Stefanie's track journal and MMA ventures

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81

Morning tempo.
Felt pretty tired (againnnn!!), I think I just had a long weekend…These early morning sessions on wet grass really give me a hard time motivation-wise…I need to change my psychology and Just Do It, seriously.
I did all 200s today, highest volume so far, I guess it wasn’t too bad in general, but I’m still not happy, and I’m definately not relaxed throughout the whole tempo session. If I don’t get it right by the end of this week, then…
:confused:
I will be disappointed. I was so much more relaxed 4 weeks ago when I started these tempos, the weather is such a big influence on me after all.
I also did some med ball throws for my warm ups, backward throws and squat throws, those are fun!
Also did some med ball abs and non-med ball abs in between sets and such.

Every Monday morning the lawn mowners get to work on “my” fields, and today the two guys that do the job talked to me at the end of my session and asked what I train for and told me enthusiastically that “[I am] moving out there”. I know this is tempo and I’m not really going fast, but it’s nice to get some positive feedback from random people. Even the slightest encouragement makes a whole lot of difference sometimes :slight_smile:

Weights: upper body
Incline presses, single arm DB rows, and upright rows, stretching and abs in between and after.

So tired and sleepy during the day. In fact, I didn’t even go to martial arts in hope to sleep as soon as I can and load my batteries for the rest of the week, because it IS only Monday… :cool:

Quick food report:
workout 7:30-10am
10:30am yogurt and banana (still need to work on having a proper breakfast…uuuugh)
11:30am hand full of mixed nuts
noon green tea and hand full of raspberries
1:30pm small sandwich (on light wheat bread)with crap mean and a tomato that did absolutely nothing to me
2:30pm peanut butter sandwich (on same bread) with some honey that also did absolutely nothing to me! I was hungry all the time today… :confused:
4:40pm balance bar (I decided to completely stop the bars - unless they are home made - but did not get the chance YET to make some at home…and today I didn’t know what to do with myself to satisfy my hunger…)
finally home for dinner!! (which is also a reason why I skipped MA’s)
6:45pm zucchini and grape leaf with beef with cous cous mixed with vegetables and a slice of feta cheese.
Will probably have a small snack before bed or glass of milk…

82

I skipped class.
Yes…it’s true…shoot me…call me a bad student…call me a slacker…
Call me “normal”??? Haha…nice try :wink:

So I did my workout earlier today, at around 3:15pm which was wonderful… But I was not feeling wonderful…my SHIN :mad: I don’t understand…I stretched the hell out of it yesterday (excuse my language…I never actually talk inappropriately in real life) and I was hoping that today it would be perfect, but actually today it bothered me the most.
But on a good note, I was relaxed on MOST of my short hills and they felt good overall (despite the shin…). My warm up was also good, although I don’t feel “fresh” at all when warming up. I feel like I’m dragging myself, which is why I hate warming up… Did some jogging and more striding, stretching while jogging and “girly skipping”, some loose butt kicks and high knees (only a few) and some static stretching.
I am gaining patience with hill rests, I must say… I just thought what the heck, since I am “wasting” (I know I know it’s not wasting at all) my minutes “resting” around, I might as well observe every single detail of nature around me, which could actually help me make better paintings from memory.
And so I did.
Oh. And I almost stepped on a baby frog… :eek: That would have quite upset me if it happened. Pfeeeew.

Did lower body in weights today and tested a few exercise such as hang cleans and squats. I used weightlifting straps for hang cleans, and it was suchhhh a comfort to know that bar was going to stay there…Because if I didn’t have those, the bar would have definately disturbed my “No-grunting-and-no-dropping-weights” gym, and I would probably have found myself heading to the door… :confused:

But my hang clean fear is still there, I must say, as I went for 125lbs in my last set and before I even started the first set, I “froze”; had to concentrate and give myself some pathetic energy :o to do the first rep, “catch” it and immediately drop it. I succeeded in 4 more reps though afterwards, which were rather successful, thanks to those STRAPS.

I love hang clean, as long as I can comfortably complete a set… :cool:

Squats were better, because I’ve never had a psych issue with those. I ended with a 6/rep set of 195lbs, I think I could have even gone with more, but I didn’t want to “crash”, plus, I didn’t feel like trying more… :cool:

Ended with some reverse hypers and abs and decent stretching at the end.

Food today:
7:30am oatmeal with a teaspoon of honey.
green tea
10:30am half handfull of mixed nuts and an apple
1:30pm hand full of “Go Lean Crunch” dry cereal and half hand full of peanuts
workout 3:15-6pm workout
6:30pm plate of meat spaggetii with salad

There will definately be a snack to follow… My mom bought me cottage cheese, so I’m gearing towards that.

83

stefanie, i read in one of you posts, that will are tired and will write a brief outline of the day. Then half a book later… You have some mighty big post here.

I have not look too far back, but your shin, you stretched it tons then trained then it was sore and generally you felt relaxed during the training. you will find, that by relaxing you muscle too much, then training hard, injurys like tendonitis is likly to happen. The muscle should be stretched like you did after a hard workout. Try ICE therapy. Rubbing Vic’s vapour rub or Voltaran into the sore area. try doing some strength work on the front shin muscle, ie, curl your toes into a innner spring matteras, kicking with flipper on in the pool, have your heel on a block and a hammer on your toes and go up and down with the toes (the hammer is so you can balance it with the handle). Also try some heavy calf raises, concentrating more on the stretch at the bottom of the exercise, hold it like 5 sec or so at the bottom.
Hope it helps.

