Category Archives: Corpus

I recently purchased this:

A stupid expensive clear foundation-y gel, which I read an article about, and then bought during a moment of suckerdom.

Problem is that its little pump action dispenser has this tendency to projectile squirt. If you’re not careful, it’ll forcefully ejaculate the goop across the room. Like this morning, when I pressed the pump and found nothing on my fingertips. And then I spotted the glob on the bathroom door.

And it is sufficiently pricey that I honestly considered wiping it off the door and applying it to my person.

But I didn’t. This time.

People, this is exactly what happens behind the closed doors of the make-up nation. Nobody’s per-fekt. 🙂

Had a session with my trainer today.

Say whatever you want about bourgieness, I don’t care, because working with a trainer is so awesome.  She’s worth every penny.

To finish off a fairly painful workout today, I did a couple of planks (2 x 1 min).  They’re better than they used to be.  In that I could do them before, but if it was after an hour of exercise, I might buckle at 30 secs.

Today I started laughing as she put the exercise balls away while I was getting my plank on.  She asked why, and I said that for a second I thought she was picking them up to put on my back.

Of course, now that I’d put it out there, that’s what she did.  Not too much weight, maybe 8 or 10 lbs.  To my pleasure, I held up.

And, as I said “that’s cool, but is that a real thing, or are you just trying to keep yourself entertained?  I mean, so long as it’s a weight that’s fine, but if you start putting your sneakers and lunch on my back, I’m going to get suspicious.”

It’s important to let people know that you know that they know that you know…  Otherwise you end up with sneakers on your back.

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🙂

I’m currently engaged in a challenge.

Well, that’s what “they” are calling it.  I’m calling it more of a “thing I’ll think about in the wee tiny gaps in the mad colour-coded schedule that is my life right now”.

The objective of the challenge is to get the highest score on the U.S. Marine Corp Physical Fitness Test (PFT).

Stupid Sevaan is being crazy dedicated to this.  And reading his daily blog entries on his ‘training’ is making me feel bad inside.  So I figured I’d at least write one post giving a sort of benchmark for how much (slash if) I progress over the month.

(Even though the challenge started 6 days ago.  Whateves.  My calendar rules all.  And this is the first opening in my week.  I… I don’t even think it would approve of me writing this one post… Shhh… it’ll hear you….)

In spite of my sometime-protestations I am, in fact, a girl.  So the minimum score for me is: 15 seconds on a flexed arm hang, 44 crunches and a 30 minute 3-mile run.

A perfect score is: 70 seconds on the flexed arm hang, 100 crunches, and a 21 minute three mile run.

This could be problematic.

At present, these are my stats:

Flexed arm hang:  unknown (but suspect extreme suck)

Crunches: 50ish

Run:  ?

Out of 3 categories, I’m confident I can ‘pass’ crunches.  Despite a layer of flub that comes and goes, I do have pretty solid abs.  If I put in a bit of extra effort there, I think I can bump up my score.

Running is.. tricky.  Poor old bum knees don’t like it when I run.  I’ve only recently worked up to being able to “run” comfortably on the treadmill.  Set at 0.0 incline, I can go at 5.6 for about 20 minutes, and that’s what I usually do as a warm up.  It works out to be about 10:20 minutes per mile.

Today I did a couple of spurts of 6.5, which shaved off about 10 seconds.  I also moved it to 1.0 incline, since that better replicates running outside.  Which gave me 2 miles at 20:20.

What I’m thinking is that, for me, this challenge will be less about getting a one time high score, than about trying to retrain myself to a slow-and-steady attitude to progress.

I’m a bit insane about pushing myself.  So I tend to train above my actual fitness level.  Because I like the pain.  But after many years and a few injuries, I’m realizing that I’m addicted to the wrong kind of pain.  The right kind of pain is the kind that’s /juuuust/ outside of your comfort zone.  Not the kind where you hurl at the base of a tree.  But instead the kind of bearable pain enables you to take a teensy step up to the next half-level of fitness.

To that I say boo.  I boo you incremental progress.  BOOOOO.

But since I am trying to make my peace with you, that will be my final “boo” (for one month).

BOOOOOOOO!

(okay, that was the last one for really.)

No, really. It is.

But only in the gym rat sense. Not that I’m actually a gym rat, but I do have workout rodent tendencies.

Which include caring enough about working out efficiently that I have sporadic sessions with a trainer. Who. kicks. my. ass.

Not literally (that was Muay Thai), but holy hell — in every other sense.

I think that I push myself when I go alone to the gym. Push myself heck. I barely even workout if my current levels of pain are any indication.

On weeks when I know I’m going to see my trainer, the planning process goes something like this: “Okay, so I’m going to see her on Thursday, that means that I should do anything involving being able to move earlier in the week.”

It hurts to type.

It hurts to sit.

I don’t even want to talk about stairs. I don’t even want to look at the word.

When I go with the trainer, just about every final set involves me “failing” the exercise. Which is, in gym terms, a good thing. “Failing” is that moment when despite any personal fortitude, spirit, drive, even energy, your muscles will not move any more. It’s this surreal, bizarre, out-of-body moment when you find yourself staring at, willing, control over your arm/leg/abs and you can’t for the life of you get them to do anything. Your brain is sending signals and your arm isn’t picking up. Your bicep has had quite enough of your brain’s crap, and it’s put the ringer on silent and gone for a nap.

And I love it. Love it love it love it. My ass hurts so much it feels like it’s trying to detach from my body, and I couldn’t be happier. It hurts to have arms, nevermind do anything with them. I feel like a cheap action figure, where my articulated arm could pop out of its socket at any moment.

Worth every penny.

It’s almost never true that something always is. But it really is empirically always true that I feel better if I go to the gym than if I don’t. If I’m debating whether or not to go, or I don’t want to go, or I think I might be too tired to go, or or or, I should always go. Because I will always feel awesome when I get back, and I will always be glad I went.

I’m such a touchy-feely grey area liberal that it’s great when I get to be unabashedly definitive about something. 🙂