I'd been frustrated and feeling stuck on the wrong side of the 40-minute "wall". Intellectually, I knew my session times weren't a fair or relevant measure of progress, because I'd been focusing on pushing through to higher speeds, and naturally I lose time on the cooldowns during speed training. But actually clocking the standard 3.3mi session at a new sustainable high pace (and blowing away that false perception of the "40 minute wall") did wonders for my sense of satisfaction. With that payoff, I'm raring to get back to pushing my limits.
Weight loss hasn't been a big part of my fitness focus - slimming down will come naturally as I build and tone on the machines, and as I blow off 4-500 kcal per run. But I'm starting to get antsy to see less of my saddlebags, to the point that I went beer-less all week.
At 12:30AM I woke to insistent knocking. Surely the landlord wasn't there to collect rent at that hour? No, it was some chick dropping in on the previous tenant, maybe a booty call or something, but of course he hasn't been here for weeks. She apologized for the late night disturbance and fled.
I meant to call the landlord to arrange payment of rent around 9, but got caught up in a game of SMAC. Fortunately he called me at minutes after 9 and arrived to collect rent within the hour. By then I'd already vacuumed the place, figured out what to put in and take out of storage (across the boulevard from the gym), showered and dressed for the gym.
When I got the Lancer's oil changed before the holidays, they warned me my front tires are getting very bald on the edges and quoted me close to $300 for 2 new tires and alignment. (Probably wearing that way due to my high-speed cornering habits, ahem.) That price seemed somewhat excessive, and I resolved not to worry about it until I'd returned from my holiday travels. Since there are a Tire Kingdom AND a Tires Plus within a mile of my temporary quarters, I thought I'd drop in for a quote at at least one of them today. Protip: 10:30AM on a Saturday is probably not the time you want to drop in at an auto-service shop lol. I'll have to try again during the week.
Session 60: 2 sets on the machine circuit and an abortive treadmill session. My favorite treadmill (because it's right in an A.C. vent path) developed a "stuck key" and locked at cooldown speed at ~1.2mi, but I'd already done a full lap at 6.3mph, cooldown, 1/2 lap at 8.0, cooldown and 1/2 lap at 7.5. I could have moved to another 'mill but I was already annoyed at having my machine circuit interfered with, so I showered and left.
Speaking of machine circuit, today was a "weight challenge" day and I'm pretty pleased with my how that went: started with 70# on leg curls, but I actually clanked the weight stack at the peak of the motion, so I stepped up to 90#. Pushed ahead to 230# on leg press, and was able to do the 12 reps at that level. Pushed forward to an unprecedented 70# on overhead press, but still stuck at 50# on arm curls. Pushed forward to 110# on ab crunch, and 70# on arm extension. Gave 110# a try on chest press but couldn't do a rep, so I stayed at 90# there.
On the second set, as I was finishing up arm curls, a frail little blue-hair snowbird was just sitting there looking befuddled on the chest press station, and some college chickie was busy doing infinite reps at 10# on the ab crunch machine. Hello, can't you just grab a 10# barbell from the rack and do weighted situps on the nice cushy mat that's right there in front of the upper-body machines? So I cut short the second set on machine circuit, and moved along to the treadmill. It would have been OK, I'm pretty complacent about my performance on those 2 stations, if the 'mill part of the session hadn't also been frustrated. So I'll probably gym it up again tomorrow.
Lunch: Subway footlong omelette (w/turkey instead of ham), cheddar, veggies, chipotle dressing. When I got home I realized I'd left my sweaty shorts and underwear at the gym. Whoops. So I ate my sammich, watched ~45 minutes of Damnatus, took a nap, drove all the way back to the gym just to retrieve my shorts, washed clothes, updated account registers, blogged, and I'm ready to enjoy a beer and the rest of Damnatus so I can delete it already.