I decided the things I'd logged as VPA earlier in the week weren't truly VPA. I've also updated my tracking spreadsheet to explicitly separate VPA, MPA, and restorative work. (So I don't need to try to remember which was which the next morning when I typically write up my check-in here--or worse: at the end of the week when I'm double-checking my math.) Also: I learned how to get Google Sheets to translate my hiking mileage into MPA minutes for me. So now the spreadsheet does all of the math.
Consecutive days of exercise: 152
I've been doing minimal workouts a lot lately. I've been hitting my Moderate Physical Activity goals consistently. But that's the easy part. (If Shelby and I get even close to our daily mileage goal, my MPA minutes are more than covered by our walks alone.) But my Vigorous Physical Activity has been at or close to zero most weeks lately. I've been finding it difficult to push myself to do it. But this is just a head game. There's no physical reason why I cannot do VPA at this point.
To incentivize myself to be more physically active--especially with VPA--I'm adjusting my metric for maintaining my Consecutive Days of Exercise streak. I'm not going to zero the streak--I've maintained it for 152 days as per the metric I was using throughout that time--but going forward I will consider the streak broken on any day I fail to complete a minimum of 120 minutes of MPA or 15 minutes of VPA.
This new rule still doesn't force me to do VPA. I can still maintain my streak via MPA alone. But I'd have to complete 840 minutes/week of MPA in order to do so. Which is significantly more than I have been doing. So it's a win either way.
Writing:
3 hrs. 44 min. craft study, idea gen, research
Total Hours for the Week: 20:00/20
No Solo Video Games: Day 117
Extended Gaming Rules: Day 35
Total Solo Gaming Time this Week (max 8 hours): 7:05
Low mileage today because the wind was COLD. Shelby and I did short walks in the morning and evening, and went to visit a friend in the afternoon, coming straight home again afterward. Which meant evening arrived with no chance to push my MPA up to 120 minutes for the day. Hence the dance party.
I've been struggling to dance lately. Especially high energy dancing like this. It feels like fiddling while Rome (or the whole freaking world) burns. But I am in no way responsible for the Americans' electoral screw up, and there isn't anything I can do to fix the problems it has created. I did everything I could to ensure my own country did not make a similar mistake. (Huge success there!) I did everything I could to try to ensure my province did not make a similar mistake. (Succeeded on the local front there, but the province screwed up overall.) I have been doing what I can to fight the problems caused by my province's electoral screw up. (Although admittedly I haven't been in every fight. There have been too many of them, and fighting a corrupt administration is exhausting.) Bottom line: My not dancing won't solve any problems. But if I choose to dance in spite of the world being on fire, it might give me the energy necessary to be more involved in putting out those fires. So I'm going to try to dance more.
After this night's dance party I felt the good kind of tired. Then Shelby and I went out for our evening walk. Then we went straight to bed. It was great!
Consecutive days of exercise: 153
Writing:
20 min. craft study
Total Hours Week-to-Date: 0:20/20
Habit Tracking:
No Solo Video Games: Day 118
Extended Gaming Rules: Day 36
Total Solo Gaming Time this Week (max 8 hours): 0
"The risk of failure is far sweeter than the regret of never trying at all. ~C Sanders"
I hear you. Having to deal with the dumpster fire here in MapleMAGAtLand with degenerates wanting to separate and our premiere literally destroying healthcare/education/social services/etc is freaking exhausting. With everything else going on in the world, it's hard to find the joy in the simple things, like dancing. I'm glad you did have a dance party. Hope it was as joyous as P!NK's.
"Nous sommes maîtres chez nous. Et nous le serons toujours. Elbows up, Canada!"
Moderator
to you and for the battle out there @AgileGrrl. The notion of Ontario seceding would be ludicrous. So that's one anxiety I don't need to deal with here (although I do have concerns for Alberta and Quebec, of course). But the rest? Yeah. Very familiar under Ford. Plus there's his ongoing attacks on the environment/naturalized spaces, his power grabs, his corrupt cronyism. And his obsessive hatred of the City of Toronto. What's that about?
Thank you for the song. That is brilliant and exactly what I needed!
"Nous sommes maîtres chez nous. Et nous le serons toujours. Elbows up, Canada!"
Moderator
Tuesday, March 24:
Hiking: 11.1 km
Planking: elbow plank hold
Push-ups (minimum 10): Touch the Bar: 10 hanging knee raises Total Body Strength: (am I even still doing this?) House of the Valkyrie: (or this?)
