Underwear..

About a hundred and fifty years ago, when I was a college student and a fairly unaware one at that, I was reading a copy of Spin magazine in some airport on my way to somewhere unimportant to this story. The article had an interview with Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson who is a red-head, Scottish, and as Travis Tritt so eloquently put it "just a little on the trashy side." She caught my attention to say the lest.. her music I could take or leave.
I was astounded when reading the article that Ms. Manson did not think highly of Tighty-whitey underwear! In fact she loathed them. It had never occurred to me that underwear would have any function other than to keep my zipper from chafing my bits. My unders to that point were.. well the same crappy, holey, white cotton 'Y-fronts' that I'd been wearing since puberty. After reading that interview I felt like a complete rube. I couldn't have felt more childish and unsophisticated if I'd been wearing a diaper.
I was broke as could be, but I quietly went out and got some boxers and boxer briefs. I snuck round back and tossed in the dumpster all but a handful of my least raggedy briefs for use during rugby practice.
I felt a lot better when over the next week or so, I noticed a lot of guys in my dorm sneaking out to the dumpster with a lot of their own white cotton.
Ah, The power of a pretty girl.

Last night's workout:
5 burpees
50 ft rope pull at 115 lbs
kb snatch 10/10 at 44
50 ft rope pull
5 rounds

Repetition.

My back is mending. I did more rep work last night than I've done in a while mostly to protect it, but partially to change things up.
Squats:
light, controlled.
5x5 at 225

Glute-hams:
3x10 at purple band

Chins:
various grips
5x5 at bw dead hang

push-ups:
50 total reps at twisted purple band.

Squats felt good. I haven't squatted since my SI joint injury this summer.
I feel like a mess. I've been going at it hard hard hard, then get injured, rush back, and go at it hammer and tongs... rinse repeat.
I am going to take a couple of weeks, do more rep method work, and more conditioning.
then ease back into the hard and heavy stuff.
Mahalo.

Henry Rollins, Barack Obama, and the Ramones.

Several years ago I saw Henry Rollins do a spoken word show. He said: "Don't you wish you felt as strongly for the politicians you vote for as you feel about... Al Green... or the Ramones? Don't you wish when politicians speak you were just INTO every thing they said?" It struck me as very true, for my entire life, we voted AGAINST someone, not for. We never got that "Hell Yeah" feeling about a candidate as much as feeling "Hell NO!" about his opponent. When my father and step-mom were out here a couple years ago, I was relayed this idea to my dad. He agreed... not so much about the Ramones, but he got the gist.
I got an email from him week or so ago saying that he felt that way about Barack Obama. I knew then that Obama would win the election. My father was a poor small town southern kid growing up. He had no money, no influence, no way to get into college, and thus no way to avoid getting drafted into Viet Nam. He spent his entire tour fighting along side poor men of every color. So his views on race are fairly sophisticated, but thanks to the best efforts of the GOP he did have xenophobic concerns about Obama as early as last summer. The fact that the campaign was able to break through my father's 'concerns' as entrenched as he is in small town America once again, showed there is no one that they couldn't touch.
Going back a few years before. I was back in St. Louis, and the local a.m. radio station was interviewing a senatorial candidate from Illinois, and I was struck by the eloquence and passion with which this gentleman spoke. Fast forward to 2004 that same man, now the duly elected senator, is to speak at the Democratic convention, and I thought to myself "He's going to be the first black man elected president." I never dreamed it would be this soon.
Last night I sat on the couch with the wife, watching the folks at MSNBC fill state after state in with blue.
I watched the concession speech of worthy opponent John McCain, who I honestly feel the republicans threw under the bus. They knew the economy was tottering, that the war was an albatross. They knew that with Barack Obama's oratory skills, and Joe Biden's work ethic and strong catholic roots that this race was all but unwinnable. So they paired him up with Klondike Barbie, and threw him out there.
The acceptance speech gave me chills. The party atmosphere, the immense feeling of hope, the feeling of a weight lifted off, reminded me of the Berlin wall coming down. In Seattle, people were shooting off fireworks. Today really is a new day. Crusty old cynic that I am. As much as I have touted the old Jello Biafra quote "If voting could change anything it would be illegal." This feels different. Hundreds of thousands of people went to see his speech in Grant Park. They cheered and wept. It was a rock and roll crowd. Maybe Barack Obama is our Jack Kennedy, maybe he's Elvis, but finally I do feel as strongly about a man of political office as I do about my favorite band. That, my friends, is historic.
No training last night.. History being made instead.
Mahalo.

Watch the watch..

I felt like I could make a go of it at class last night, but I have played the injury game before, and decided to sit out one more class.
I went to the gym before:
hand bike:
10 minute interval program level 15
average watts 108

burpees:
1 set of 5 every 45 seconds.
Set took 12-15 seconds.
2:1 rest/work interval

5 minute cool down on the slide board.

Went to class and watched the technique portion.
They went over sprawl to hip control to clock choke.
nothing new.
tonight still taking it easy on the back so lots of glute-hams, pull ups and some resisted push-ups.
Mahalo.

Old ghosts..

This weekend was a weekend from a lifetime ago: it was a rugby weekend.
Friday I set up the workout. Fox and the hound(s):
One person in the group sets the pace.
1 minute intervals.
5 man-makers per minute, rest of the minute is rest.
if any of the "hounds" don't finish 5 in 1 minute, then the next minute do 5 burpees, then back on the man-makers.
Go until the fox misses.
I did 1/2 a round, I thought my back could handle the light load.. it couldn't.
Paul kicked out an astounding 20 rounds.
Joe and Michelle kept chasing.
I hate punking out on a workout. Especially one as brutal as this one. I hate standing there counting minutes when I should be suffering with my friends. I would never put them through something that I wouldn't do myself.

Yesterday, I couldn't go to jitz. If I had, I'd have been miserable. I went to a rugby game instead.. No I didn't play. The team I'd worked with a few weeks ago, played a game, and won. THey're better than I'd thought, and should be even better than that. They won by 5 points, and should have won by 25. I gave some notes to the coaches. I might be working with them some more next season. We'll see how it goes. I did go to the gym after that.
Box jumps:
10x5 at 24" box. Ideally a 30" box, but my choices are 24 or 36.
hand bike:
4x2 minutes at 215 watts
1 minute at 215
1 minute at 225

My back is healing up.. slowly.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll be fully capapble.
hope you're feeling well.
Mahalo.