Yesterday morning I started off the day with 15 minutes on the exercise bike, random hill program, 15:15 interval.
Next I met up with Mike Castrogiovanni. We headed to Castlerock State Park in Santa Cruz for a few hours of bouldering. The hike out to the boulders was a nice little mini workout in and of itself. My glutes, hammies, and quads got a nice little burn, as well as the arches of my feet. Hiking in the Vibram Five Fingers is proving to be a lot of fun. I'm also noticing that since my feet can feel more of the terrain below them, I am a lot more aware of where and how each foot is placed with every step.
Once at the boulders, Mike easily scaled a V0 he had been working on since the last time we climbed. We then moved to one of my favorite V2s, the Spoon. This is a piece of rock where the front of it looks like it has been shallowly scooped out. To climb it involves getting a good handhold in the middle, stemming (bracing the feet on either side by pushing out with the legs), walking the feet up as high as possible and then reaching up and over the concave part to a little lip on the top of the rock. Both Mike and I were able to get the hold on the top, but kept losing our feet once we did, and weren't able to top this problem out this time. Well, one of the many good things about climbing outdoors, is that the problem's not going anywhere. We'll have plenty of time to work on this one.
As we were hiking back to the parking lot, Mike got a call from Jeremy Layport inviting us out to the Sky High trampoline gym in Santa Clara. This place has trampolines on the floor and the walls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3DrxrtZAbA
Pretty soon we started laying out challenges for each other - jumping around as many times as possible in a four-square pattern, jumping back and forth between two panels sideways, then forwards and backwards, two people traveling around 6 panels and jumping off the walls.... Pretty much it was just endless possibilities for fun. The cost was $12 for an hour. By the end of the hour both Mike and I felt like we had a really good workout. Between the amount of exercise and fun we were able to pack in, I'm seriously considering getting a trampoline for the backyard.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Workout August 7, 2010 - Structure Fire and Pack Test
This afternoon at work, my station was dispatched to a fire in a non-sprinklered apartment building. Dispatch reported heavy smoke and fire with multiple calls received. My company was the first truck to arrive on scene, meaning that the other firefighter and I were tasked to search the fire occupancy and the surrounding apartments. From the street, it looked like the column of black smoke was coming from the rear of the building. We took off down a side alley way, entered through a gate in the back into the courtyard and found dark smoke pushing out of one of the apartments. The engine crew was stretching a fire hoseline through the front door to attack the fire. Since there were about three people in the doorway, I grabbed the other firefighter and went through the sliding glass door to the right of the front door, in an effort to get around the log jam of people and search for anyone that might be inside. Turns out the sliding glass door actually led to an adjacent apartment.
We cleared that one quickly and then went back to climbing over the engine crew to search the apartment. The thick black smoke was banked down to the floor, so visibility was pretty minimal. I was able to use the TIC (thermal imaging camera) to see a little more clearly through the smoke. We started our search along the right wall and ended up in a bathroom. There appeared to be a small closet to the left of the bathroom, which we scanned quickly and then headed out looking for the bedroom. After searching the living room and kitchen and not finding the bedroom, we doubled back to the bathroom to search it again. That just seemed and odd place for a closet. It turns out this "closet" was actually the bedroom, but with a night stand directly to the right of the door frame and a book shelf on the left wall a few feet directly in front of the door made this room initially seem to be closed in like a closet. We were crawling to stay under the heat, so these felt just like walls.
The engine crew made an excellent knockdown of the fire, holding it to one apartment when it had the potential to be much worse. After the fire was out we overhauled it (removed smoldering and charred debris from the apartment and looked for any hidden fires or hot spots). This involved tearing out cabinets, window moldings, door jambs, and sheet rock and hauling it all outside.
While this was a workout in it's own right, it didn't really do anything for my cardio. Once we got back to the station, cleaned up our gear and equipment, I had a little bit of time to squeeze in a workout before dinner. I donned my 40 lb weight vest and vibram five fingers, hopped on the treadmill, and set it to mystery hike, max incline, max speed of 5. I was able to get in a good 10 minutes before the called chow. This was about half as long as I would've liked, but did prove to be a decent workout.
We cleared that one quickly and then went back to climbing over the engine crew to search the apartment. The thick black smoke was banked down to the floor, so visibility was pretty minimal. I was able to use the TIC (thermal imaging camera) to see a little more clearly through the smoke. We started our search along the right wall and ended up in a bathroom. There appeared to be a small closet to the left of the bathroom, which we scanned quickly and then headed out looking for the bedroom. After searching the living room and kitchen and not finding the bedroom, we doubled back to the bathroom to search it again. That just seemed and odd place for a closet. It turns out this "closet" was actually the bedroom, but with a night stand directly to the right of the door frame and a book shelf on the left wall a few feet directly in front of the door made this room initially seem to be closed in like a closet. We were crawling to stay under the heat, so these felt just like walls.
The engine crew made an excellent knockdown of the fire, holding it to one apartment when it had the potential to be much worse. After the fire was out we overhauled it (removed smoldering and charred debris from the apartment and looked for any hidden fires or hot spots). This involved tearing out cabinets, window moldings, door jambs, and sheet rock and hauling it all outside.
While this was a workout in it's own right, it didn't really do anything for my cardio. Once we got back to the station, cleaned up our gear and equipment, I had a little bit of time to squeeze in a workout before dinner. I donned my 40 lb weight vest and vibram five fingers, hopped on the treadmill, and set it to mystery hike, max incline, max speed of 5. I was able to get in a good 10 minutes before the called chow. This was about half as long as I would've liked, but did prove to be a decent workout.
