pushups: 14+19+14+14+(19)=80

crunches: 30+38+23+23+(50)=164

squats: 27+34+21+21+(34)=137

 

I needed significantly more than the allotted 60 seconds between sets this time.  This might be my repeat week.

 

So I never did my other two strength tests last week resulting in a nearly full week off.  In retrospect I should have just continued on my previous week1 and week2 tracts and not even bothered with the week off.  Since today is a holiday, I nearly forgot to do these and since I'm not really in the routine yet I'm pretty pleased at remembering.  Hopefully the rest of the week will go smoothly.  I've been eating and drinking like a fiend recently.  Those both need to stop.

 

pushups: 12+17+13+13+(17)=72

crunches: 21+27+21+21+(30)=120

squats: 19+24+19+19+(30)=111

 

The pushups today were a little harder than I thought they'd be.  I'm sure at some point I'm going to end up repeating a week for them.  The crunches seem the easiest still however I wonder if these numbers would be more appropriate if I were doing real situps.  Maybe I'll try that for a day and see how it goes.  The squats have been ok since my quads are pretty beefy to start along with all the biking I do but I think I'm getting to their current limit as the difficulty is definately inceasing.  It would be nice if I could hit my goals by the end of Novemeber though in time for ski season.

 

The end of this week is going to suck and next week will be near impossible judging by today's performance.

I did 75 sqats in a row today which puts me into "column 3" again.  I had to do 40.  My legs are going to be hurting for a few days.  I'll try and get to the crunches and pushups today and tomorrow.

--pete

Pushups: 54+57+63 = 174

Situps: 117+117+136 = 360

Squats:88+105+113 = 306

Pushups: 12+13+10+10+(18)=63

Crunches: 24+25+21+21+(45)=136

Squats: 22+22+19+20+(30)=113

 

At the end of this week I'm supposed to do a "fitness test" which determined where I start next week.  It consists of doing as many of each as I can until completely exhausted.  I'll probably do the test for pushups and cruches tomorrow morning then afternoon and then the squats on Sunday.  This means I'll be partially shot for next Monday... so I might move day 1 of week 3 out to Tuesday and play catchup.  We'll see, I'll keep "you" (the tubes) posted.

--pete

10+12+10+9+(16)=57

21+24+18+18+(36)=117

19+22+16+16+(32)=105

 

Friday might be a little difficult.  Tight schedule, not much to write.

--pete

 

Push-ups: 9+11+8+8+(18)=54

Sit-ups (crunches): 21+21+15+15+(45)=117

Lunges: 21+19+13+13+(22)=88

 

Ok, the triad is complete, 5 weeks to go.  RAR.  I do a ton of biking as well as walking so I'm really hoping that doesn't conflict with the squats.  My legs were sore for two days after the 'inital test' on Friday but I suppose I could have done them slower.  Exersise bores me :/

 

The other thing that will be interesting in the coming weeks is the conflict of crunches and pushups.  Pushups require tense abdomenals, however if they're worn from the crunches then that makes it a problem... or if they're worn from the pushups then the end of the crunches is difficult.  I guess it's not supposed to be easy though.

I just did the initial test for 200 squats and decided to stop at 45, putting me into the "excellent" category.

 

 

I'll start on week 2 next week with the rest of them.  I am going to DESTROY ski season this year.

 

 

 

Ok, I've made it to day three this time, yipee.  I think the hardest part about this is remembering to do it.

 

  Pushups: 9+10+9+7+15=50, 50 pushups mu ha ha ha!

  Situps (crunches): 17+22+14+16+37=106, 106 easy crunches!!!! mu ha ha ha ha ha...

 

I'm thinking that crunches are a lot easier than situps, however I've read that situps and not the best for your back and neck. :/  Maybe I should double it and do 400 crunches?  1000 crunches?  I was on a kick once to do 1000 jumping jacks in a day.  I kicked it around 500 as it was really jacking up my knees.  Maybe I'll try to start again.  I felt that anyone that could do 1000 jumping jacks a day for a solid week would be in good fitness.  I think it's a good goal, however I really started getting bored while doing them.

 

So the totals for the week are:

  pushups: 31+36+50 = 117

  situps: 76+103+106 = 285

 

Hooray, I finished week 1.

