Counter-intuitive, but maybe what my body needed was a day off my program to recover a bit?
Easter started healthy enough with the aforementioned Easter eggs in omelette form at Sandbar when Roland also installed *the coolest* app on my phone that lets you type by dragging your fingers rather than pressing each key individually. It makes typing no only faster but also FUN! I did indulge in some decaf cream cappuccinos because it’s not every day that Sandbar is closing in a week.
But later on I met up with my friend Sam and since it was a holiday a lot of places were either not open or were kind of dead, so we wound up going to Beluga. Now while it is possible to eat paleo at Beluga I decided what the heck, and had some sushi. The “what the heck” extended to the bar beforehand, and at dinner (some fantastic red wine her friend Ray picked out), at his place afterwards, etc. I may even have eaten some milk chocolate. All in all, I guess, a much more extreme cheat day than I had had honestly since I can remember. But it was a great night: great conversation, using frozen bread as an ice pack, and watching the Flyers win in OT! That was very exciting, not only to be able to watch the NHL playoffs live from South Africa, but to happen to have it be my team, and to come from behind to tie in the third period and then win in OT in a must-win game (they were down 3-2 in the series, and have since won game 7 thank goodness … it’s always embarrassing for a #2 seed to be knocked out in the first round).
Monday was a public holiday, because I would never be able to do this crazy on a school night anymore. So the next morning I had a bit of a dehydration headache that wasn’t much improved by Sandbar where the omelette was good but I had to ask for water several times. Seriously, ??
Hung out with another friend in Camps Bay for a couple hours, then went home to shower, took Sam home, and on the drive back to the gym was thinking how stunning the autumn foliage is. It’s a bit colder south of Table Mountain so the leaves are changing more there than they are inland (like Stellenbosch area, where I was on Friday). Sam is such a cool girl. It’s funny, we look at the world very similarly although the way that our personalities manifest is very different: I am very much the tomboy and she is very girlie. But we get along great; it’s too bad she’s leaving SA for a few months to go work in London (she’s a stylist and model).
I couldn’t do the day’s workout which was all Olympic lifting so instead I had fun with doing strict ring pullups (shoulder to the bottom of the rings), and then 100 ring pushups with chest to the bottom of the rings. Needless to say my triceps are a bit sore today!! The good part about being injured, I suppose, is that you get to play around with things you don’t normally do. Then I was super lucky because right when I was thinking about going home and cooking dinner one of the coaches asked if the others of us wanted some food. I was about the happiest person alive at that point. Simple pleasures.
Tuesday was a very exciting day. First day back at work since Thursday but more to the point, I got sick of limping around so just started walking normally, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel fine (a little sore but nothing extreme). Maybe it was the rice. Had a pretty productive day, too, although my brain is getting a bit overwhelmed this second when I think of all the work that I still have to do. But today is a holiday too so I’ll start thinking about that tomorrow morning again. Things are definitely starting to take shape, and if all goes according to plan I can get back to my real job in maybe 6 months or so. But I could think of more boring things to do with my time than to get the accelerator up and running. Still, with all of these public holidays (last Friday, Monday and Wednesday of this week)combined with concern over my own physical health, my brain hasn’t really been fully in work mode. It will be good to get it back there, actually: I am happiest when I am driving at a number of things at 100% rather than just now where it feels like a couple of things are about to ramp from 80% back up to 100%. That’s a good feeling.
The workout yesterday was max handstand pushups, nose to wall. I almost did one with full range of motion, did 12 down to the abmat (maybe 1.5 inch) and 5 to a height about half that of the abmat (maybe ¾ inch). Getting better. The knee is still not 100% so instead of squats I did pullups and so I discovered a couple of things: 1. Knees-to-elbows are hard and I should practice them more, 2. Even kipping pullups are hard the day after you’ve done a bunch of strict pullups!
As seems to be my pattern lately I spent another good hour or so at the gym doing various types of physical therapy on my ankle and knee. Mainly rolling on a ball on my right quad to release the tension that is causing the inflammation in the knee. I was also practicing a lot balancing on my right leg, and I’m getting a lot better! Very exciting. At least I’ve progressed a long way from having to re-learn how to walk every time I stand up.
Yesterday was a pretty glorious one: woke up around 8am, saw that the Flyers had won, decided I didn’t really feel like being up yet, so went back to bed to snooze until 10am or so. Got up, showered, had a protein shake, iced my ankle, and went out to meet Chris for a trip to the Stellenbosch track. My ankle wasn’t exactly up to running and yesterday was essentially a rest day for me (and a recovery week for Chris) but we did a couple things. I did 3 pullups (just to test the bar, I’m laying off of those before the Sectional), 40 pushups, 46 situps, and like 65 or something Superman back extensions, then 3 minutes of various plank holds). Chris ran a super fast 400m (not quite as fast as he wanted, but he had to dodge a gardener in his lane at the end of the last 300 … I was cracking up). Just his luck it decided to rain just the one time when he was running! Fun time though and I should be good to run by Monday which is when we have a super fun (aka deathly!!) workout planned. Monday is another public holiday, you see.
So yesterday I also realized that I have literally become my t-shirt (the one that says Eat, Sleep, CrossFit). I always said if you added Work into the mix it would be pretty much accurate. I am now so in touch with my body that I no longer enjoy what alcohol does to it. It’s either one glass of wine or on the rare occasion when I actually want to drink more seriously I’ll do that, but I’m not so happy about accepting the consequences anymore because it’s not just that I don’t feel good it’s that I can feel more clearly now how it impacts my training and my mental function at work and I’m not cool with that. Also getting enough sleep is key, in general but also in particular when it comes to alcohol: ElectricSleep has showed me that even after two glasses of wine my sleep is significantly affected in a negative way. Guess it stands to reason that the body doesn’t particularly like to be poisoned.
Also bad is losing 5 points in the paleo challenge for having one sip of wine. I need to double-check the rules there. Last night a couple of us had dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, Carne. I, at least, had a really great time. Then again, any evening that involves t-bone steak and seeing what happens when you put a really pretty girl in front of your guy friends is bound to be fun!
Just got back from a coffee run over to Espressolab, and time to get into the swing of this two-day week!
• “You already work here, you just don’t know it.” – Jobst
• “You’re almost more stupid than I am.” – Chris
• “It would still take 20 minutes.” – Chris (this one is an inside joke, sorry)
• “There aren’t a lot of white people in Stellenbosch, are there?” – Chris
• “She’s surprisingly cool. For a girl.” – Jobst
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