A few good days in a row

Monday, the day after Christmas, I hopped on the treadmill for a 90 minute walk.  After our recent rain and freeze/thaw/freeze cycles, walking outside didn't seem safe, and it was a chilly day anyway.  The walk was pretty basic - a bit over 4 miles in the 90 minutes, but the aftermath was surprising.

I woke up on Tuesday sore all over from just walking.  I'm assuming that I'm still seeing side effects from the radiation, because every workout for weeks has had this effect.  Despite being tired and sore, I made it to the gym Tuesday night.  I started my workout with 10x3 back squats at 135#.  This is kind of pathetic, given that I lifted 320# recently, but it's what my body will tolerate.  Last week, one workout of squats at 113# destroyed me for the week, so even this level worried me.  But, it went reasonably OK.

After squats, we did an AMRAP of wall balls, light deadlifts and ring rows.  I have to admit that I really struggled through this and hated every second of it.  But, I finished, and it was one of those days where I was glad that I had worked out.  I rarely hate a workout, but this day was an exception.  Luckily, I stuck with it and completed it, even though it wasn't fun.

Yesterday, I wasn't as sore as I expected, so I returned to CF - my first time doing 2 days in a row since November.  We started with strict presses and push presses.  Then, we moved on to 3 x 5 minute working sets.  Each round had a "buy-in" of weighed box step-ups and DB shoulder to overhead movements, followed by max burpees in the remaining time.  Compared to the rest of the class, my burpee total was pathetic, but I did manage to get through it and keep moving.  The first round had 30 reps of each of the first 2 movements and I got 6 burpees.  The second set was 20, 20 and 16 burpees, and the last set was 10, 10 and 26 burpees for a final score of 48 burpees.  Most others had way more than 48 burpees in just the last set, and one person had a total of 170 burpees.  If I had done only burpees through the 21 minutes of this workout, with no rest and no other movements, I don't know if I could have done 170 burpees.  I have a long way to go to get back to where I was.  With surgery looming in February, I need to get myself back into decent shape quickly.

Today, we are expecting our first big winter storm in a couple winters.  I have to pick up a new part for the snowblower at lunchtime.  We are skipping CF so we can get home before the heaviest snow starts to accrue.  I am hoping to do CF tomorrow, at an easy level, before I ski all weekend.  The snow storm should really help the conditions on the mountain tremendously.