I'm a little surprised at how humid my basement is. Odd, given that drying structures is my job, but I think humidity was around 80% before I put in the dehumidifier yesterday. I just bought a consumer model at Lowe's. The stuff we use at work would be too expensive to run in a residence from an electricity standpoint. I let it run with the internal bucket for a day, and after less than 24 hours, the bucket was completely full. I went to buy a hose, so it would automatically discharge into the sump and by the time I got back from the store, it had already accumulated about a quart.
There was a musty smell down there, and yesterday it seemed to be much, much better. It would be nice to be able to use the basement as liveable space. The previous owners put a lot of money into drywall, etc. All it would really take is some inexpensive carpet and I'd be good to go.
I am hoping my rowing machine arrives sometime this week. Not sure two a day workouts are going to be necessary, though. I feel like I'm breaking through my weight-loss plateau. More on that later.
Sometime this week, I may schedule my guys to come and basically move me out of the old house and into the cabin. It all depends on getting a reasonable child custody split for Logan. If I can get that, I'm ready to be out of the house, full-time, and away from the drama.
I don't look forward to the task of moving the treadmill, though. It's going to be a bear. Still, it'll be nice to have a treadmill again. Not so much that I love running on a treadmill, but it's very convenient from a child-care standpoint. I can be in the house and Logan can be watching TV or whatnot.
Last night, he ran two laps with me and he was a little bit winded. I think it was because he had played both a football and baseball game earlier that day. Kid was just tuckered out. It's hard to imagine that the running would be difficult for him since he's a kid who can run a mile in a little over 7 minutes.
Football isn't going to be so bad. This is the last year of rec-league, flag football. I was afraid his team would get destroyed, but they actually managed to win yesterday. There are only 6 games in the season. Logan got some good playing time. Because it's rec, the kids get an equal mix of playing the line and backfield. Logan got some good carries and scored a TD. He also had one long run that set up the TD.
Baseball? The team is practicing on Wednesdays and scrimmaging on Sundays. I don't mind the scrimmages. They're basically fun and are just enough baseball so that the boys won't be starting over from zero in the Spring. However the Wednesday practices conflict with his football team's practice. So, we aren't practicing baseball right now.
That's just fine with me. I still maintain that 9 years old is too young to specialize into one sport. I want him to try a little of everything. I have a cousin, Dan, who was exceptionally athletic, and for some reason, in middle school, he stopped playing baseball and started running track. There's just no good way, most of the time, to tell what a kid will enjoy, what he will be good at, etc. Best at this age to let them try a little of everything. Middle school, if they're serious about one sport, maybe let them start focusing, then. However, in the mean time, I think they develop better all-around athleticism and avoid burnout if you give them a variety.
As I've said countless times, the boy loves sports. My job, as I see it, is to make sure he doesn't get burned out to the point that he dreads playing.
It really is something to see the kid, though. It's almost as though I dreamed him into existence. He's lanky and lean. Quick footed and fast. Is probably the most coachable kid on any of his teams. I think back to times such as when he was 5 years old and playing tee ball.
His first practice? He tried to catch a ball, didn't catch it and it hit him in the face. Later in the same practice? Tried to catch another one and it hit him in the face.
I had two reactions to that. First was, "Oh well... at least I've got guitars". I figured there was a pretty decent chance that he'd end up like me and be completely not-athletic.
My second reaction was complete guilt because I hadn't spent any time with him working on catching a ball. He had the aggressiveness. He got hit in the face because he fearlessly wanted to catch the ball. Now, he had been throwing balls against the front door since he was about 3, but that was apparently different than judging the trajectory of a ball in flight.
I immediately went to the store and bought some tennis balls and worked with him on learning how to catch. By the end of the season, he was doing fine, but still had difficulty catching the ball if thrown from a distance. I actually considered approaching the coach and saying, "We both know Logan shouldn't play first base, right?"
Well, the next year, he was born again hard. We had been working on catching the entire year. Now that he had a genuine baseball glove, he had been playing catch against the front door pretty much every night. He got to where his hands and eyes were quick enough that he could catch a wiffle ball with his baseball glove. If you've never tried it, it's considerably more difficult than catching a baseball.
From that point forward, he was one of the better players on his rec teams and when he tried out for the Mavericks organization, I knew he stood a chance of making the A team.
It's hard to imagine that he's gone from being my adorable little chub-ball to being a lean, quick, solid athlete.
Enough bragging on my boy. I'm a proud Dad, not just for what he does on the field, but for the considerate, sensitive, hard-working young man he is. I think every parent just hopes their children will do well, making their way in life. I think Logan has good traits that will serve him well.
Plus, he has hollywood leading-man good-looks. Of course, that's in my unbiased opinion.
On the workout front, my wonky scale weighed me at 192 this morning. The thing isn't that accurate, but it's more accurate than not. Although I sufferred a minor setback going to Texas, I feel like I'm about to break through my plateau, now.
There are a few reasons for it. One of them is that my diet has really improved. It's not as strict and stringent as it was when I started. However, I'm paying better attention to what's good and what's not.
The other thing is that my body has had time to adjust to the higher mileage routine. I've been doing at least 5 miles for quite a while, now. Been doing 6 for a few weeks.
My rule of thumb is that any new training stimulus takes 3 weeks to show up in your physiology. Daniels says that it takes 6 weeks to get the full benefit of any new training stimulus. So, the results of the higher mileage are only just now showing up.
The other thing is, I am taking aspirin every day, now. It's supposed to have some therapeutic benefit in terms of reducing the chance of heart attack. My decades of bad diet have no doubt made me a prime candidate. The main reason I started taking it was because of my root canal, to help manage pain. (To avoid ODing on ibuprofin, I would take some acetominiphin and aspirin every day, too.) Also, to help with inflammation in my knees caused by the running.
It just occurred to me that the old ECA stack was actually able to help people lose weight. It consisted of ephedrine, caffeine and aspirin. I get some caffeine every day. No ephedrine, of course. However, the aspirin probably has some weight-loss effect.
The last factor is that a couple of days ago, I started adding really hard intervals to my running workouts. For instance, last time, I ran one mile at 9 minute miles. Quite a departure from the days when I could do a 20 mile training run at 9 minute miles. It got my heart rate up over 170 bpm, and was a serious butt-kicker.
I do believe that high intensity interval training causes weight loss in greater proportion than simply the number of calories that are burned in the session. So, that could be it, too.
As much as I'd like a 2 workout schedule, I think I'll probably stick with one per day. It just has to be a quality workout. I'm going to see about finding a way to get a TV down in the cardio dungeon of the cabin. That way, when I'm watching TV, I can spin pedals on the recumbent bike, too.
I still have a little bit of a belly right now, which leads me to believe I was delusional to think that I was only 10 pounds overweight when I was at 205+. I should probably be at 185 for general good-health and somewhere in the 160s or 170s for optimal running weight.
I am still very curious how my next triglyceride numbers will look. I think there will be a dramatic difference now that I'm at a lower weight and exercising regularly.
The house is getting a little more done in terms of renovations. With the cold weather approaching, it would be nice to have, say, windows that close. The house really isn't that liveable, yet. It's sort of depressing to be there. I think getting some cable TV will help quite a bit. That and some floor coverings. I really want hardwood. So, probably a bit more expensive than just throwing down some cheap carpet and pad, but in the long run, I think hardwood is more economical.
Today, my root canal gets finished. This thing has been horribly uncomfortable and I'm hoping that finishing up the whole deal will make for a less painful tooth to deal with. After that, I need to pay for a new crown. Yay.
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