--pete

 

Pushups: 6+8+6+6+10=36

Situps: 15+18+15+15+40=103

Ok, got seriously off track before and I'm starting over.  Level 2 for pushups and level 3 for situps.

 

pushups - 6+6+4+4+11=31

situps - 15+18+10+10+23=76

 

hopefully I can keep on schedule this time.

With moving Kat on Friday and Saturday, I haven't done my day 3 yet.  I'll do that later today.  I'm also going to start the lunges today.  Huzzah!

--pete

Just about to go to bed and realized that I forgot to do this.

 

pushups: 10, 12, 8, 8, 12 = 50 (barely)

situps(crunches): 15, 18, 17, 15, 57 = 122 (not that bad)

 

I definately need to move down a level with the pushups and moving up a level for the crunches was fine.  I just saw there is also "200 squats".... maybe I'll work it into a triad next week.

--pete

,Ok, today is done, the first day: 10, 12, 7 ,7 ,12 for a total of 48.  I had to use more than the 60 seconds between the sets but I was ableto do it so it's a good start.  I'm wondering if I should have choosen level 2 instead of level 3.  I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

 

I went for the 200 situps too today.  Since I've recently read about the horrors of situps on one's back (citation needed), I decided to do crunches instead.  Granted these are easier than situps.  Maybe I should go for 300?  I decided to start at level 2 since I was kinda borderline level 3 in the initial test.  Today I did 9, 9, 6, 6, 35 for a total of 65...  I only had to do 38.  Maybe level 3 would have been fine there.

Alright, I've seen this for a while and have decided to finially do it: 100 pushups.

 

 

The idea is that in 6 weeks you'll be able to do 100 consecutive pushups.  I'm starting off at rank 3 (15-29 in the initla test) or "Set 3"  which puts me at a total of 45, 50 and 57 push ups next Monday, Wednesday and Friday.... halfway there already?

 

Anyway, I didn't want to put this in facebook so I figured a Live Space would work well.  I'll update this as I complete each day and step up the levels.  If for some reason I miss posting, please poke me to make sure I've done it... I tend to forget some times.

 

...maybe I should start 200 Situps at the same time...

Well, that's the Scotland portion of my trip over now.  I'm sad of course but it's always nice to get home.  The flight was uneventful (the way I like them) and I managed to only sleep about 30 minutes; a good thing.  We're all packed in our vans now and have a 4 hour ride back to Binghampton then an hour ride up to Cortland from my cousiin.  I should be home by 22:00 just in time to pass out and sleep wonderfully.

 

Hanging out with Ross yesterday was fun.  We grabbed lunch at a microbrewery in Glasgow with litres of beer, did some CD shopping and then more beer back near the train station.  I rode the train back to Edinburgh far too early and ran into some scouts from Maryland.  By sheer coincidence, Fudge walked by as we were loading bags into the van so I left my bags with them and went off for a ouple more pints and a wander around the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  It was a nice final visit before meeting back up with the scouts at about 10pm. 

 

Today has been largely uneventful and I'm completely worn out.  I'll update more later.

Well, that's camp over for two more years.  Home-Stay concludes today and I've had two very relaxing days with Anne and Paul and their three huskies.  I think this is the longest amount of time I've spent around dogs in such close quarters but it's been fun...  I think I've even been adopted into the pack.  Just like children though, I'm glad they're not mine.  Today I should be meeting up with Ross for a while and then heading off to Edinburgh to meet up with the rest of the group.  Our flight is at 09:30 tomorrow, or something like that, arriving in Newark at 15:30, Binghampton at ~20:00 and then home by maybe 21:30 or so.  This trip seems to go faster and faster each time that I'm here.

Camp itself was a good time although different as usual.  More and more people are coupled up and a few of my good friends weren't here this year so I ended up feeling a bit like a tag-along at times.  It was still a really good camp though.  The Atholl Experience went well again and we've already started planning for next time even though I do not intend to be on the team.  It was hard enough keeping up with year and I found mysef with just enough energy to "go big" only once a day, usually the mornings.  I was still giving it my all for the other session of the day, just not getting totally covered in mud as I might have in previous years.  After the first 2 days I started to lose my voice as well so that was a little bit of an issue.  My back was already sore from sleeping on the floor for a week but seemed to resove itself around the weekend (day 5) Blisters and other sores set in on my feet around day 7.  (Oh god, just got invaded by huskies...  they've not yet understood that they're not lapdogs and thus I have now two 50lb dogs laying across me)  On the plus side I could still outrun most of the kids and staff, perfected my cartwheels, yelled all week long and generally make the most of my limitted time.

