AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

walking to mordor

I'm still doing Fitocracy, and especially the User-Created Quest Consortium, though not always with the same intensity as before. The attempt to do 5000 points in a single week at my fitness level kind of wiped out my desire for exercise for a couple of weeks.

Now I'm back, and it is because we are traveling to Mt. Doom to toss in the One Ring. This week's portion is 135 miles (it is listed as 125 on the site, but there was a bit of a correction in the comments). I got up early and jogged for 4 miles. It is a good thing that biking counts, because 19+ miles of running and walking a day would probably kill me by the end of the week. It's been a long time since I have done training to the level of the half marathon training of a couple of years ago.

Technically the quest allows you to split the distance between you and up to 8 companions (that's the amateur level), but I am pretty sure that with running, walking and the exercise bike/regular bike I will be able to do it on my own if I pace myself and get the bulk of the mileage during the work week.

I finished an interesting book at the beginning of the weekend (well, it might have been Thursday) that I have been meaning to write a review of. I'll probably post that either tomorrow or Wednesday.

finding a masculine side

Sorcerer is the second show where I will be a "guy" singing tenor in the chorus. With Pirates, my costume included a loose piratical shirt, sash, black pants, and boots. I also had a fake moustache to help encourage the illusion that I was a guy. I wore the tightest compression style sports bra I had.

This time around I'm trying a different approach. I'm considering binding, though I should practice before the dress rehearsals, so I can get an idea of how comfortable it is and how (if) it affects my singing. I'm also back to the gym. I'm doing weight lifting and running again, trying to trim down and to increase muscle strength in my upper body. I know that as a woman I am unlikely to have the hormonal balance that makes guys more likely to have the full inverted triangle when they work out, but I figured I could give it a shot. At worst I don't look anything more like a guy, but I am stronger. There really isn't a lose situation here.

Unfortunately, in my 1.5 years away from consistent working out, I have lost a lot of the strength, flexibility and speed gains I had made at the time. Yesterday I did my first run in a while, a PEB 1.5 mile test run (scores for 35-39 females). Suffice to say that if I had been actually tested, I would not have passed. I get to do this again on Friday and see if I can make a better effort. I miss the days when I had a sub 9 minute mile.

Fitocracy has been helping out in that regard. The point/leveling system and the extra rewards for trying new exercises has been a boon to encouraging me at the gym. Instead of just hopping on an exercise bike or elliptical, I am using free weights, including barbells and researching tutorials for things like deadlifts and pendlay rows. Heck, I'm even doing the 100 pushups thing, though I'm currently in the land of knee pushups. I'm not sure that I'm getting additional definition yet, but I feel like my muscles are changing. Also, I should use gloves. My left hand has a large blister from yesterday's free weight workout.

The only problem with exercise actually is that I haven't figured out how to knit and weight lift at the same time. Heck, I can barely jog and knit at the same time (though I haven't tried that since the disaster with the hippopotamasusus socks).