Death By Tabatas

The subject line wasn't really the title of the workout, but it felt that way. I was tired from the weekend, tired from Monday's workout, and then the warm-up for this workout was more than usual. Here's how it went down:

Five minutes of stretching and foam rolling. I focused on my left IT band, which was sore after sprints on Monday.

Then, 6 times the length of the gym, with a partner, of each of these exercises:

Fireman's carry (or piggy back)
Band resistance (try to run while your partner tries to stop you)
Wheelbarrow (I had to skip this one due to my right shoulder still being sore)

Because I was the second heaviest person in the gym, I partnered with Del. Del was a basketball star at a local college and has played semi-pro football. He is about 270 pounds of solid muscle. But, I can do a 300 pound back squat, so I figured I could carry him piggyback. And I did. The coach got a picture of him carrying me as well:

After we finished the partner tasks, we did pull-ups - EMOTM style. That's Every Minute On The Minute. For ten minutes, we would do 5 pull-ups per minute. The goal was strength - we were supposed to barely finish the 5 reps. Some people (like Del) wore weighted vests to make them more difficult. Some people (like me) used assist bands to make them easier. I could barely do the last one in each set, so I think I picked the correct bands.

Then came the Tabata intervals. In the link, they talk about Tabata sprints. But, you can substitute just about any other intense exercise for sprinting, as long as it is very taxing to do it for 20 seconds and then 10 seconds is not quite enough rest. Normally, when we do Tabata work, it's a single exercise, something like bodyweight squats. But last night was four different Tabata workouts strung together:

Sumo deadlift high pulls

Push-presses

Planks

Back-squats

We got a one minute break between each of the four minute sets.

All but the planks were done with a barbell, but at fairly low weights. I used just a 45 pound barbell for my reps.

The goal of the workout was as many total reps as possible. For the planks, you got one point for each of the possible 160 seconds you were in the plank position.

I did 85 of the high-pulls, 61 push-presses (my shoulder was limiting me a bit), 150 seconds of planks, and then 81 back squats. The spot on the floor where I did my work was covered with sweat. It was a good workout.

Today is a rest day.

Weekend skiing and Monday Workout

This past weekend was really interesting. After a big snowfall early last week and a moderate snowfall on Thursday, it rained most of Friday. Saturday morning, the mountain seemed like a giant ice cube, yet I could tell from some of my pole plants that there was still fresh snow under the icy veneer. Skiing on Saturday was not a lot of fun, so I concentrated on teaching for a lot of the day. But, as the day warmed up and skiers broke up the crust from the rainstorm, the skiing improved through the afternoon.

Sunday morning, I woke up and it was 36F and pouring rain at my house. I had visions of a repeat of the previous week - pouring rain, wind, no students, no skiing, etc. But, as I drove to the mountain, I got a nice surprise. At about 1400 feet in elevation, the rain changed to snow. It had been snowing at the mountain most of the night. It wasn't nice light powder snow, but it was fresh snow.

We did an hour of instructor training and found the skiing to be excellent. Suddenly, everyone was in a great mood. Six of my students showed up and we spent some time getting warmed up on easier terrain. And then, they started begging for steep moguls. I wasn't about to say no. By now, I'd heard that the summit had 8" or so of much lighter snow. And, we had two double-black diamond bump runs that we hadn't done all year. So, after our warm-up and a brief lesson, we headed for the steeper terrain. One girl was kind of nervous, but after she skied the first part of a trail called Paradise, she relaxed. She realized that she belonged there and she just had fun. Next we tackled a steep line right under the Castle Rock chair. This is an all-natural part of Sugarbush, sort of like a mini-Mad River Glen tucked inside Sugarbush. Liftline was amazing. Even the spots where rocks and ice are usually waiting to get you were fine.

After a late lunch, we changed our focus to skiing in the trees. After a couple tougher tree runs, I noticed that some of the girls were tired. To be honest, so was I. So, we headed in for a hot chocolate break and then finished the day with an easy groomer. All in all, it had been a great day.

Monday, I worked from home, so I didn't make it CrossFit. I did go to the gym last night for this workout:

Deadlifts: 5x5 at 225#
Squats: 15/9/6 at 135#, 185#, 225#
Cable Rows: 3 x 10
Chin-up grip lat pulldowns: 3x10
Sprints: 10 x the length of the parking lot

I wanted to do more upper body work and less leg work, but my right shoulder is still too sore for any pressing movements in any plane. It's been 13 days since my ski fall that hurt the shoulder and it's not any better. I'm going to give it one more week of rest, and if it's not any better, it will be time to see the doctor.

On a side note, I'm a big fan of Akira Kurosawa's films. It seems that the news from Japan these days is eerily similar to the segment of "Dreams" called "Mt. Fuji in Red".