Workout August 5, 2010 - Cardio Day
Taking a bit from ETK, my cardio workouts this week will get progressively harder throughout the week and then restart at the beginning next week. For cardio day 2 I hopped on the stair master for 15 minutes, random interval level 11.
Overall, I like the new variety. There's something to be said for sport specificity. Still though, I miss Viking Warrior and will return to 15:15 as soon as my wrist heals up. I had great results with this version of the program, but stalled out a bit on the 36:36 protocol. My forearms'd tire out before my cardio would really get a workout. I'd like to work up to 80 work sets of 15:15 with the 26 kg bell, and then move up to the 16 kg, still sticking with 15:15.
Overall, I like the new variety. There's something to be said for sport specificity. Still though, I miss Viking Warrior and will return to 15:15 as soon as my wrist heals up. I had great results with this version of the program, but stalled out a bit on the 36:36 protocol. My forearms'd tire out before my cardio would really get a workout. I'd like to work up to 80 work sets of 15:15 with the 26 kg bell, and then move up to the 16 kg, still sticking with 15:15.
Workout August 4, 2010 Bike and Swim day
As I was getting off work I got in a quick 15 min on the exercise bike, 15:15, random hill program. Afterwards on the way home, I stopped off at the pool.
Warm-up
2x25 glides w/ alpha fins
2x25 kicking glides w/ alpha fins
2x25 freestyle swim w/ alpha fins
Workout
8x25 freestyle
Warm-up
2x25 glides w/ alpha fins
2x25 kicking glides w/ alpha fins
2x25 freestyle swim w/ alpha fins
Workout
8x25 freestyle
Workout August 3, 2010 - CC
Tuesday I started out with CC. Since my wrist is still a little sore from Denver, I performed step 1 of the pushups, one armed. My reps were as follows
Wall pushups 3x50
Knee Tucks 3x40
Once my wrist heals up I'll progress to step 3 of the pushups. Next week I'll progress to step 2 of the knee tucks.
Afterwards I hopped on the treadmill and did 15 min of 15:15 intervals
Wall pushups 3x50
Knee Tucks 3x40
Once my wrist heals up I'll progress to step 3 of the pushups. Next week I'll progress to step 2 of the knee tucks.
Afterwards I hopped on the treadmill and did 15 min of 15:15 intervals
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Rugby 101 and sprint training
Last saturday, my rugby club held their Rugby 101 recruiting event. This is a way for new folks to learn the basics of rugby in a fun no pressure atmosphere. This is how I got my first intro to rugby 4 months ago. The difference this time from versus last time was slight, but definite. For the first time since I started playing, rugby started to feel like home.
Now, considering how much I dislike distance running, it's fairly remarkable that I fell in love with a sport where even the refs run on average 5 miles during games. This is good. It's pushing me out of my comfort zone. Without having regular specific events to prepare for, my training has tended to be fairly randomized and experimental. Now I have this plus a tri, possibly another stair climb, the tough mudder, and CK-FMS in what I just realized today, are all within the next three months. When I was training hard core for forest service, it'd take a good 2 months for my cardio to get into shape, doing the traditional 3-5 mile runs alternated with 1-3 hour hikes 5 days per week. 15 years later, I want to spend less time working out, and achieve better results.
To start working toward one of the goals, Saturday after the clinic I performed 10 sprints of approximately 15 yards, with 5 seconds for the sprint and 15 seconds for the jog back. I completed 10 no problem. Next time the sprints will be from the try line (front of "end zone") to the 22 meter line. Each time I complete 10 sprints at a certain distance I'll progress to the next line on the rugby pitch, until I can complete all 10 sprints at 100 meters.
Now, considering how much I dislike distance running, it's fairly remarkable that I fell in love with a sport where even the refs run on average 5 miles during games. This is good. It's pushing me out of my comfort zone. Without having regular specific events to prepare for, my training has tended to be fairly randomized and experimental. Now I have this plus a tri, possibly another stair climb, the tough mudder, and CK-FMS in what I just realized today, are all within the next three months. When I was training hard core for forest service, it'd take a good 2 months for my cardio to get into shape, doing the traditional 3-5 mile runs alternated with 1-3 hour hikes 5 days per week. 15 years later, I want to spend less time working out, and achieve better results.
To start working toward one of the goals, Saturday after the clinic I performed 10 sprints of approximately 15 yards, with 5 seconds for the sprint and 15 seconds for the jog back. I completed 10 no problem. Next time the sprints will be from the try line (front of "end zone") to the 22 meter line. Each time I complete 10 sprints at a certain distance I'll progress to the next line on the rugby pitch, until I can complete all 10 sprints at 100 meters.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Workout July 30, 2010 CC
Friday Morning I performed the following reps of Convict Conditioning
Vertical Pulls 3x25
Close Squats 2x20
Since my wrist is still a little sore I did the vertical pulls hanging off the side of a smith machine. While still pretty easy, this did give a nice little burn to the rear delt and lat area.
The close squats are feeling pretty good. Next week I'll bump up to step 7.
Vertical Pulls 3x25
Close Squats 2x20
Since my wrist is still a little sore I did the vertical pulls hanging off the side of a smith machine. While still pretty easy, this did give a nice little burn to the rear delt and lat area.
The close squats are feeling pretty good. Next week I'll bump up to step 7.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