Yoga: Greet the Day + restorative: 8 minutes
Boreal/Pink* dance party: 24 minutes
* Thank you @AgileGrrl ! That track is definitely going into my dance party mix!
"Nous sommes maîtres chez nous. Et nous le serons toujours. Elbows up, Canada!"
Moderator
Wednesday, March 25:
Hiking: 13.1 km
Planking: inc. in yoga
Push-ups (minimum 10): Touch the Bar: 10 hanging knee raises Total Body Strength: (am I even still doing this?) House of the Valkyrie: (or this?)
Yoga: Quiet Room yoga flow: 4 minutes
80s hits dance party: 24 minutes
Yeah. I meant to delete Valkyrie yesterday. I just forgot. I'm still undecided about TBS.
I've been enjoying the dancing lately. And the yoga. (The Alo Wellness content going free is for me both a blessing--there's lots of great content there I want to try--and a curse--deciding which class to do takes time that I don't have. But I do enjoy yoga flow as a movement modality.) With the weather warming up here, Shelby and I are getting outside for longer and longer walks. And it will soon be much easier for me to get back into running too.
Calisthenics, on the other hand, I just don't like. I put DAREBEE Programs on my schedule because they do the decision-making work for me. I don't need to spend time deciding which yoga flow to do or which songs to dance to or what clothing I need to put on to go for a run today (not to mention the time needed to get into and out of the specialized clothing, or the space needed to deal with the large volume of sweaty clothing that winter runs create). With a Program I know I only need to call up the next day and do it, and I'll get a well-rounded training program over time. I just don't do it. Because I don't want to.
I have to fight with myself every day just to do ten lousy push-ups. They're not difficult for me. I can almost always do them in one set these days. I can do them in whatever clothing I happen to be wearing (or not wearing) at any point during my day. I can do them in any room in my apartment (including my bathroom--although that's a bit of a tight squeeze). I can do them outside. (This isn't a great idea if the ground is snow, ice, or mud-covered. But outside is a perfectly fine option where I live most days for 7 months out of the year.) I can do them (and have done them) in indoor public places. They take up less than a minute of my day. And yet still it is a battle for me to do them. (And I sometimes miss.)
I'm keeping the push-ups (unless I start doing a lot more upper body focused yoga a lot more regularly) because my other activities really don't do much to target upper body strength, and I want, at a minimum, to maintain enough upper body strength to be able to execute 10 push-ups with good form. But do I need to be doing a DAREBEE Program if I'm regularly hiking, dancing, practising yoga, and even semi-regularly running? Nope.
This is my second attempt at TBS. Part of my brain is telling me: "Get it done! Get it over with! At Level I you can do multiple workouts each day and be finished by the end of the month! (And then you won't need to abandon the same frakking Program twice over!)" But most of me knows this is a sunk cost fallacy. I won't continue to do TBS-style workouts once I finish the Program. So if my other activities don't provide the same training benefits, I'll lose any gains I made through suffering through TBS anyhow. And if my other activities do provide the same training benefits, then I'll achieve those same benefits without completing TBS.
Maybe I'll be Smart Laura today and break free from the sunk cost fallacy. But first: I'm going to have some breakfast.
"The risk of failure is far sweeter than the regret of never trying at all. ~C Sanders"
I am on my third attempt at the Cardio Blast challenge and when I get halfway I run out of incentive to continue on. We'll see how this attempt goes. Drop TBS and do what makes you shine inside. You know you want to.
"Nous sommes maîtres chez nous. Et nous le serons toujours. Elbows up, Canada!"
Moderator
Thursday, March 26:
Activity
Details
Time
Distance
This Week
Hiking
neighbourhood walks
13.5 km
__ __ __
Push-ups
__ __ __
Touch the Bar
__ __ __
Yoga
__ __ __
Dancing
__ __ __
Running
__ __ __
Aikido
__ __ __
I'm trying some new formatting to pretty things up.
TBS and Valkyrie are officially dropped. (Thank you @TopNotch and @AgileGrrl .)
Planking is dropped as something to track separately since it's included in doing push-ups anyway, plus almost always included in yoga, plus my TtB work these days is usually core-focused as well.
Running and Aikido are on the chart, even though some weeks I don't run at all (and am okay with this) and Aikido is usually only one night a week (and some weeks class is cancelled or I'm not able to get there).
