Our time is running out
As the beat of this heart keeps racing
The thunder before the storm
And the tick of this clock keeps breaking
The calm before all explodes

YouTube Music suggested this song to me during my workout. Upon my first listening, I KNEW I had to put it into this Expedition's playlist! Unfortunately for the band and their 2010 release (demo on SoundCloud), they were about a decade too late to the scene. Totally reminds me of that post-grunge sound.

Yesterday on the dregs of my cuppa endorphins, I wrote about pace and PRs. While I find value in those things, those things hold greater value at a future date when my weight stops dropping and things are stable. Honestly, I should beat my PR every week because I have less of a load to carry. Last week's run days reminded me that I have a 43 lb backpack that I carry in comparison to 2021's run at Overton Park. And even on that date and with all the fun I had running in the warm grass finishing up my 5K because I took a wrong turn, I was encumbered. 182 is not 163.

And yes, the same schema holds true for steps. 10,000 steps is not a magical place where a Yeti emerges out from a park's clump of trees to give me a high five. No, that target reflects a consistency. For many months when my pilot light was out, what did I do daily? 2k and 4k steps. One day was under 1k—to be fair, it was a good arms day, 'cause I was on crutches. It actually amuses me that I applaud these sub-20K numbers because 2020 me would have seen them as a failure. And 2020-2021 me was driving toward marks on the scale not seen since 2005. These days, I am just mopping up an overencumbrance due to a delight in heavy whipping cream—OK, that HWC was my take on making reboot of Breaking Bad out in the country.

Admittedly in these days, the fire is not the same, Destination Unknown does not run through my head when I tread these steps again.

It don't matter where it takes me
Long as I can keep this feeling runnin' through, my soul

I take on this attitude of "Been here before, get this job done." Sure, right now, I've got a hundro in my pocket, but it does not compare to the 149/154 lb loss I once had. In time, it will be a place I do not know. At any rate, it is not about pace or steps, the chief goal is weightloss. Those other things ought to contribute to that end, but there are times in which they do not. In January 2019, my step competition drove me to hit 50K steps on the treadmill in a day which put me out of commission until...well, I do not know since that WordPress mishap lost all posts from late 2018 and 2019.

I have been tempted in these past few days to return to that CMS and may I ever be reminded...

On the flip side, external events do not phase me. Even the walking dead in 2020 could not hold me down. I thrived in that environment; I thought everybody was nuts. I did my 4-6 in the morning, did my lunch cardio followed by laying out to soak in some Sun. When I returned to Memphis and saw all those masks to fight the undead and put their faith in government treatment, I could only shake my head, "That ain't the Eye of the Tiger." Folks don't even know how masks work or the definition of a vaccine. I wonder how they live their lives to not even grasp fundamentals?

I set that aside as a warning tale and watch for things I do not see. Look at my own journey, I trusted government and medical "experts" and did the whole RDA, low-calorie thing. I worked through that and incorporated that into keto with a tidy sum going into the coffers of Vitamin Shoppe. I had a fantastic display of snake oils! And then...I went back to my roots—quite literally!

Walk the roads my forefathers walked
Climb the trees my forefathers hung from
Ask those trees for all their wisdom

Why do my legs exist? They make up most of my body. Why are these arms built from throwing things? We are the ONLY species built that way. Why do I thermoregulate the way I do? All of this reminds me of...

...what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you...I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

I went carnivore.

I still got some life in me
You can try to shake me
I still got some fight in me
But you can never break me

-Skillet, Standing in the Storm

I close out my resistance week with a strong showing. Unfortunately, yesterday must'a beat me down, 'cause I slept in to 3:33 AM. Nevertheless, I tore through my 38-minute Arms day, stripping out half of my rest being sets in order to make up time.

I rolled into the gym parking lot a few minutes off my pace and did the following:

• 15 minutes on the Arc Trainer
• 26 minutes of my run/walk program
• 10 minutes with my 1:1 minute spin bike
• 29 minutes on the BRC outdoor loop

I was stoked with that last segment because my walking pace was more than a minute faster than yesterday and beat my best on that course 47 seconds. As to my overall best in 2023, I was 51 seconds slower than that target, so it is something I am gunning to accomplish next week.

As I do every morning as I refuel, I watched the Duck Call Room. They were closing with viewers' emails when they read how a woman mention she accomplished her goal: along with dropping 200-somethng lbs in 2 years, she also hit 10,000 steps every day for a year. I thought to myself, "I could do that step goal. I just need focus and consistency." Even yesterday, I was lamenting that I break my Garmin goal streak every week because I shut things down every Sunday. Once upon a time in 2020, my goal was 20K a day which I hit ALL the time.

And thus, starting back on Tuesday, May 16, I am kicking off a 10K steps a day for a year challenge! Why backdate it? I have been doing just that lately:

• Tuesday: 13,145
• Wednesday: 13,685
• Thursday: 14,041
• Today @ 9AM: 10,030

This has been my most successful week in 2023. Screw 2021, I am coming for you, 1995. As it is, my Xero Prio's remind me of my old, black, wrestling shoes (and I jogged everywhere in those things, cotton field ruts and all). And I'm still the same me as I was then. I take the same amount of medication as I did then (0). I have that same fire inside of me as then. The world's gone crazy, but She Couldn't Change Me.

Hello Thursday! I never believe that we are more than halfway through May, less than two weeks from June, for all intents and purposes, summer! My summer 2019 callback: One summer can change everything.

YouTube Link

I totally need to recreate that summer playlist of mine!

I admit, I do miss owning a treadmill. I miss those days of hopping aboard every day for a couple of hours, watching a Tom Cruise movie from that stash of that going-out-of-business video rental shop or a UFC event, which was kicked off with DVDs from said store before my subscribing. I created a fantastic gym.

That said, I do like what I am building.

The Morning

It was another Shoulders day, which was a bit more of a push than I expected. I am guessing it had something to do between the shadowboxing and the weights I held for yesterday's Legs.

I headed up to the gym and just did a sampling of the buffet. I did 15 minutes on the elliptical. Then I proceeded to do 15 minutes on the indoor track. And while I did the moving-in-reverse bit, I just did not have it in me to do those segments while jogging. I am guessing the extra hour I did of VR cardio yesterday afternoon may of had a bigger impact than I thought in resetting my recovery. I ended with trying out the course I created on Garmin, which was just the BRC outdoor track. While I thought I pushed, my pace was slower than on Tuesday. NOT a red-lettered day thus far.

When I came home, I was tapped. I pulled together my food. At its end, I downed something new I am adding again to my diet: a teaspoon of powdered eggshells. I figured with all of this structural stuff going on, the calcium boost cannot hurt.

I do not know where I will show up on the scale on June 19. I would think it is unlikely that I will beat my Keto/Carnivore opponent this time around with his -5.91% loss—I will come close to his 14 lb weightloss—but I fully expected to destroy the next 24 weeks thereafter after that weigh-in.

All that aside, my clothes are looser. I wore my Black Rifle Coffee t-shirt for the first time to the gym today.

YouTube Link