84

Thank you :slight_smile: I will do as best as I can. I’ve had shin issues in the past…I heard they always come back, last year I was able to fight it early and it wasn’t a problem, I hope I can do the same this year as well !

And I understand my posts are long…I’ll try to keep them shorter so I don’t scare readers away!

Did tempo again this morning. It was VERY foggy…I could only see ahead of me for 30meters or so.
Warm up jog and medicine throws, and then a series of 200s on grass, with med ball abs and regular abs before, between and after sets.
Shin felt fine half until half way through the workout. Generally I think I was more relaxed than Monday’s tempo…

Weights: Lat pull downs, front DB presses, bent rows, bench presses. All good. Stretching between and after.

Food was good today I think, as I ate regularly and didn’t let myself get too hungry:

(7:30-9am workout)
9:05am banana
(9:10-10am weights)
10:30am two whole wheat english muffins with a little peanut butter and cherry jelly
noon hand full mixed nuts
1:30pm cous cous with mixed veggies and a fruit yogurt
green tea
3:30pm apple
5:30pm turkey and fat free am.cheese in wheat toast bread
8:30pm “slice” of flounder fish with some cous cous on side and tomatoes and cucumbers and a piece of white bread
10pm few grapes

85

mmm, banana, here in australia, Qld anyway, banana’s are dearer than anything. there was a massive storm that wiped out major banana farms. Now, i have not eaten a banana in perhaps over a year? just seeing the work Banana, mmmmmmm.

86

A whole Australia without bananas?? What a shame! Why don’t you inport some? :slight_smile:

I had a good painting day, so I’m happy :slight_smile:

Went on the grass at about 5:30 for some hills, I would have felt 100% happy during my warm up if I my shin didn’t bother me and the usual slight knee irritation (the knee always goes away during the main part though, it’s only the “slow stuff” that bothers it. But the shin. AAAAHHHH :mad: It wasn’t getting any better during my short hills, so I had to cut it a bit short… The weather was nice, btw…although I am not wearing shorts again, because I had nothing to wear once the sun starting coming down and then I realized it IS October in New England…what was I thinking? :rolleyes: Not cold, but a enough chilly to make me miss my spandex. I can’t stand the slightest cold…that’s me. :cool:

Weights were goodddd…I felt FINE during weights, no problems there. Maybe I should become a professional weight lifter!! Yeahh!!
But no…scratch that…I have a fear heavy hang cleans… Hmmmmm…In need of another plan.

I also did rubber band hip strengthening exercised that I used to do at physical therapy couple of years ago for my chondromalacia left knee. Maybe my right knee irritation (that the doctor said there’s nothing to it…) will go away. By doing the exercised today I did feel the “burn” in my hips, making me realize that I should do these more often! They DID help me PR almost right away two years back when I came back from an 8 week-no-running period!

What else what else…

Oh today’s food consumption:
8am oatmeal sweetened w/ honey
green tea
11am hand full of mixed nuts and a pear
2:30pm wheat toast bread sandwich with flounder fish (baked), lettuce and cocktail sauce.
hills 5:30-6:30
6:30pm “south beach diet” cereal bar
weights 6:45-7:45pm
8:15pm bowl of lintel soup and two slices of whole grain fresh bread
will probably drink some milk before bed

87

I took today off.
A chance for my shin to take a breather, a chance to digest the idea that my grandpa died yesterday in Greece, a chance to argue with my sister through the phone about another issue, a chance to get highly irritated in architecture design class and abandon the studio in despair and frustration and then visit the video store where I was hoping for a pleasant relaxed night of watching some good movies, but the store did not have any of the ones I was hoping to watch.

Skipped martial arts today as welll, for a total of one full week without kicking and rolling. Was not in the mood at all…

Food was ok until I came home to some marble cake my mom made, in hope that I would eat some dessert after “ignoring” her chocolate mousse for 5 days!!

8:30am oatmeal with honey and a Graham cracker
green tea
1pm half plate (or less) meat spaghetti (I don’t know how to spell spaghetti…correct me if I’m wrong) and piece of feta cheese
2pm apple
4pm small bag of trail mix (peanuts, raisins and MnM’s)
7:30pm bowl of lintel soup and a toast w/wheat bread, ham and cheese (fat free american and slice of provolone)
8:30pm fat piece of marble cake

Tomorrow I plan to do short hills and lift some weights. My gym also offers me a free half hour massage and i plan to use it tomorrow … never had a professional massage before, I am so looking forward to one… :cool:

88

I apologize to my readers for not posting for so long.
I’m still training of course :slight_smile: , things are going very well, I just am overwhelmed with my daily schedule right now and don’t know if I’m coming or going :rolleyes:
Keeping away from the computer actually saves me tons of time which can be put into sleeping (which is MUCH needed, trust me), so I will get back to this as soon as things start lightening up for me.

If anything exciting, tragic, amazing, or misfortunate happens, I’ll let y’all know :wink:

Be back soon