OK, so I’m behind again and actually what I should be doing right now is reviewing a business plan. Or reviewing draft sections of a feasibility study. But, I am procrastinating. Putting it more kindly, I am taking a short mental break.
I am actually a little bit baffled as to where my time went last week. Quite a bit of it was taken up with working on internal incubator tools, procedures, and a scope of work document for the incubation work that is going on today with our internal enterprises, and associated meetings. We also began using a new tool to do project management and time tracking. As a result, we didn’t make too much progress either on the business plans or on defining my new role in the portfolio management company.
Tuesday was great fun at Cape CrossFit as we repeated a workout that was particularly troubling to one of the guys who trains at our gym. I am laughing now thinking of Dami who used to have to listen to the details of my workouts every morning on the way into work, and once said “Every day you tell me what you did and I think it can’t get any worse … but it does!” Anyway after the strength part of the workout the challenge was to carry two weight plates (for a total of 22kg in my case) for a total of 200m and every minute on the minute do 10 burpees. I think I had a similar experience because I certainly realized in retrospect that I could have been running much faster in the first round before I got a little bit tired! Still managed to finish in under 6 minutes which was key because I certainly did not want to do another 10 burpees at that point!
I was also quite pleased on this day to visit a chiropractor recommended by a friend. I had messed up my back some weeks back with overhead squats, and then I’m sure 30+km of trail running didn’t help matters. I am pretty sure I walked out of there a few cm higher than when I walked in! I also learned that my joints are apparently quite supple, which is why I can get knocked out of alignment quite easily. C’est la vie I guess.
On Wednesday I had a housewarming party. Due to exams (!) my Stellenbosch friends couldn’t come which was a shame but overall there was a good showing and the guacamole was a big hit. Even Alma who is Mexican said it was good (and said that she wasn’t just saying that either!). So in most parties people seem to congregate in the kitchen. At this party people congregated outside the kitchen on the balcony! I guess most kitchens don’t have a balcony with a spectacular view of the city at night.
There was a big soccer game on – Bafana Bafana vs. Ghana from Soccer City. I tried to watch the second half but wound up talking shop with one of my coworkers and the 45 minutes just sped past. South Africa won 1-0 in case you were wondering.
As the final of the Winter Trail Series was Saturday, I had planned to take Thursday or Friday as a rest day. Again, probably chose the wrong day because on Thursday I had agreed to go to kundalini yoga with a co-worker. Now this was apparently quite an unusual session as all we did was one pose … which we had to hold for 11 minutes aside. This was an interesting experience – earlier in the day we were talking about yoga and how you can’t just try and muscle your way through it or you will die. Instead, I guess the best way to describe it is to relax into the pain. And trust me, holding this pose for 11 minutes is painful – on the first side I got to about 8 minutes and had to shake out my arm. Second side I managed to hold for the entire time.
But it was quite interesting – standing in this one position and concentrating on looking at my thumb. After not too many minutes the world started to get all blurry and I was feeling lightheaded, almost like I was going to faint even though I felt strong. It was really an interesting feeling, somewhere between connecting with an alternate reality and wreaking havoc on my central nervous system.
In reality I was absolutely exhausted the next morning. I can usually do 20 box jumps without breaking a sweat but on that day … uh-uh. Absolutely insane how tired I was. Thank goodness that day was bench press and not something that requires coordination because this would have been the day I dropped the bar on my head!
No comments:
Post a Comment