These are all fitness activities which I want to maintain as regular parts of my life. Their frequency varies from things I do absolutely every day (hiking) to things I'm likely to do anywhere from not-at-all to daily within any given week.
I like the and icons in this format as an easy way to see which days in the week I got to do each activity. ( in this format isn't a failure. It only indicates a day off.)
Things I'd like to be doing but don't have the means to be doing regularly at this time at any point in the year (such as SUP) aren't going in the chart (unless I actually do them some week).
Similarly, activities I do sometimes but not regularly (DAREBEE special events, cycling, maybe roller skating, etc.) can be added to the bottom of the chart in weeks in which they happen, but I'll leave them off for weeks in which they don't.
Intensity Minutes:
Level
This Day
Week-to-Date
Victory Points (Goal = 10/Week)
MPA
135
455/600
VPA
0
55:27/150
Consecutive days of exercise: 156
Writing:
Time
Week-to-Date
Victory Points (Goal = 10/Week)
1:00
5:40/20
Habit Tracking:
No Solo Video Games: Day 121
Extended Gaming Rules: Day 39
Total Solo Gaming Time this Week (max 8 hours): 3:30
"Nous sommes maîtres chez nous. Et nous le serons toujours. Elbows up, Canada!"
Moderator
Monday, March 30:
Activity
Details
Time
Distance
This Week
Hiking
neighbourhood walks + moving crew*
2:06:00
23.85 km
Push-ups
Touch the Bar
Yoga
restorative
0:15:00
Dancing
Running
Aikido
I was still helping with the move.
Additional VPA
moving crew
4:46:00
* My watch logged my total mileage for this day at 23.85 km, but much of this was counted as VPA, not MPA, as it involved carrying heavy loads up stairs. The time I've logged on the Hiking line is only the MPA time. The remainder of the time is accounted for on the Additional VPA line.
Intensity Minutes:
Level
This Day
Week-to-Date
Victory Points (Goal = 10/Week)
MPA
126
126/600
VPA
286
286/150
|
Consecutive days of exercise: 160
Writing:
Time
Week-to-Date
Victory Points (Goal = 10/Week)
0:20
0:20/20
Habit Tracking:
No Solo Video Games: Day 125
Extended Gaming Rules: Day 43
Total Solo Gaming Time this Week (max 8 hours): 0
Shelby and I are well. Well... I am well. Shelby is losing too much weight. But she seems happy, LOVES to go for her walks, and is VERY MOTIVATED to eat treats. Just not her kibble. We are doing some tests to try to figure out what is going on.
Our mileage is down now because of the heat. This next week is going to be especially brutal. Walks at 5AM and after dark only. Even after dark it's still going to be unpleasantly warm here. But at least I don't have to worry about Shelby's black fur getting hot enough to fry an egg when the sun isn't up!
I am still doing Aikido whenever I can get a ride to class with my friend. I finally got my tires pumped on my bike. But it is too hot now to cycle to class.
I have not been dancing. I've not felt motivated to do high intensity work at all. This will only get worse now with summer's heat here.
I did sometimes feel tempted to go for a run when we had nice weather. But I feel bad about going out in the nice weather without Shelby. So usually we just go for longer walks on those days. In May we did a 29 km hike to a conservation area that's across town from us. The following week we hiked the same conservation area with a friend (but drove there, so our total mileage was less), then hiked the Marsh Trail in Rondeau the following day. 36 km total across the two days. A week ago Saturday we hiked the Ponds, doing almost 20 km on that day. Since then, due to stormy and/or hot weather, we've stayed close to home.
Mileage summary:
Week
Mileage
March 30 - April 5
60.5 km
April 6-12
50.4 km
April 13-19
39.2 km
April 20-26
58.3 km
April 27 - May 3
73.2 km
May 4-10
84.3 km
May 11-17
74.8 km
May 18-24
85.5 km
May 25-31
75.7 km
June 1-7
56.9 km
June 8-14
50 km
June 15-21
74.5 km
June 22-28
53.9 km
Our target is 84 km per week. With the exception of a couple of weeks, we've been considerably off the mark for the past few months. [But actually done better than during the winter when somebody was a wimp about the cold weather. (The somebody was not Shelby.)]
