Beefgut’s BodyBlog

Ok, this is going to sound odd.  But I have never worked hard on my upper body.  And it shows (shudder).  But what is cool is, I’m sanding the woodwork and wall patches in my dining room with a Festool sander (the Rotex 6 inch, mostly, with integrated dust extraction to the double-HEPA filtered vacuum unit) and sometimes with the LS-130 linear sander.  

Well, holding this sander in place, ensuring it doesn’t mar the woodwork (95 year old birch) and hand sanding in the corners and so forth, is actually fairly hard work.  I get a bit of a pump after an hour or two of it.  There’s up high work, down low work, so I get to hold it from various angles.

Just to say, there are other ways to get a bit of a workout.

Well, the time didn’s set a personal record (far from it, I was 10% above last years’ best) but I consider it pretty good because I hadn’t trained hard for it other than by doing yard work.  I am using the push mower for the lawn and indeed, had spent the full day doing yard work before I ran the 5k.  I don’t run many of them in the evening, and that day’s work took its toll.  Coupled with the fact that this course had a long hill for pretty much the entire second mile, and I consider my time a victory.

I was able to run back (run/walk, actually) about a mile along the course and meet my wife at about the 2.25 mile mark.  She was walking it, and making good time.  She cut 5 minutes from her previous best time.

All in all a very successful evening.

Not an improvement over August –  (in fact, 12 seconds slower) but that was on a dead-level course while this course had some minor hills.  Feeling good though.

Hello,

 Well today I hit the big milestone again — 213.5 pounds.  This was after I had a piece of toast, coffee and water for b’fast, and some canteloupe, so we’re not talking starvation weight either. 

 I say ‘milestone’ because it seems to be the floor for me.  I haven’t logged a weight lower than that in several years.  Time to bust through that floor and get to 205 in a month.

Beef

Not anthropophagai – no creature with his head down between his shoulders I, but rather a budding cardio addict with a lung in place of his head.   It was not a big deal, you’d be amazed how cheap you can buy lungs, especially when you have a fully-functioning capus to trade-in.  

 I’m running more (last Monday 6.2 miles on the fine hills of my hilly suburb) and want to work up to do 10ks and maybe a half-marathon.  To do that I will have to increase my work on my legs and also not neglect my upper body weights work - the arms and chest can do more than just go along for the ride — when you are my height, they can actually help propel you forward with each stride, if properly used.

 Enough babble.  I’m just gonna wallow in endorphines for a bit.

 Best regards,

Beefgut

OK, back in off the road for a bit (don’t know how long) so, I joined the local ironhead gym, 1.5 miles from my house.  Now I should get some real actual measurable current lifting stats and set some reasonable goals, too.

Being the ectomorph body type (believe it or not) I have always envied those who gained easily.  I liked the freedom of a ‘bulking diet.’

But then when I gain, because I don’t work out my legs and arms enough, I get that allover subcutaneous fat that makes me closely resemble a roll of carpeting after it’s been ripped out of a flood ravaged basement and flung on the curb.

This is not my goal, appealing as it sounds.  I shall, hereafter, attempt to alter that progression.