Living Life

Training update, July 2017

July didn't turn out as well as I wanted, but it considering some of the challenges and comparing to June, it wasn't bad at all.  I hit a wall where I had no gas, and took some days off that weren't planned.  Then I traveled and trained during the travel, but it was very hard for some reason.  When I returned home, I was achy and in some unexpected pain.  I think I may have had some sort of bug, but the symptoms were real weird.  I guess that's part of being a biological organism. I really started to feel the yoga coming together.  Still have a long way to go as I'm learning, but I think that means I'm improving.

Here's how the month shaped up:

I think August is going to shape up just fine.  I probably need to re-evaluate my rest plan, but I think I'm looking forward to having a good month.  At my age, I think I'm on a great road and really enjoying the lifestyle.

I had the privilege of wearing the badge and beret

But also had the privilege of working with heroes.

 (picture links to video)

Swimming videos

Here's some recent vids we took of swim strokes.  We do need some practice with the camera :).  The idea here is to review and figure out what to improve.

These two videos are at a controlled pace:

 

This one is at full speed:

And this is my butterfly:

The most telling one is this overhead as it shows my feet are way too far apart.  That's a very surprising revelation.  My coach has been telling me about this, but I didn't realize how bad it was :).

More videos coming.

Father's Day!

Superb Father's Day in AUS on this dive!  My life isn't perfect; there's a still a few things I have to do, but it is pretty danged cool and much better than I deserve.

 

Yoga postures

Here's a yoga sequence I consistently practice, a series of standing poses strung together.  I admit, I'm not very good at this type of exercise, but I do get a good feeling when complete.  I build up to this sequence by breaking down the individual poses and stringing together shorter sequences prior to this.  The whole effort is about 20 min long. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ookPK2OI190

I'm at 162 lbs here which is a good weight for me, but it's obvious I still have a bit more around the middle than I like. :)  It is slowly, but consistently dropping.

 

 

Reporting in for June

So here's numbers for June.  Look at that abysmal bike mileage! 

Actually, June contained a significant amount of travel where I didn't have access to a pool or my bike.  Getting back into the routine after the body had been "off" for that long was also challenging.  Finally, I determined to address knee pain that I had ignored for two months.  Thankfully, x-rays show nothing significantly wrong with my knee, and the doc says I need to pay more attention to tracking and pick exercises that will promote aligned movement of the kneecap.  My foot does pronate significantly, so I'm not surprised the knee could be having this issue.

One nice discovery comes with improved yoga.  During traveling, yoga becomes an easy reach.  At the end of the month I experienced significant improvement in my one legged balance poses, feeling more solid and holding a balanced position much longer.  These are the achievements I look for in yoga as I think balance, strengthening hip flexors, etc, will serve me very well as I get older.

I've got an aggressive schedule planned for July.  I'm not sure I'll be able to hit these marks, but at this time, they do seem in reach.