threadwalker

First, my back.

It's fine. Yay! 2 days of bed rest plus 2 weeks of mega ibuprofen, vicodin and a variety of pain killers plus 3 week break from gym. I seem to be in good form. The doctor and I think this will be a chronic life-long thing.

Second, fitness routine

I returned to the gym last Thursday, exactly 3 weeks since stopping. Did 30 min cardio plus lower body circuit work out; both at reduced effort. Spent the time being sensitive to my back, so I skipped the upper body and felt pretty good with what I had. I could definitely feel the effects of the break.

I was out of town until Monday night and back in the gym at 8pm last night. 30 min cardio - I could definitely tell I'd lost some ground. No biggie - as long as I keep my heart rate up. And I went moderate on the circuit - I did a full body to see where I was. 1 set of 12 reps at each station. Not bad and definitely feeling it today. Can't wait to go back tonight.

Other fitnessy-things:

Skiied my fucking ass off on Sunday. I forgot until about 3 pm that I was supposed to be taking it easy on my back. Oh well. Every muscle between hips and ankles is aching in protest at being used so hard for so long, but the back is fine and there are no injuries. woot! I got about 6 hours of skiing in with a 1 hr break to dry off and warm up in my car.

boring ski chatter and my new bestest friend
The skiing was really hard. I was not as aggressive as I was last month - the ice was really hard to slow down on and the 'groomed' slopes consisted of chopped up ice. The sky was overcast and it started snowing around 10 am. The fog rolled in around 11 am so visibility was down and I was extremely grateful that my overpriced ski jacket by Columbia is water proof. It was otherworldly to be poling across the top of the ridge and watch people vanish into the mist. I can't express enough how much work it was to navigate the slopes. Everyone make swish noises on the ice and someone actually nicked me with an out-of-control snow-plow turn. so sad. I think he blamed me, but technically he was up hill and responsible for being in control.

There were a few inches of powder after 1:30, when I returned, and the sky cleared up. Yay! all the fair-weather fans had already left for the day.

I fell a few times - once for no apparent reason on a stretch that was practically flat. I think I was messing with my gloves and my poles and testing my big toes when, suddenly, WHAM-Wump-flip... I was down. I twisted my leg funny, but I zipped right back up hoping no one saw that.

I met my new bestest friend N towards the end of the day. She didn't stop talking; turns out she's a school teacher. She took me out while I was getting on the fancy four-seater chair-lift. I lost a ski to her love and had to hop-skip-tumble my way off the chair lift and then wait for the ski from kindly people behind me. She was full of love and wanted to buy me a beer afterward. Instead, since she was a better skiier than I, I had her lead me down a black diamond. It was good until I got distracted by her non-stop chatter and then I face planted in the ice, slid 15 ft or so, wacked myself in my shoulder with a ski (body origami) and lost a ski on the nearly vertical drop. A note about those vertical drops: it's harder to stop an out-of-control sliding biff when they are steeper. I advise not falling at all. Anyway, I managed the super-steep section very well and only biffed after we got to the less shear part. This was the end of the day, too, so ... I'm feeling pretty good.

Did I mention all the muscles from the waist down hurt? umm.. yeah. Going down stairs really sucks and I keep making these inadvertant wimpy noises. I keep reminding myself it's the good kind of pain and a week in the gym will chase it away.

It was lots of fun. Can't wait to go again. And my back came through in flying colors. woot!