Today was not a good day in the gym. In the end, within that space that at its end, smelled of a Pink Palace Museum of yesteryear, I just did not have it in me to complete my hour on the treadmill and left with 15 minutes remaining. I pulled my body out of the gym.

Why? When I woke up this morning on time at 3 AM, I felt nothing out of the ordinary. I went through my morning routine with my butter iced coffee and even caught a couple of episodes of Ryan George along the way. I cranked out most of my sets on my Chest day until I ran out of time. I was in my groove like every morning. POD's lyrics "Is that all you got?, haha I'll take your best shot" resonated with me as I popped up to drive to the gym.

However, as I drove in the waning moment of the 4 o'clock hour, a weight crashed upon my shoulders. "Why am I even going up here? Am I wasting the time to get up here for climate-controlled cardio?" I see the same blank faces every day. It was a world I was from replaced by a bizarro something else:

Sometimes you don't wanna go
Where nobody knows your name
And nobody's glad you came
You wanna be where you can see (ah-ah)
Our troubles are all the same (ah-ah)
You don't wanna be where nobody knows your name

I have been wanting to pull this song out for a while for The 32nd Expedition, a callback to my time living out in the country and MANY hours of cardio to UFC events. It seemed appropriate as I subscribed last night for a month. Add that to my new iPad and things at the gym have been significantly upgraded from Jim Jagger's morning weather.

YouTube Link

I gotta admit: I love MMA. It is the only sport worth watching—well, I love the recap show that Shaq, Ernie, Kenny and Charles host on NBA on TNT, but today's NBA is...well, this:

YouTube Link

Cardio Regimen

I am at a bit of a crossroads: I am considering stripping out a lot of the cardio. You will recall I kicked off a running regimen last week. It was one ACHY week! I had pain on top of my feet throughout the week as I tried to learn how to dial down the stomping power, something you can attenuate with minimal footwear, but you're gonna go full throttle for those pillow pairs!

I have an issue of mass at this sub-225 lb weight. As much as I want to develop my ability to run, there is a reasonable expectation that the repetitive, devil-may-care pounding will jack something up. I have to examine my goals: what is 2023? This year is the time for weightloss, hopefully into the 170s and further still which it ought to if this train keeps charging. When that weightloss objective is achieved, I would welcome a running regimen. That said, I am on pace to hit 163 in September if a trendline via scatterplot means anything, but I do not think it is realistic for me to maintain this rate of weightloss. But, I'm gonna ride this wave!

For now, I have no need to develop my running skill (or my skill of running with a 50 lb backpack). It made me think of my Spin Class-of-One. Why? Yes, it was another approach to shore up my right quad, but my resistance regimen provides that. I do not climb up hills/mountains with a bicycle; why am I training like I do?

I put the same thought toward my strength exercises. It is why I just cannot find an exercise focused on the hamstrings. None of them are practical! Today's stiff-leg deadlifts in theory work the hammies, but it is totally lower back and glutes for me.

These Xeros Are Made for Walking

I was on the fence: though I planned it on paper, did I really want to abandon my Rest day? I drank my entire stein of iced coffee replete with 15 tbsps of butter for my fat fast day to go along with that 16 oz of my beloved Black Rifle Coffee Company Tactisquatch Roast, put on my headphones and ratched up that audiobook speed on Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 (2013). I headed out.

I intended just to take a mile walk up to the Neighborhood Walmart, take a quick loop inside and head home. I guess I was amped on that mix of fat and caffeine 'cause I made like Billy Idol and wanted "more, more, more, more." And thus, I walked beyond Walmart and put in a 5K. Along the way, I picked up TWO personal records:

1. Most Steps in a Month
2. Most Steps in a Week

You can try to defeat me
You don't know it's the pain that'll feed me
And I'm gonna take back what you took me for
'Cause I was born for this

-Skillet

Were these hard?

Super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

-Ryan George, Pitch Meeting

I reset my Garmin account on February 22. My old average of 150,000 steps a week is out of (reasonable) reach at this point, so I am not wowed by my performance:

1. Monday: 7,753
2. Tuesday: 13,145
3. Wednesday: 13,685
4. Thursday: 14,041
5. Friday: 15,669
6. Saturday: 17,776
7. Sunday @ 11:30 AM: 10,401 and counting!

I am on pace to meet a new goal of mine from this past week outlined by Garmin: 91 miles of walking activities by June 30. It is not just tracking my daily walking, like steps or whatever. I gotta click my Garmin to fire up the ol' GPS. Thus far, I am about 30 miles in as April only contributed a couple of miles to the total.

The Plan: Week 5

I spent a bit of time yesterday working on my workout template. The resistance has some minor changes, but is more or less the same with the exception of switching out for incline lateral raises and tricep extensions. No, the big adoption is setting up my cardio before the 5th week starts and having it as a series of targets to hit. No longer is it the meandering around, sampling the buffet for the day.

Tentatively, I approach the 3 sessions of spin the same as I do with the Couch25K regimen. It will be a bit of a ramp-up since previously I have only done 10 minutes at a time and this week will be more than double that.

I do not like this plan—OK, it would be more accurate to say I do not like my lack of knowledge. There is hardly any MMA, rarely a pool reference (pool weather is fickle) and I have not even touched on my mediation game! Yes, expect a major revision soon. As each week progresses, there has been an evolution of the regimen occurring. For that matter, I am not a fan of the plan to take the front and back of a page, but want to hone it down to one print job.

I do totally love a hard copy. It is fun to file away after a week's worth of pen markups.