Hello! I’m still here, and it’s been a long time since I wrote a blog post. Guess I should just break down the big stuff real quick.
1. Trip to China was really good. I made a lot of nice professional contacts and have some interesting follow-on work to do. The place we stayed was beautiful (I’d love to go back sometime!) and it was neat to experience the culture, see the sights, meet people, and eat their tasty food. :) My hotel was right in a big, well-manicured park area around a lake, so two mornings I went out for a run through the park. Totally safe-feeling, and lots of people out even at 6 in the morning.
2. Work is still cray, and shows no signs of stopping. With the trip past, I can change my focus back to the other things I let slide in my mad dash to prepare for that.
3. My back still hurts after I pulled it… 2 weeks ago now? Today was my first day back in the weight room (more on that in a sec) but I’ve also been running a fair bit, and my backside legbutt is all tight. I’m not sure which is the cause and which the effect, or possibly they’re both working together to be a literal pain in my butt. My birthday is coming up and I think I might ask for one of those massage subscriptions from a chain store. They’re not the best, but it’ll at least motivate me to go regularly.
4. House is coming along. My parents are visiting in a week so I’ve been working on unfuckening the guest bedroom and trying to get some of the random piles put away where they should be. We have a lot less (or different?) storage now – much fewer cabinets and closets in rooms, and more separate storage in the basement and attic. So it’s just going to take some time to figure out where things will go. We’re also planning to regrade the house so I need to get estimates on ~5 yards of fill dirt…
Okay so: back in the weight room today! I didn’t really feel like hitting it too hard, so I settled on a mix, light bench, very light squats, and light deadlift. The back strain is taking it out of all my lifts, even my bench form is affected (that back-arched decline position feels incredibly crunky). I’m hoping that adding light deadlifts back in will start to re-build the muscles into a correct pattern, but I’m sure more work and stretching will be needed.
Bench – 10x45lb, 2x5x95lb, 5x5x115lb
Squat – 5x5x45lb
Deadlift – 5x5x135lb
Running While Fat 