We've agreed to cat sit for the next couple of months for a couple of cats who live ~ 2.3 km away from us. This will force us to walk at least 4.6 km every morning to go to feed the cats. (I'm looking after them in their apartment, not bringing them here.) Then we'll do a second walk in our own neighbourhood in the evenings, after dark. Unless it's truly stupidly hot out, the plan is to add in our local conservation area to our morning trips to visit the cats. This will make our morning walk a little over 10 km. So we'll just need a short walk in the evenings to hit our mileage target for the day.
Other than hiking (hopefully 12 km per day--although it won't be that much this week!) and (hopefully weekly) Aikido, I am trying to get back into doing regular yoga. I want to be doing more strength-training work, and yoga is the path of least resistance for me in that regard. The flexibility work won't hurt either.
I have actually been to a couple of public yoga classes lately. Our friendly neighbourhood realtors know a young woman who is just finishing her YTT. They have provided their office space for her to get some practice teaching in. Since I live around the corner and am a yoga teacher myself, I have been going to support her. (Also: it's a chance to do yoga for free in an air conditioned space!) This is intermittent though, and I want to get back into a daily yoga habit. This week is going to be a tough week to start that, because the days are truly going to be stupidly hot, and it's not going to cool off enough at night to get our apartment back down to a comfortable temperature. I may be plastered to my kitchen floor with ice packs draped over my body by the end of the week. But we'll see how it goes.
I may not check in much over the next week or so as I'll be trying to minimize computer use so as to not add any additional heat to our apartment. But I will be back!
"Nous sommes maîtres chez nous. Et nous le serons toujours. Elbows up, Canada!"
Moderator
It is so freaking hot here! (My computer's fan was in overdrive from the moment I turned the machine on. I won't stay on long for the machine is old and I fear a meltdown in this heat!)
Mileage is down because of the heat. We do what we can.
I worked up a weekly yoga schedule with one hardcore strength workout and one flow workout for each day. (Except Sundays, which will just be one longer flow.)
I have not started this schedule yet though, because of the heat. I am doing some restorative yoga each day. That is it right now.
Yesterday was a holiday here! (Happy Canada Day to all Canadian Bees!) I was invited to a barbecue luncheon at the home of a friend. Said friend has air conditioning, in theory. But it was broken. So our lunch was still hot. But the food and the company were excellent. Shelby, thankfully, did not melt while I was out.
I hope any of you who are also being hit with this extreme heat are staying safe.
"Nous sommes maîtres chez nous. Et nous le serons toujours. Elbows up, Canada!"
Moderator
It's still too hot here during the day for me to do much of anything in the way of high intensity workouts. It does cool off overnight most nights, however, and has been staying pleasant for a bit later into the morning most days. So Shelby and I have been enjoying longer walks (mostly within our neighbourhood as Shelby has many friends here who she likes to visit). I'm still doing Aikido on Monday nights, and also still cat sitting. Shelby, however, is done with the cats. She has made it quite clear she does not want to go out there anymore. So most days I go on my bicycle. So that's 5.4 km per day of cycling most days.
We received some hard news from Shelby's vet at the beginning of this month. So far Shelby is still happy and doing well on her walks. We're taking life one day at a time and enjoying our time together as best we can for as long as we can.
What else? Yesterday @neilarey made me do push-ups. Twice. (A good thing. I need to be doing more push-ups if I want to achieve my fitness goals.) Also some squats and jump squats. Check out DAREBEE's new Fitness Test (for assessing where you're at currently w.r.t. DAREBEE training levels) if you've not had a chance to do so yet. It's short and sweet and pretty neat.
My diet has been a mess all summer because I just cannot cook in the heat. But yesterday I learned how to make salmorejo, and tomatoes are in season here currently. I suspect this may become a staple of my diet for the next little while. (It is so, so good!)
I've been feeling this song lately.
(No. Don't ask. The details are unimportant. But the main fallout is that I realized I've been wasting my time on something. I am therefore now no longer wasting my time on that thing. Which is good.)
I've got a bunch of stuff on my plate over the next couple of weeks (some social, some administrative, more cat-sitting, plus dog-sitting, etc.) I'm hoping to return to a more regular workout schedule, more regular logging here, and more regular checking in with all of you, beginning on Labour Day.
Thank you to everyone who continues to check in on me here. I'll be back soon!
We received some hard news from Shelby's vet at the beginning of this month. So far Shelby is still happy and doing well on her walks. We're taking life one day at a time and enjoying our time together as best we can for as long as we can.
So far, Shelby is still doing very well. I don't know for how long this will persist.
