Some hard work and some holiday "rest"

I started a new gym routine last Tuesday morning: a Smart Bell workout.  I'm scheduled to depart for South Africa just three weeks from this coming Friday, so this is the gym I'll do until then.

After working with the Smart Bell I went downtown and joined Joe for a loop of the harbor.

On Wednesday I went to Overton Park and did another "bike-plus" workout--four laps on the bike and sets of pushups and Hindu squats after the first, second, and third laps.  I'd started the morning feeling a bit more lethargic than usual, and was very tempted to give myself a break.  I was also sorer than expected from Tuesday's Smart Bell workout: even though I'd been doing intense leg work for a few weeks, the lunges hit just enough of a different spot that my quads were really sore.  But once I was on the bike I slowly began to find the energy and even some enthusiasm, and by the end of the workout I felt really good for having done it.  That's something I've experienced many times over the years: that getting started can feel really hard, but once you do get started your body has a way of rising to the occasion.

I spent Thursday in the car, driving with my mother to North Carolina, where we'd be spending the holiday weekend with my sister's family.  I had my Smart Bell with me for some gym work, but otherwise the weekend would be a bit of a break, and I think it came at a good time.  I'd put in a few weeks of good hard cross training, and now my body would get to recover a bit and internalize it all before my return home to start the final push of training before the South Africa trip.

The weekend was restful enough, but I did experience some digestion problems because my eating routine had been thrown off.  I'd hoped to do two gym sessions, but in the end I did just one because we wanted to get on the road home promptly.  Another exhausting drive had me home around 6:30 PM CST, and after some unpacking and a light supper I was in bed.

This morning I weighed myself for the first time in four days, and all my weight-gain progress seems to have been lost even though I ate plenty of rich holiday food at my sister's house.  I was back down to 151.5 pounds.  Sigh.

It's time to settle back into the routine.  My plan for the coming weeks is to do a bit more in-the-boat training, if the weather cooperates--in Memphis in January, you never know what'll happen.

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