living room environment we need. Alternatively, I bet we could ask a hotel to set up a meeting room with couches and coffee tables instead of the usual conference chairs.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
train eat rest
That's the advice I got from Alvaro Romano's ginastica natural seminar. Train eat rest, in that order. No skipping the eating or the resting. No train eat eat eat rest, no train rest eat, no train train rest train... you get the idea. He actually talked through various disallowed permutations of training, eating, and resting for several minutes.
I have not exactly been following that advice for the past few days. Tuesday wasn't that bad -- I biked to work in the morning (it took about 1:20) but I got lucky and there was a severe thunderstorm in the evening so Feanil came to pick me up. Wednesday was ok, too: my first personal training appointment. She's going to help me come up with strength training workouts that will fit in with my biking and BJJ!
Thursday, though, was brutal. I biked to work in the morning (1:10) and then biked even harder on the way home because I had to make it back for BJJ (also about 1:10 because I stopped for lemonade). Got to the house, picked stuff up, and went to BJJ. I should have been exhausted at that point, but I guess biking muscles are not required for BJJ because I was not having any trouble rolling. In the future we're going to try to hit the advanced class -- we'd been going to the beginner class in order to coordinate with A., but I feel like tomorrow we should either go to both classes or just go to the later one. After BJJ we went to see a very cool band with some cool folks. So Thursday was more like train eat train train eat drink rest. Note how there is no drinking in Romano's prescription? There's a reason for that.
On Friday I was beat. I dragged myself through a day of work, then came back to the neighborhood for a boxing class. The workout is usually challenging, but this time it was rough. I still hadn't recovered from the day before. In fact its been a few days now and my leg muscles are still much tighter than they ought to be. Lesson learned: biking to work requires extra stretching. I took yesterday as a rest day. F. and I played some tennis, but I'm not good enough at tennis yet to actually get tired doing it. I feel a lot better. I've been thinking I may want to only bike to work 2-3 days per week until I get more used to it. Since it's not my only activity, I can't have it killing my energy for my real sport.
And today's round two of the personal training! I'm excited.
I have not exactly been following that advice for the past few days. Tuesday wasn't that bad -- I biked to work in the morning (it took about 1:20) but I got lucky and there was a severe thunderstorm in the evening so Feanil came to pick me up. Wednesday was ok, too: my first personal training appointment. She's going to help me come up with strength training workouts that will fit in with my biking and BJJ!
Thursday, though, was brutal. I biked to work in the morning (1:10) and then biked even harder on the way home because I had to make it back for BJJ (also about 1:10 because I stopped for lemonade). Got to the house, picked stuff up, and went to BJJ. I should have been exhausted at that point, but I guess biking muscles are not required for BJJ because I was not having any trouble rolling. In the future we're going to try to hit the advanced class -- we'd been going to the beginner class in order to coordinate with A., but I feel like tomorrow we should either go to both classes or just go to the later one. After BJJ we went to see a very cool band with some cool folks. So Thursday was more like train eat train train eat drink rest. Note how there is no drinking in Romano's prescription? There's a reason for that.
On Friday I was beat. I dragged myself through a day of work, then came back to the neighborhood for a boxing class. The workout is usually challenging, but this time it was rough. I still hadn't recovered from the day before. In fact its been a few days now and my leg muscles are still much tighter than they ought to be. Lesson learned: biking to work requires extra stretching. I took yesterday as a rest day. F. and I played some tennis, but I'm not good enough at tennis yet to actually get tired doing it. I feel a lot better. I've been thinking I may want to only bike to work 2-3 days per week until I get more used to it. Since it's not my only activity, I can't have it killing my energy for my real sport.
And today's round two of the personal training! I'm excited.
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