Jealous; Rrrrrrrrrr...

Me today? Two pianos tuned (thanks, glad to.) Athletically, sod all.

Kirsten, however, had the day off. Here is her tale:

I basically spent the entire day playing in the snow! Starting with a general crossfit warmup of situps, pushups, supermans, squats, pullups and dips, I proceeded to the Tech trails with my skis. I wanted to do some hill work and some of the more technical parts of the trails today. The conditions for me were ideal, I enjoy fresh powder. It was around 20 degrees with 2 inches of fresh powder on the trails. I was out for a little over an hour. Not too many skiers out today, what with the lake effect snow warning; however, I tend to enjoy a little stormy weather. It was beautiful in the woods! Loops covered: Oak to Pine, Core, Skidder, Tanglewood, Ridge, DownUnder, Maple, Balsam, Core. I didn't time it, a little over an hour, I think. Lots of hills to play on, the ones on Maple especially got to me today. The Maple loop would be good for hill practice, doing rounds of it would be challenging. Upon returning home, the driveway had started to fill up, so after a quick bowl of soup, round one of scooping commenced. The snow is still falling, we'll see when round two begins...Happy New Year, everyone! Here's wishing you a healthy lifetstyle!

Progress...

Yesterday, Wednesday, a half an hour at the gym rowing easy. After being used to pushing the tempo it was a challenge to stay slow.

30:05

5050 meters

2:58.6/500m avg.

18 spm

My back is sore, but more functional now. continuing stretching, icing.

Kirsten had the day off, but yesterday she did Hill work on Hairpin.

Ciao,

Charles

Pretty good...

Good. Things worked out good. Today was not 'ooh, all better!,' but neither was it 'ow,ow,ow!'

So, a day of rest? Yeah, I shoulda, but we wanted to go, so to Swedetown we went. Today's goal, an easier skate over a long distance. Kirsten is nervous about being able to cover the distances necessary for a longer race. I'm not worried...yet. An easy loop, the Valley Trail and Greenstone Loops. Here's a map. I'm staying very cautious, so for Kirsten to get a workout, I sent her on the Mama Bear Loop as well. I wish I could have gone with her! I kept going, slow with many stops. I met an older guy trying his first time on skating skis and helped him out with his technique - He looked 100% better in less than 5 minutes! Then, to pass the time and let Kirsten catch up with me, I did 4 easy repeats up a short hill, working on V1 technique. It all felt pretty good.

Data:

CW 6.4k 54:51

KW 9k 54:40

Upon getting home, I found a great email in my inbox from Crossfit Appleton coach Theresa Rosenquist. She's been getting my posts. Summary of a quick reading:

TAKE CARE OF YOUR BACK!

Get it looked at.

Ice it.

Stretch.

Lighter activities, walk or easy rowing.

I iced it tonight and did my usual stretches; I'll get into the info she sent me more in depth tomorrow. Theresa is fabulous! If you're ever in Appleton, bring some gym clothes and get together with her - she knows her Crossfit and lots of other stuff besides. A real stickler for technique and form.

Here's us stopping for milk on the way home:

Ciao,

Charles

Good Idea, or Bad?

So, the back has been bothering me. Lately I've been walking around crooked. Yesterday I saw myself in the bathroom mirror before a shower, sans clothes. Amazing! I was standing 'straight' but my pelvis was cocked to the left. My body above that was straight but the rib cage was offset to the right. Holy cats!

The day we did Angie (3 Bars of Death) my back was feeling better but the next day was nasty. Since then I've only been 1) stretching out, especially legs, 2) tuning pianos, 3) scooping snow or 4)motionless.

Going skiing today was a crazy idea. The 'thinking' behind it was to get active and loosen things up. It seems that some combination of stretching, rest and activity gets my back put together again. Mainly, though, I was getting tired of just sitting around.

It felt too soon to be out on skis. As soon as we pushed off into a warmup, I could hear my back talking about the alternating stress from side to side, "What the heck do you think you are doing?" We did twice around the island, then on the back straight of the Oak Loop, we did drills; free skate emphasizing an ab crunch then sprint, finishing with a couple of short sprints.

The workout was 3 x 1 minute on (85% of max effort,) 1 minute off, for distance. We used the back straight on the Isle Royale Loop. The idea was to skate down for a minute, turn around and skate back the exact distance in the same time, then again for a total of 3 times.

CW 300 meters

KW 320 meters

We did them all the same and a good thing, too. There was a penalty of 2 minutes of max-rep pushups if we failed!

I was going to have Kirsten do another set of 3 intervals, but we both decided to call it there. I went back to the truck and Kirsten did a loop and then to the truck.

Temp was 33F. Snow was groomed, rained on and refrozen crusty. Hard, fast and a little dicey!

It feels great to have gotten out and done a workout! I'll let you know tomorrow whether it was a good or a bad idea...

Ciao,

Charles

Wacky yooper alert

Submitted today by Kirsten!

Today, Charles proclaimed what he calls an "active rest day". For him, it meant sleeping in this morning! For me, it meant getting up and getting some work done before going for a ski. For some reason, my best times out on the ski trail occur during snowstorms. Today was no exception. The forecasters were right on the mark when they said that it would start snowing at 7 AM. At 8:30, I thought, "Now would be the best time to ski today!" As it turned out, the groomer had been there about 15 minutes before I started my skate. The snow was coming down hard by then and there were about two inches of fresh snow on top of the hard pack. The glide was superb. It was exceptionally fun. I did a quick 30 minute swing around the Isle Royale/ Superior Loops. The wind, from the East, really sandblasted my face on the return. I can see why men like their beards in the winter! This afternoon, returning from work, I joined Charles in round 1 of the favorite yooper fitness pastime of scooping snow...the wet, heavy kind...a great total body workout! We'll see how many rounds are called for with this storm...Merry Christmas to all!

Kirsten

Nnngh!

O.k. Now I'm sore.

Ciao,

Charles

Three Bars of Death

This morning at the Aspirus Fitness Center: Linda, aka the Three Bars of Death

In each round:

Deadlifit/bench press/clean

in reps of:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

for time.

KW

Reps: 10-9-8-7-6-5 (form problems, so we stopped early - stay safe!)

Time: 24:54
Weights: 70 then 45,65,45#

CW

Reps 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Time: 23:05
Weights: 115,85,75#

Our backs, which have been bugging us, felt just fine!

We'll keep stretching out legs and the back.

Ciao,

Charles