The weather couldn't have been better.  It was a near heat wave for the first week which was great for setup and trying to get the kids rallied.  My nose ended up sunburned, but what's better than getting a tan in Scotland, right?  The weather held over the weekend but started to fade towards the end and showers came Sunday night.  The rest of the week was partly rainy which helped to cool things off and let me sleep a little better.  It rained on and off for camp takedown which is always a pain, but after being wet and dirty all week it's not much of an issue for our team.

The last night at camp was great as always.  My little camera died about halfway through the week so I hardly have any pictures to document it.  The reception at the castle was great al always (I'll grab some photos from Mike) and we managed to get sauced before the dinner even started.  Dinner as well was also great, more bottles of wine and good food.  After dinner was the Cleidh (sp?) and I danced more than any other one I've been to.  Luckily no wipeouts or broken partners dancing partners.  After the dancing came the after parties in the subcamps.  I sort of remember these as a slideshow of random memories.  There was a lot of singing and drinking.  For some reason during the night I seemed to be collecting random items; the final booty consisted of a pair of sneakers from a Californian, some Canadian eppelets, an Austrian whistle, an Angus Scouts tshirt, ...I think there was more, I can't rememeber, but I'll figure it out when I get back to NY.

On the Satuday of camp I started up the Go-Go Party Game which ended up being a pretty good success.  I handed out 2 decks of cards about half of which I think were actively traded.  The Scots seemed to get into and with everything it'll be interested to see how they take it and evolve it (the banana cheer and shark cheer the Ed and I introduced to them in 98 have turned into fully fledged songs, "...is for dicks" from 2002 is a common phrase and "Hooray for..." is just as well.)  For next camp I'll make up fully laminated cards so they'll last easier and be more resiliant to the rain.  I myself pulled a King from the initial draw, traded down to a 7 just so it'd be more fun to play the game, retrieved a stollen Ace which then became mine.  I traded the ace for a shirt down to a jack, swapped the jack for a 6 because I felt bad about drawing all over a drunk person with a sharpie, upgraded the 6 to a 9 to help someone take down their tent and traded up to a 10 just because someone thought I was awesome and should have a better card.

I think the middle weekend was athe best part of camp with all my friends who weren't there over the week showing up.  Ross, Gemma and Al, and Kay and Anne all camped over in the caravan park (campground) next to camp for two nights.  I really miss having all of them at camp as I'd said earlier.  They all seem to miss it to and intend to be back at the next camp. 

That's about it for now.
--pete

Pics so far: http://www.petcow.org/pics/Trips/Scotland08/

 

woot!

7/16/8 22:24 GMT
It's our first night and many of us have been up for over 36 hours now.  I was able to get about 40 minutes on the flight which has probably been a great help.  Overall it was a pretty good day.  I didn't have any problems with driving skill, only with teh size of the van I have to manhandle.  It's a good deal larger than the minivan that all the kids are in but I only have the liability of gear rather than bodies.

 

The Loch Lommond Visitor's Center has been replaced by an aquarium.  It had a few interesting items (mating seahorses, shark tube, sea otters, but much of it reminded me of "Fierce Creatures" with every other animal labeled as "Predator!!".  Also the building has an imax screen on which they showed a video from a projector at SD resolution.  Just. Plain. Wrong.

 

Glenn Coe was really stunning again although I need to fix most of my pictures due to janky ass camera settings; my own fault.

Right now I'm on a bunk bed in a Hostel in Portree on the Isle of Skye.  There is a MASSIVE amount of snoring going on and I'll be very thankful for earplugs tonight.  Oddly, I have no cell reception at all right now which doesn't seem right.  I've reset the phone to no avail, but I'll be able to figure it out in the morning after I've slept a little

 

I'm totally knackered and don't really want to go through my photos but feel I ought to.

37,000 feet over the atlantic ocean - 7-15-08 03:24am

 

All I want to do right now is sleep and the flight staff is now serving the 4th round of drinks.  WTF?  All I really want right now is to have them turn off teh lights for "sleeping time".  We're down to 4 hours of sleep... at most.  *sigh*  On the plus side I'm watching Dr.Strangelove finally.