"Hawks" Workout

Rather than type it myself, here is what we found on the wall when we got to CrossFit on Tuesday night. I have to admit that I scaled the workout. I did my deads at 135#, thrusters at 55# (shoulder still sore from skiing fall last week), 18" box jumps, crappy burpees (but I did them), and for the walking lunges, I used dumbbells so I wouldn't have to stress my shoulder too much. Lastly, I'm terrible at double-unders, so I did straight rope jumping. And, it still took me 37:35. I'm still sore today.

There was a lot of emotion in the gym on Tuesday. By the time we finished, people just seemed both physically and emotionally spent. It's never easy to try to understand why a nice guy and talented athlete is suddenly gone at age 25. It doesn't even have to be a nice guy or great athlete to leave you wondering. But, perhaps it just makes less sense to me, having known Ryan, even a little bit, and knowing his father very well. Maybe it's the father side of me where is scares me the most. I can't imagine burying my own child, and yet I know it happens to parents all the time.

We got a lot of snow this week. It's been kind of a crazy week for me, to be honest. I'm really looking forward to just skiing this weekend, and leaving the week behind. Skiing, even when I'm teaching a group of rowdy teenage and pre-teen girls, is one of the few places that feels really peaceful to me these days.

Despite rain today, I'm hoping to have good snow this weekend. It will be above freezing for most of the weekend and the snow should be soft.

Two weeks from Sunday, on the 27th, I'll be done teaching for the season.

Still sore

What I hoped would be a rest day yesterday for my shoulder and quad turned into a significant double-workout. In the morning, I spent about 90 minutes removing snow so my wife and I could get out of the driveway and go to work.

After work, I spent at least another hour doing additional clean-up - cleaning the deck so it won't collapse, cleaning out the walkway to the compost bin and the propane tank, and opening up the porch a bit more than it had been.

Tonight, I should probably get out the roof rake with another rain/snow storm due in on Wednesday night into Thursday. We're in that season now where we can have huge snowstorms or huge rainstorms, and some storms are a little of each.

Tonight after work, I'm going to CrossFit. We are doing a memorial workout for Ryan Hawks, a member of our gym who died in a skiing accident a week ago. I know his father well and I got to know Ryan a little bit. He talked in the gym about just "going out west to do some skiing" and that was about it. I didn't realize that he was a world class skier until his last competition made the news. He grew up skiing in the Mad River Valley, which is where Sugarbush is located. His death really affected a lot of people I know. So, tonight's workout is going to be brutally hard, in memory of an elite athlete gone at age 25.

Weird Weather and Ski Clinic Follow-up

On Friday, it was sunny and warm. It would have been a wonderful day to ski. On Saturday, the forecast called for light rain most of the day, with significant winds. Somehow, the rain never really showed up, but warmth did, and we had a great spring-conditions skiing day. It was a very enjoyable day, and I skied the group hard, knowing the forecast for Sunday was much more ominous.

By Saturday evening, it was raining. Overnight and into the morning, it rained hard at times. I took the paved roads to the mountain, afraid of mud and ice on the non-paved roads. My son and I got to the mountain about 8:00, the time I usually take a group out to do an hour of instructor training. But, there was no training in this weather.

My son and I sat in the lodge. I needed to get dressed for skiing, but if a few children or their parents texted me or called me, I would have no students, and I wouldn't work for the day.

By 8:30, this had happened, so I never had to put on my ski boots or uniform. By 9:30, my son knew he had no students. We had the day to just ski if we wanted, but it was nasty - windy, raining sideways - just not fun. We went out for breakfast instead.

Then, we went home and took a nap. (Old, tired people do that when they can.)

About 3:00, the temperature had dropped close to freezing and we had some sleet and freezing rain. By 6:00 p.m., it was snowing. Sometime after midnight, the snow really picked up in intensity. At 6:00 a.m. this morning, I tried to let the puppy out. The snow was as tall as he is.

So, I got dressed and spent almost 90 minutes snow-blowing the driveway and digging out and cleaning off the cars. Just as I was finishing up, the plow came by and dumped a huge amount of snow at the top of the driveway. I may have gesticulated in a not-very-nice way to the driver. It seems that my annual $6K in property taxes only gets my driveway plowed shut after every snowstorm - not much else.

So, I cleared the driveway exit, sent my wife off to work before they could plow it shut again, and I got showered and dressed and headed to the nearest WiFi location. It turns out that the town where my office is got hit really hard. The University of Vermont is closed and our offices are on campus. The buses aren't running there. The whole city seems to be shut down. No one came to the office today. I might be the only person working, but I'm not even close to the office.

On another note, on the first day of my ski clinic last week, I took a hard fall. At the time, it didn't seem to be a big deal. We were working on something called pivot slips, where you have your skis perpendicular to the fall line, and you slide along the fall line. At times, you completely flatten the ski base to the surface of the snow, steer the skis 180 degrees and you are again moving down the fall line with the skis perpendicular to the line. The entire time, your upper body is facing downhill, looking where you are going.

