Long run, holiday style

I did my long run for the week on today, Christmas Day. This is always a leisurely day anyway, so the run fit in well. I basically did a tour around Steilacoom, my home town. My favorite part was running through old Ft. Steilacoom. It used to be the farm and orchard for Western State Hospital (a mental institution) but now is a public park. There are lots of tall slender alder trees along the trails and the hillside looks like a scene from Tuscany. Little lake Wahop is a nice little run, about 3/4 of a mile long. My shins did fatigue a little at first, but I loosened my laces and took a little stretch break about half way through my run and all was well. I also wonder if this happens when I'm not hydrated well, because it seems to be pretty random. I'll start keeping an eye on this.

Low key 5K

After sleeping in until almost 10:00am, I had a little breakfast, watched TV for about an hour and then went for a run on the 5K course I ran back in October for the Roman Meal Glove Run. I didn't feel like timing myself, so just had a nice low key run at around a 7 minute mile pace. It was nice running through Steilacoom again, the sites and smells familiar from my youth.

Armory with Allen and sport shopping

I took my weapons in to Salle for Allen to check out. I now have three weapons which makes me feel much more like an official fencer. Allen approved of my choices and show me how to get the correct bend in my blade. Afterward, I popped over to the Athletic Supply Co. store for a little shopping. I checked out the Adidas warmups that we may get for our NW pentathlon group and then picked up a wrist brace and a cold/hot compress.

Weapon repair and yoga leftovers

With my new epees having arrived on Thursday, I wanted to get them all set up and running ASAP. Two arrived all ready to go, but the 3rd I would have to put together as the blade had broken on my original weapon and just needed to be replaced. I went out and bought some PVC pipes to cover the bladed of the epees and also picked up a little snap box to carry around small parts and tools, as well as a mini screwdriver set.

At the Salle workbench, it took me quite a while to get it all put together correctly as it was my first attempt at doing this, but I did finally get it in working order...just in time to catch the last half hour of yoga. After yoga, it was margarita night with some of the foilists...good holiday cheer.

Crazy eights, equestrian style

Tonight Laura set up the fences in an elongated z shape so that we could do a jumps in a figure 8 pattern working our way up and down the fences. Although I was able to do all the fences and got some good practice at doing 12-15 jumps in a row, by techniques still needs a lot of help. I still tend to dip my shoulders into turns, like one does on motorcycle turns. This usually meant that I took turns very sharply, which is not such a great idea especially if there were to be fences straight ahead on a normal course. The problem was probably 60% me and 40% Pet Step though. He figured out that he could cut the corners and fell into the habit. But I let him fall into the habit. Felt good to get a lot of jumping in though. Still jumping 2'9 or so.

Hippy swim and centered shooting

After some holiday errands I finally made it to the pool around 4:00pm. With no nap (and still feeling a little under the weather) I could tell in my first lap that this wasn't going to be a high intensity workout. So I set out to practice some skills that I recently read about in the Total Immersion book I've been reading...namely hip rotation. Whoa! With a little hip twist I was able to get my strokes across the pool down to 12 strokes (I even hit 10 on one length), 14 strokes at full speed. Not bad considering I was generally doing it in 16-18 strokes. My time didn't improve at all, but I did the same time with 4 fewer strokes. Nice!

I did another 4 rounds of shooting in the evening. Did pretty average on the first two targets on the third I tried on of Bill's drills in which you cut the center out of the target and try to get all your shots through the whole. I got all but 4 shots through, which was pretty good, but even better was my next target. I got all but two shots in the black target area. WOOO HOOO! So my highest score is now 69. Still hoping to get into the 80's by the time I switch up to my Steyr.

Long nap, big dinner, squirly shooting, fencing parries, short run

I was feeling a little cold coming on throughout the morning and was really tired from staying up late fencing the night before, so I decided to take a short nap. Well, it turned into a three hour nap. But boy did it feel good. I ended up missing both an option to ride and an option to swim in the afternoon, but I figured I must have needed the rest. To follow up on the nap I had a big dinner for once. Went down to the local pub, Grady's, for a guacamole burger. Taaasty! With the cold and amount of training I'm doing, a big meal is probably a good idea once in a while to keep my winter immune system hardy. During dinner, I read a little more of Pam's (Pam is another pentathlete training in the area) Total Immersion book. The current chapter was discussing how power really comes form the torso, especially the hips. The author used several metaphors from baseball and tennis, but I also noticed how much some of the sports I've been training in both have to offer and learn from what I'm learning from this book. Rowing, boxing, fencing, jumping, etc. all seem to have similar applications of how performing an action, muscle memory, etc. have much more to do with your performance than what one might think.

After the big dinner I went down to my basement and started in on shooting. It was pretty cold down there, which I think made my eyes a bit watery (the excuse I'm using for poor shooting). I got a couple good shots in, but most were not all that good. Dropping to the lower right hand side again, which usually means I'm gripping the handle to hard or with too much of my hand. For the first time I wished I had the adjustable/molded grip that I will eventually get when I purchase my Steyr. Got 40 shots off, which is good enough to keep my shooting arm in practice.

Then it was off to my fencing lesson. Tonight we worked on parries: counter six, eight, eight with counter six and four. My problem is still that I am reacting rather than responding, although I'm getting much better at responding to what really is or isn't coming at me. Practice, practice, practice...although its really brain practice more than anything. Muscle memory certainly comes into play, but not like other sports. You have to think quickly between the muscle memory to get the right motion into gear. I will the Wednesday open fencing, but will plan on attending the Sunday session instead.