Champions Tour: struggling to make the cut

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cycling, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, training, weight loss, working out

It was a good day for me on the Champions Tour on Wednesday.

The Champions Tour is what the six or seven of us at the gym call the Monday and Wednesday sessions where we are culled from the herd and spend time working on specific exercises aimed at increasing range of motion, improving balance and flexibility, building stability, etc. We are (mostly) a little older and all in need f work on fundamentals to help handle moving more weight.

Most days it’s all fine. Monday was – for me at least – not intense enough. The data showed I had my least taxing experience in a session at ATC since I started in June. Now there are two ways to look at that.

One way is to say we – or in this case, I — weren’t pushed hard enough. The second view is I didn’t ramp it up. I think the reality was somewhere in the middle – you can’t get your cardio going with some routines no matter how hard you work it. And you can also cut corners if you let yourself, especially at 6a on a Monday morning.

Today, we were given a more taxing set of exercises to go through and I made an effort to do more and do it harder than our trainer instructed. If he said do eight reps, I did 12. I held my finish until I felt that . . . burn. By the end of the workout the data showed I was four times as engaged today as I was Monday.

Five for Friday: Vol IV

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Athlete Training Centre, AUS sports, canadian election, canadian politics, competing, cycling, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, training, weight loss, working out

The calendar says it’s Friday so . . . time for Five for Friday.

It was a particularly Canadian experience heading to the gym this morning. The outside temperature may have said 6C, but I think the wind chill was probably -35. Give or take. I can take the spin room and the suicide runs and the hateful pushups and pullups … but the darkness and cold at 530a really does me in. Being the clever sort, I’ve determined that part of the issue for me is wearing shorts out to the car at that hour. The sensation of November wind whistling up the Under Armour may not inspire a folk song from Gordon Lightfoot, but it’s hard to imagine a more visceral Canadian moment.

Chasing the pack

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competing, cycling, gym, running, training, weight loss, working out

I’m back in the saddle again. Feel free to sing along.

Every weekday morning is an early one for me but my spouse had a conference to attend in Toronto at 8a and asked what time my alarm is set for – “5:25 a.m., but I usually wake up before that.”

And I did. Up and at ‘em at 515a, out the door by 535a. Last week’s time off and “sleeping in” until 730a or 8a now seem like a decade ago.

Truth is that after three days I missed getting up early to work out and I’m glad to be back at the routine. And I like the people so it is fun to see them, too. It is, however, getting a little cooler in the mornings so there may need to be some wardrobe adjustments to compensate. And I want a car with heated seats!

The really good news is I didn’t forget anything today. Progress.

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The Athlete Training Centre, where I work out, is now well into its November challenge. There are, apparently, two competitions. One for total “effort points” and one for body fat reduction in the month.

I have no chance of competing for either crown.