Crafty Girl

Today marks the real start of Turbulence Training for Women. I was doing the Beginner Level plan to start with. I subbed some barbell exercises for dumbbell ones in some cases and generally made it as challenging as I could.

Friday Night
TT Core workout A

Sunday
Walk with the boy in the sling. Tromped through the woods looking for morels. Didn’t find a damn one.

Monday Lunch
TT Bodyweight Warmup

TT Specific Warmup
DB Squats 1×8x30
BB Squats 1×8x45

Rev Grip Lat Pull Down 2×8x50

Workout
A1) Squats 3×8x65
A2) Assisted chinups 3×8x94 lbs assist.

I tried doing negatives on the assisted pullup machine. I did 2, but the machine just got in the way.

B1) DB Split Squat 3×8x25
B2) Incline Press 3×8x25

I’m giving up all pretense of following the Couch to 5k plan. I’ve been able to run for 30 min without stopping since week 5.

Bill went downstate today for a knife show, so I got up at 5 and did Cathe in the basement.

Cathe KickMax Wamup 13 min, Blasts 15 min. The rest intervals were pretty short between blasts, but this was a nice alternative to going outside.

I put Sam in the sling and we went for about a mile walk later in the day.

Yesterday Morning
1/2 on the foam roller (Keli Roberts, Flexibility for the Inflexible)

Today
TT Bodyweight warmup

Specific warmup
I completely spaced on the specific warmup. Oops

A1) Bench Press 3×8x65
A2) DB Stepup 2×8x16.25, 1×8x20

B1) Pushup 2×12(10 toes, 2 knees)
B2) Ball Leg Curls 2×12

13 minutes hill intervals on treadmill (60/60)

I’m switching abs to evenings because I am studying for the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation certification. Mornings are the only time I have when it’s quite and I can focus. Plus it’s hard to hold a 1200 page book on top of a baby boy. They tend to be wiggly.

Let me just say that PLANKS SUCK. They’re hard and they’re boring. But I hear they do amazing things for your abs so I torture myself with them. I want to get to 2 minutes for side and regular planks, so I’m going to extend the time I hold the position by 5 seconds each time. At least that’s the plan. For side planks this is not a problem because I can see the clock to time it. For regular planks, I can’t see the clock so I have to count. Let me tell you…I counted the last five really fast. It turns out I was 5 seconds over what I was supposed to do. Yay!

I’ve been really sore and tired…an indication that I’ve been working really hard and not stretching enough. Note to self…don’t let stretching fall by the wayside.

Last Night
15 Minutes static stretching
5 Minutes on the foam roller

Morning
TT Abs
A1) Ab Curl 2×10
A2) Side Plank 2×35 seconds

B1) Bird Dog 2×10
B2) Plank 2×40 seconds

10 min static stretching.
Lunch
TT Bodyweight warmup

Specific Warmup
Squats 1×8x30, 1×8x45
Rev Grip Lat Pulldown 1×8x50
Seated Row 1×8x40

A1) Squat 3×8x60
A2) Seated Row 3×8x50

B1) Split Squat 2×12x21.25
B2) Assisted Chin 2×12 w/ 112 lbs assist

So, last year, as I mentioned, we had to break the sod for the garden. We put all that sod in the compost pile. Um, not such a good idea. We had two huge piles, but the sod and dirt really slowed down the compost action. You would think that dirt would be good for compost. Evidently not. The piles did reduce in size so Bill put everything in one big pile. Now we need to start a new one with all the kitchen scraps we saved over the winter and the chicken litter.

Today I order the only seeds I’m planning on ordering this year. And they’re a hybrid. Not only that, I think they are manufactured by Monsanto. I ordered Snack Jack Pumpkin Seeds. We eat a ton of pumpkin seeds and the Snack Jack makes hulless seeds. There are a couple of heirloom varieties of hulless pumpkin seeds, but every supplier I checked was out of stock or wasn’t carrying them this year. I really hate Monsanto. Now I’m beating myself up for ordering the seeds. Damn you Fedco for telling me you weren’t going to have any Lady Godiva seeds this year, then getting them in but selling them out before I got some.