Shelby had an ultrasound on August 4 that revealed she has a mass on her spleen. Statistics say it is most likely an aggressive cancer. But we don't know. There is a possibility it could be "benign". (There's no way to test it without removing her spleen.)
Splenectomy is a major surgery. Especially for a senior dog. (Shelby is 15 years old!) I won't put her through that. If the mass is cancerous, splenectomy won't buy her much time, and she'd lose it all to recovering from major surgery. Plus the surgery itself could kill her. If the mass is not cancerous, then a successful surgery would be curative--for this issue. But she'd still be laid up afterward for the recovery. So I have to weigh the scales: balancing how much time surgery could potentially buy her versus how much quality time she'd lose to the recovery period. She's already losing strength in her hind legs. A post-operative period of forced inactivity would exacerbate this. Plus she'd be more susceptible to some infections without a spleen. If the mass is benign, Shelby could possibly live for many months yet and die of something entirely unrelated. But there is a danger that, without surgery, her spleen could rupture. In which case she'd bleed out fairly quickly.
Like I wrote previously: it's a hard diagnosis. I've decided against surgery, because the risks of doing it are too high and the potential benefits too small. Right now Shelby is still so happy. But her happiness is predicated on being able to get outside every day and go for walks to visit her many friends (and collect treats!) I cannot take that away from her on a gamble that maybe buys her a few weeks but maybe kills her faster and most likely leaves her with a lower quality of life overall than she had before the surgery. So we are keeping on as we are, and enjoying whatever time we have.
Right now, today, Shelby is still happy.
On August 4, our friend from Cambridge came out to visit us, and we all went hiking in Rondeau together.
It was a bit hot out, and we only hiked 13.5 km in total on the day. Definitely not one of our longer hikes. (Not by a long shot!) But still pretty freaking good for a 15-year-old dog!
On August 13, our friends from the Booming Metropolis (who we walked with most days when we lived there) came out to London to visit us, and we took them on our regular hike through our neighbourhood here. Shelby showed her friend Hendrix all the good places to get treats in Wortley Village.
This past Sunday I was supposed to attend one of the social events I'd mentioned in my previous post. But I bailed at the last minute. The event was a barbecue, but it was out of town. Going would have meant leaving Shelby home alone for 8 hours. And I just couldn't do that at this point in her life.
As it turns out, Shelby was fine. She would have been fine if I'd gone to the party, and just spent the time sleeping. But I'm happy I chose to stay home with her, nonetheless.
Sunday was also Jazz in the Village, which I knew meant Shelby's realtor friends would be in their office. These friends stock treats for Shelby, which she stops by to collect regularly. But we hadn't seen them in several weeks. They're currently hosting a shoe store and a fashion accessories store within their space. So the space has been open 4 days a week for Shelby to collect her treats. But the realtors themselves we hadn't seen. Jazz in the Village was an opportunity for Shelby to see her actual friends (not just eat the treats they buy for her).
The afternoon had been pretty rainy. As a result, the realtors had moved all of their displays and activities for the day inside. But one of them was standing outside with a little megaphone, calling out to passers-by to alert them to what was going on inside. When she saw Shelby and me approaching, she turned her megaphone into the store and called out:
"Shelby is here for her treats. Please bring treats for Shelby."
When someone brought the treat bag outside, she said (again into the megaphone):
"Shelby would like four treats please. Four treats for Shelby. Her mom will tell you she only needs one treat. But that is incorrect. She needs four treats."
While Shelby was being served her treats, I told the realtor about Shelby's medical diagnosis. She then called the person with the treat bag back outside:
"I was wrong. Shelby needs four more treats please. Four more treats for Shelby."
So Shelby got more treats.
Then the other realtor came outside to see us, and she wanted to give a treat to Shelby too.
Needless to say, Shelby was very happy I had stayed home to take her to Jazz in the Village. And I was too.
In other news: I am deeply grateful to Dominic LeBlanc, Janice Charette, and their teams for all of their efforts on behalf of our great country, and also, of course, to our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, for standing strong and refusing to kowtow to the bullying tactics of the administration south of our border.
Nous sommes maîtres chez nous.
Et nous le serons toujours.
It's always a hard choice when it comes to the animal companions we love @Laura Rainbow Dragon - I totally feel you and also agree with your thinking. Having been through it several times I always say that my role is to do what is best for them, not what is good for me. You're doing the right thing.
from
to you and 
for the battle out there 
from
from
