"Your fight to overcome defeat has set the skies alight for me"

[Day 11]

Go look up the song, it's awesome, came on at a pretty pivotal moment in my very boring treadmill run today and pretty much saved it. When I took yoga lessons back at Gratitude in Princeton, one of the things my favourite instructor would have us do was dedicate our practice to someone at the beginning of each class. That was my favourite part, giving the practice up as an offering to someone important to me. Henry (who probably makes up my blog's entire audience) has been through a lot this past year to try and help me live my dreams and I won't get into the details of it but that line and this person are a huge inspiration to me. I can overcome some boredom and tired lungs for that.

Today's Workout: AM lift + easy steady state treadmill run
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65 lbs, 3 x 8 @ 95 lbs
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, went for 3 x 10 @ 75 lbs but set 3 ended up being a 4/3 split to failure so I dropped down and just did another 10 @ 65 lbs. (Yes, I dropped the bar on myself twice. In one set. I'm impressed too.)
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 115 lbs
• Pulldowns: alternating wide/narrow grip @ 6 plates, 4 x 12/12/12/8-4
• Giant set: 3 x
• Box jumps: 12
• Push presses: 12 @ 45 lbs
• Bent over BB rows: 12 @ 45 lbs
• Treadmill run: 
• Treadmill numbers: 2.71 mi, 26:39
• Garmin numbers: 2.64 mi, 25:08, 9:30 pace
• Superset: 4 x 
• Resistance band fly pulls: 25
• Band squats: 20 (bodyweight)

Hit Rate: 10/10 (100%) <- okay this is blowing my mind, I'm usually down a workout and clawing my way back by like day 4, how are we off to such a good start this cycle?

Notes/thoughts:

• Squatting: Um was planning on going 3 x 12 @ 85 lbs with a double drop at the end (which is my usual set but on more weight) and then changed my mind and went for less volume because I woke up with my back a little wonky (probs from just poor riding position on some of the harder efforts last night, really gotta work on that) and I wanted to save my back because I wanted to up the deadlift weight today so...that was a thing. A 3 x 8 is normally pretty comfortable, I'm still learning to keep my back safe on those last reps, but nothing felt too off which was nice. My legs also just feel way better today in general in comparison to last week, so that was nice.
• Apparently I can't go an entire gym day without dropping something on myself? Today was weird though because honestly both times it felt so out of nowhere. And once that bar is sitting on my chest it's staying there. I know some people can take a moment and pick it back up, I can't. And 75 lbs is just at the point where I really don't enjoy rolling the bar off of me, so uh, that sort of sucked.
• Deadlifting: 115 lbs was the weight I hurt myself at, except I was doing 12 reps and like really not thinking about putting the bar down in a reasonable manner, which was really my problem. I can usually lift safe, but I drop into that natural curve in my back if I don't focus on it on the way down and that's not good. So opting for fewer reps, working on being gentle with the bar on the way down, probably gonna hold it at this weight until 3 x 10 is comfortable and then try to go up to the big plates and play around with set and rep counts. Honestly don't know that I'll make enough progress in the next three months for that to be a real thing, but we'll see. A girl can dream right?
• Bent over BB rows: went conservative with the weight today because of that whole back thing (first time I've done this in a while without it causing me any pain). I should really like use more weight on these? But at the same time they don't have marked barbells at my gym and I don't know how much weight the little ones are (I lifted with the Olympic bars today) so I don't really know how to set them up and I feel bad occupying two Olympic bars (not that there are enough people at the gym at the hour that I go for it to matter, but still) so idk. We'll see...
• There were a lot of people on the treadmills when I went over for my short run so I had to use one of the small ones today. It's actually a pretty comfortable treadmill, I didn't mind it so much for an easy run, although the display is low which would be annoying for interval work. The run was boring but fine. Interestingly enough, my Garmin numbers line up much better with this treadmill than with the big one. The pace felt harder than what I'm used to for the 6.0-6.5 mph range as well which makes me wonder if the two types of treadmills are calibrated differently. Unclear. All it makes me think though is I have to be consistent about using one or the other for pace based workouts otherwise things could get real wonky. 
• Biggest factor in the run not sucking today though was the fact that my legs weren't blown. By this point in the day last Monday I was really hurting and I felt pretty good today, which made a pretty huge difference.
• Benedict (a high school teammate of mine) would be proud of me and my resistance band life. I was doing them today and reminiscing about him trying to talk me into doing resistance band work with him because my fly sucked and I honestly just needed to be stronger and me vehemently resisting every time. I may not be doing sets of 100 the way we did in club swim dryland in college, but at least I'm doing them now?

I feel so good! I mean the arms are starting to settle in, I am starting to feel that, but honestly I was wrecked after last Monday and I feel pretty good today so that bodes well. Fingers crossed that the feeling good continues into tomorrow, because that'll set me up for a pretty kick ass week. (I'm also skiing over the upcoming long weekend, so keeping my legs in a good place is going to be super key for that.) The plan tomorrow is a swim in the morning and a trainer ride in the evening. It's a little unfortunate that I'm front-loading the riding this week and back-loading the running but you gotta do what you gotta do to make the schedule work right? Hopefully the temperature comes up by tomorrow morning because riding out to and back from the pool in -8 C won't be very nice (especially once my hair is wet)...Alright time for some immunology! (And a haircut? I need to go get a haircut...)

Much love,

Jess