The garlic we planted last fall is sprouting. We planted Inchelium Red, a softneck, from bulbs we saved from the summer harvest and Spanish Roja, a hardneck that we bought from The Garlic Store. We got the Inchelium Red from them too, just two years ago. Good company! We’ve been eating the Inchelium Red over the winter and it’s really tasty. It’s not red though.

We also planted some plain old garlic from the grocery store.

Morning
10 minutes stretching

Lunch
No intervals today. I wanted to see how I was doing on actually running without stopping for 3 miles. I did pretty good. I took 3 10 second breaks…one to tie my jacket around my waist and two for a drink. I’m not so good at running and drinking water. Every time I thought I might need to walk other than that, I just slowed my pace a little to catch my breath.

My last 3 workout have been pretty tough and it’s catching up with me. I’m sore all over and a little tired. Went to be 45 minutes early last night and still had to hit the snooze a couple of times. I guess I need to stretch some more tonight and go to bed early again.

Sam’s been staying up later too…till 10 pm for several nights in a row, so I put him to bed early too. It will do us both good. He’s teething, so he’s been pretty fussy and not sleeping so much during the day.

Morning
TT Core
A1) Ab Curl 2×10
A2) Side Plank 2×30 sec each side

B1) Bird Dog 2×10
B2) Plank 2×30 sec

I didn’t find this very challenging. I’ll have to increase the time for the planks I guess…and maybe look ahead a couple of weeks and see if there are some swiss ball exercises.

Lunch
Treadmill Walk 3 min

TT Bodyweight Warmup

Specific Warmup
DB Bench Press 1×8x12, 1×8x20
DB Stepups 1×8x8, 1×8x12

Workout
A1) BB Bench Press 3×8x60
A2) DB Stepup 3×8x16.25

B1) Pushup 2×12 (9 toe, 3 reg)
B2) Ball Leg Curl 2×12

Last year we hand dug our garden plot because I read that a rototiller would compact the subsoil. We broke the sod and dug 9 3′x15′ beds. This year we took the easy route and borrowed a rototiller. Wow. What took about 20 hours last year took about 3 with the tiller. We have a lot less time now a days so I’m not going to beat myself up over this. The fact that we are even putting in a vegetable garden is enough.

So, we inspected the asparagus patch and the strawberry patch we planted last year and things. The strawberry plants look fine. I can’t say the same for the asparagus. Hopefully we didn’t destroy it through mismanagement.

I think we’ll plant some fancy lettuces and spinach this week. Yumo.

It’s an absolutely gorgeous day in Northern Michigan. I went outside this morning to run around the block. My block is three miles around and slightly hilly.

Warmup
1/4 mile fast walk

Workout
15 mins alternating 30 second sprints with 90 second recovery. I either walked or jogged for the recovery phases. I really pushed myself much harder during the work phases, so many times I needed to walk because a jog wouldn’t allow for recovery.

The warmup and sprints got me about 2/3s of the way around the block and I did a moderate jog the rest of the way. I threw in one last sprint near the end.

I broke out my Olympic bar this weekend. I don’t know why, but squatting 55lbs is easier with it than with one of my short bars. I talked to Bill about him making me a squat rack of some sort. He thinks he can come up with something that will work.

Warmup
Cathe Muscle Max Warmup

Specific Warmup
Squat 1×8x30, 1×8x45
Reverse Grip Lat Pull Down 2×8xHeavy Black Band

Workout
A1) Squats 3×8x55
A2) Chins (3 negative, 5 assisted with chair)(3 negative, 5 assisted with chair)

B1) Bent over row 3×8x47
B2) DB Split Squat 2×12x20

Woo Hoo! Last time I did negatives (I think 2 weeks ago) I could only do 4 total. Today I did 6. These are really tough for me. It takes a lot of mental preparation to lift my feet off the chair!

Weight 170