The examiner was reminding me to fully commit my upper body to the direction of travel, allowing the edges to completely release. Wanting to be a good student, I committed. Way too much. I crossed my center of mass over my skis, and while moving downhill at a decent rate of speed, the downhill edges of my skis caught the snow and slammed me to the ground. I landed on my right side pretty hard, and I landed on one of my ski poles. I felt OK the rest of the day, but started to hurt later that night. My right quad is bruised, my abdomen is a bit bruised, and my right shoulder is really sore. It hurts to raise my arm in certain ranges of motion. Removing a shirt by pulling it over my head is nearly impossible and very painful.

So, I think I need to let these issues heal. My quad will be OK in a few days, but the shoulder really worries me. Recently, a lot of my mid-week lifting has been arm-dominant because I do some much leg work while skiing. If I can't do certain lifts (and I'm sure I can't), I'm not sure what I'll do in the gym for the next week or two. But, I need to do something.

This afternoon, I'm leaning towards a snowshoe run, if the trails have been groomed by then.

Ski Clinic

Tuesday night at CrossFit, our workout started with three sets of heavy deadlifts. With a very important two day ski clinic on Wednesday and Thursday, I kept the weight low at 225, rather than 305 or so, which about what I would normally do. I did work hard on strict presses, doing 3 sets at 105. I am to the point where I can do the three sets of five reps at that weight, but not 5 sets yet.

Then, we had 12 minutes of burpees, pull-ups and rope jumping. I did a low level, again, saving myself for the ski clinic. My sets were ten burpees, ten band-assisted pull-ups, and 50 single-under rope jumps, repeated as often as possible in 12 minutes. Others were doing double-unders and I'm not very good at those yet.

After a good night's sleep, I arrived at Stowe on Wednesday, a bit anxious about my clinic. This one felt like I was playing in the "big leagues". I'm starting down the path to get my PSIA Level 3 certification, the highest certification level for a PSIA member. I achieved level 2 about four years ago.

Level 3 certification happens in 3 parts. First, you have to pass an online test.

Next, you take a 2-day skiing exam. Three different examiners ski with you, and 2 of the 3 must agree that you meet the standard for you to pass.

Then, you are eligible to take a 2-day teaching exam, broken into 4 segments, each worth four points. You need 10 of 16 points to pass that exam.

This week, I took a prep clinic for the skiing exam, which I plan to take for real next winter. The coach for the clinic went through all of the tasks that are part of the exam, and worked with us to improve our overall skiing and our specific tasks. As I expected, I'm not ready yet. But, I was afraid that I would be in over my head - a marginal (at that level) skier surrounded by amazing skiers. As it turned out, I was probably mid-pack in terms of talent and not all that far behind the top people. However, a number of runs on some very steep icy terrain did a great job in exposing the primary weakness in my skiing - a failure to fully commit my center of mass to the turn - something that is truly a leap of faith on steep terrain.

I got some great feedback, my skiing improved, and I now know what I need to focus on to meet the standard by next season.

I also need a new pair of skis to assist with this process, and that didn't really surprise me either. Now, I just need to figure out how to pay for them.

After a rest day today, I'll be teaching skiing in the rain for the next two days, it seems.

60 Days into the Year

Today marks the 60th day of the calendar year. One-sixth of the year (approximately) is gone. I don't really make resolutions at the start of the year, but it's nice to periodically assess how I'm doing with the things I really love.

So far this year, I've been to the gym 15 times and to CrossFit 8 times. Tonight should make that 9 and 16. I've skied 22 days so far this year. I haven't been to the gym and skied in the same day, so I've been "active" for 38 of 60 days. That is simply not enough.

My weight remains too high. My diet isn't what it should be. I'm never going to get to where I want to be if I continue the way things are going.

After today, I will be skiing four of the next five days. For the first two of those four, I'll be a student. The other two will be my normal teaching work. One good thing about the year so far is that I'm skiing as well as I ever have. Nonetheless, I'm likely to have my ego bruised at the clinic I'm doing the next couple days - exam preparation for the PSIA Level 3 skiing exam. But, I'll simply do my best and ask the Examiner for constructive feedback.

I have four weekends of ski instruction left. After that, I'll continue to ski, but not as often as I'm doing now.

Work remains busy. Having a family and a long commute remains an issue. But, I have to find a way to make this all work and get my training done. In past years, I pretty much made training my top priority. I feel like I can't do that right now, but if I don't start doing better, I won't lose any weight and I won't get any more fit. Right now, I'm simply not happy with my weight or fitness level, especially my endurance.

Hopefully, on 5/1, I'll report that I've turned some things around during the next two months of the year.