Dumb Gym I Have Done Lately

My gym has been upgrading its equipment. In most cases, it's shiny new versions of the same stuff, just restyled and moved around (which is already enough to throw me off, since I'm cognitively locked-in and set in my routine).

The bench press, though, went from an older LifeFitness machine, to a new Cybex machine with no foot pedal plate to get the weight started. Plus, you can't do narrow grip presses now by putting a short bar across the handles. (Which was probably an accident waiting to happen, but still).

Oh, and according to the new machine, I lost 40 pounds off my bench press overnight.

In other news, the barefoot running/minimal footgear experiment is over. After two, count 'em, two two-mile sessions on the treadmill in a week, I was warming up for kickball last week and all of a sudden I could barely walk. It turned out I hadn't avoided the my knee pain -- I merely deferred it.

A few Advil and a few days later I'm okay. But I'll save the Aquasocks for actual aqua. Next up -- orthotic inserts.

After my Sunday workout (bonus workout, moved up early because they closed early for Easter), I saw that it was still so nice out that I went back to the house to get my skates. I got onto the W&OD trail just in time to hear the storm warnings, and after a few minutes headed west, decided that skating towards the lightning was a bad idea and turned back.

So it turned out to be about 20 minutes of high-intensity interval training, though to be honest, there wasn't much difference between my sprints and my recoveries.

The plan was to test out my feet in advance of this year's Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race, though because it's on the Saturday before Mothers Day (May 7), I don't think I'll be able to go this year, boo.

At least this means I don't have to rush to get a new brake and replacement wheels. The brakes are getting hard to find -- I think my skates will be old enough to vote in a year or two. I think I've gotten my money's worth from them.