Paul, Kanika and I are going to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club tonight in Englewood!  I’ve never heard of these guys much before this, so it should be fun to experience some new music.  To the gig!

I was warned.  At work today, PW told me that I could expect 20 minutes of cardio tonight at the gym.  When I got there, he was on the treadmill and already had a sweat going.  He stopped his treadmill and told me “I have a challenge for you tonight.”  He then told me we were going to run a 10 in 10.  That’s 10 laps (a mile) in 10 minutes.  And there would be some sort of penalty for not getting it done in time.

Now, up to this point I was happy to get 2 miles in in 23 minutes and that was without a marathoner “motivating” me.  So he ran pace for me as we went, and I made it through the first half fairly well and had plenty of time to spare.  My lungs were screaming, especially my right one.  Paul wanted to teach me the technique of negative splits, where you start slow and gradually ratchet up the pace.  He said another way to do it was run a certain number of laps, then walk a certain number of laps to achieve the same thing.

I got it done, however I was beat and looked like a half-boiled chicken for the rest of our workout.  We continued to blast the legs for the rest of the workout, which also included sets of chinups and 15 dips.  I was happy to have pushed past my limit, but its not something I want to do every workout.  My lungs really hurt during the run, and my lack of lunch was readily apparent as we got into the weights.  It felt like I hit a cement wall about halfway through.

That’s all for me right now, I’m going to install Windows 7 Ultimate on my Eee PC.  Hopefully I’ll use it a bit more with a good OS on there.

This afternoon, Paul and I met at the gym for a workout.  It started out with 20 minutes on the treadmill for another two miles in the books.  After that, we did a smallish karate workout that consisted of basics, blocking/punching combinations, and Heian Shodan.  It was a nice leisurely workout for a Sunday afternoon!

The rest of the evening was taken up with our grocery shopping and watching the closing ceremonies.  Good times.

Tonight we’ve got a dinner party at a friends house!  Unfortunately, yesterday morning I was told about an issue with the new CISKarate.com rendering in an old version of Internet Explorer so I’ve been spending my spare time today trying to get it fixed up.  I’m down to about two major issues left, and if I get them resolved I should be in good shape for not having to code on this thing any more for awhile.

It is quite tempting to just put up a message saying “old browsers not supported, uprade” or something like that, but now its a matter of pride to get the thing fixed up correctly so everyone can enjoy it.

I’d best be off, or else we’ll be late to dinner!

We’re going back over to Dave’s house for another arcade game night!  That’s all for me for today, sorry for the short post but there’s recreating to do!

Tonight I got off work and headed to the gym, just to get a text message when I arrived that Paul had just left work and wasn’t sure when he was going to get to the gym.  That’s fine, I was already there… why not make the most of it?  So I did.

Two miles on the treadmill (took me 23:21, really sad) and then three sets of 15 reps on the weight machines which included the chinups and dips.  Since I was by myself, there wasn’t near as much waiting between sets and I was able to get all of my weights done inside of 35 minutes.  This was probably pushing it a bit and I will likely be sore tomorrow.  Thankfully, we got our shipment of protein shakes from Kara so I got to treat myself to a vanilla protein shake to top off my workout.  It actually tasted great!

More soon!

Work gave me a MSDN license, so I’m installing a fresh, awesome set of development tools.  I need more hard drive space on my laptop badly for situations such as this.  Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, here I come!!  In addition, I’m going to install Windows 7 on my Eee PC so I can see how that handles.  It is hard to blog because my system resources are being taxed with multiple downloads and installations, so I will leave it here for the night!  Woohoo!

The Karate Rosary
Originally uploaded by dalcher

Thanks to yesterday’s gym workout, tonight’s workout was an exercise in pain. A lot of arm movements and body shifting defined the workout, however that’s not what I want to talk about tonight.

Tonight, I want to talk about my buddy Matt. We’ve trained karate together for as long as I can remember, and I got word today that he has returned to the dojo after a break in his training.

Matt and I have shared many excellent karate memories including learning to teach together at Kid Power, getting ready for our respective belt tests, and many, many sparring matches. In 2006, we embarked on perhaps the most insane karate thing I have ever done to date: a goal to do 2000 Sochin in a year.

For my birthday that year, Matt made me a karate rosary to help me keep track of my progress. On the last blog post where I kept track, I had made it to 2105 Sochin kata in a year and Matt wasn’t too far behind me. It was one of the most epic things I have done to-date, and he was there with me. And so was the rosary, which has quickly become one of my most prized possessions.

Anyway, long rambling story aside… welcome back to karate, Matt. I wish I could physically be there to train with you again, but at least we’re together in spirit! I’m proud of you for getting back in there. Osu!

The gym workout tonight consisted of 10 minutes on the treadmill followed by a really action-packed weights workout.  Paul and I both stepped up on the chinup weight, so my arms are pretty shot right now.  Fun stuff!

Tasha and I braved the snow to make it to the gym, where we met up with PW.  He and I had a good karate workout, starting out with standing basics.  We quickly knocked out 600 techniques: punching, blocking (rising, inward, outward, downward), and front kicks.  After that we did front stance training where I held him down in a good front stance while he did punches for a minute each leg, and then he did the same for me.

After that, we did some partner sparring drills, where we working on using different blocks.  I attacked with sanbon tsuki and he did a rising block and two mid-level blocks.  After he did that for awhile, I had him do rising block, inward block, and downward block to show the difference in how the blocks can cross the attacker up and make it harder for them to attack back.

We closed the workout with his kata (Heian Shodan) once before we were done.  Good workout, more soon!