Category Archives: Exercising

Welcome change

pool-600.jpg

After doing CrossFit for the past seven years, I’m going to change the routine (not that CrossFit is routine, because not being routine is sorta the point of CrossFit). I still love heaving heavy objects into the air above my head, but my aging body wants to do something I did for decades long ago, before CrossFit or biking or any other happy-making form of exercise.

I wanna swim.

I’ve joined an athletic club that has a swimming pool. Yes, it has weights and machines that I will use, and classes that I might take.  (Plus stuff I plan to avoid — like yoga.)  But the main attraction is the pool.

Blue light, buoyant.  Sliding smooth, breathing steady.  Calm in motion.

New deadlift PR

I deadlifted 235 pounds today. That’s a new personal record. Yippee!

RQ200

“With the sun sparkling off the waters of Uvas Reservoir and an endless blue sky as the backdrop, Scott and Susan Francks alternated sentences. The couple’s voices, along with the occasional squirrel scurrying past, broke a serene, peaceful silence of a perfect morning last Friday. Their words sent the mind swirling and offered imagery complimentary to the setting.

‘We are so fortunate to live in this area,’ Susan said, palms up raised to the sky. ‘Once we started cycling we realized how much unexplored territory there was.’

The Francks dipped their feet into the cycling world in 2004 when a friend introduced Susan to the Tierra Bella Bicycle Tour, an annual biking extravaganza that will celebrate its 35th spin Saturday.

‘We really enjoy Tierra Bella,’ Susan said. ‘It’s what got us into cycling.'”

–Josh Weaver. “Tierra Bella: Ride On.” Gilroy Dispatch. April 10, 2012. Gilroy California. Web.

Amazing Bike Video

I am blown away by what this guy does on his bike: amazing bicyclist in Scotland

Whoo hoo!

I dead-lifted 200 today (pounds, not papers). That’s a personal best.

Tail End of 2010

A hard workout named “Ego Crusher” today at CrossFit: the perfect way to see out the old year and rev up for the new.

Happy New Year, everybody!

Ow

My arms are sore! We did maximum weights yesterday at CrossFit, and I deadlifted 180 pounds. That’s a lot for me.

Signs of CrossFit

After today’s CrossFit workout, which included 800 meters of broad jump burpees in the parking lot, I found dime-sized raw sores on my palms (despite wearing gloves) and about ten little bits of gravel in my navel. 🙂

Scraper bikes in Oakland

Bikes and art and social activism: beautiful mix. Check out the video: Scrapertown.

CrossFit

I’ve been doing CrossFit for about six months now. Ow! It kills me. It is awful. I love it.

My place of pain is Hercules CrossFit: http://www.herculescrossfit.com/

My role in the workouts is to make everyone else feel good because I’m so bad. Typical early workout: everyone else gets praised for hefting serious Olympic weights. I get praised for dropping the bar safely when I fall down.