The Lyorn's Den

Went to the boulder hall on Sunday, and (maybe because the sun was shining, or because I hadn't had significant exercise all week), I was very energetic and spent two hours going up walls (having moved from "very easy" to "easy" now) with not really a break. Felt great!

Did not feel so great on Monday.( Read more... )

Anyways... it's my 49th birthday today! Seven squared! Should be a felicitous number!

I went to be boulder hall with the usual gang today -- first time since the accident in August last year, and found that while strength was not too bad and there hadn't been much skill to lose anyway my nerve was not what it used to be. My original plan was "do the very easy routes only", which I found I could only do with the easy easy routes. So I changed that to "finding the easiest easy route and practise jumping down backward and landing safely". I felt like I was courting disaster, and it is amazing how high the pulse can get doing nothing but climbing up and jumping down four steps, but it helped a bit. Then I climbed some of the easy easy routes and considered that good enough for day one.

Yesterday, I bicycled into the city, which is about 38 km there-and-back-again, with an annoying steep hill of modest 50 meters right at the end (resp. the beginning). Which took me a while, but went OK. I need to make use of the days with no thunderstorms!

Swimming goes peachy. I started the season with 2 km in 65 minutes, continued to 2 km in 60, and have also done leisurely 2,8 km in 90 minutes. Maybe having gained some weight helps (I think that I'm looking fat on the holiday pictures from April. Chalk it down to mild body dysmorphia.) But I'm dead tired after swimming -- I need to sleep for an hour, and when waking, I can hardly move. Still, I expect that to get better, and it's a vast improvement over the years where I started the season with 1 km.

So what's missing? Yes, strength training. Attempting to find a time slot for that.

I went swimming quite often this summer, because it annoys me that I have become so bad at it, and I hope that some challenge in the temperature department will help me not being so cold all the time.

So far, I have got a lot better in swimming. When I started out, I could barely do one kilometer before I sank (yes, really). Today, I did 2.25 km and still had strength left, which is nearly up to my old levels. Unfortunatly, my temperature tolerance is still far from being up to my old levels, I had to get out because I became too cold for coordinated movement, and despite a hot shower, a hot coffee, a large breakfast and two hours under a down comforter with a hot water bottle, it took half the day (and a second "breakfast") before I stopped shaking. And that at a water temperature of 23°C.

Goodness, when I was 12 I has about the same build I have now, and I could swim 4 kilometres in 21°C water. Where has it gone?