It's November. I don't know where all you 3FC members and lurkers are, but here in the northeastern U.S., it's a subtly beautiful month, all earthy, weathered and distressed-looking, with the countryside full of browns and grays and taupes and tans, looking like a rabbit's winter coat, the way the variegated hairs range from black to white.

November is better-known as a gateway to winter, and for its holidays, but I have learned to love it for what it is.

But I also want to celebrate its silly side. And it really is silly. Everyone in the U.S. has to eat a few mouthfuls of this bird by the end of the month, or they're considered kinda "off" by the rest of mainstream.




So whether you choose to eat the bird, or whether the bird is irrelevant, because you aren't in the U.S. or have managed to dodge the mandate to partake in our national communion ...

Let's keep running for our lives, like this turkey. Not literally running, but moving, staying active, for the sake of our health and for our sanity, and to stay in touch with our bodies.

Tuesday, Nov. 1:

20 minutes on Stairmaster stepper, resistance at five, as a warmup
60 minutes chest and shoulders routine, the one with a pushup, and now I also lie on a bench and do some presses with an unloaded barbell. I have ambitions.
45 minutes on recumbent bike, resistance at nine, to take some weight off my feet.

Happy November!

November 1:
60 minutes elliptical

Totals:
1 day
60 minutes

Wednesday, Nov. 2:

45 minute spin class, just about full, though they've brought in more bikes. This young instructor is getting quite a following.


And I'm full of guilt because of not going to yoga yesterday or today, when I could have. I wanted to finish a work project today. I worked late because I took off part of the morning to have my root canal temporary filling removed & replaced with a permanent one. Also I took my iron window guards to a shop that restores automobiles. The guy was enthusiastic about my offbeat project. His mother was an antique dealer. He has used his shop and tools to work on things for his wife. He will get the guards sandblasted for me and will repaint them. I'm excited that this project is going to work out.

November 2:
30 minutes Boot Camp
30 minutes CX (core and band work)

Totals:
2 days
120 minutes

Saef - good news about the window guards project!

Yesterday the SO and I mended the shed roof. It's tucked against the field drystone wall so there was a lot of careful climbing and reaching. Hammering is also very good for the triceps. As I'm not ambidextrous, though, I can only feel it in the right triceps. (NB Must look up how to recruit each of the three different heads - ceps - of this muscle.) I can feel it in my hamstrings and my shoulders.

Gymn today to work on my bottom.

Thursday, Nov. 3:

About 7:10 minutes to row 1,500 meters on the Concept 2, as a warmup. I burned myself out through sheer vanity, because there was a guy rowing next to me and I wanted not to seem like a weakling. So I had nothing left to get through the last 500 meters.
60 minutes back & biceps routine, using the Gravitron for some of it
45 minutes on recumbent bike, resistance at nine, hill intervals, which didn't make me sweat as hard as steady resistance.

Today was actually a legs day. I stretched my calves well and could do the downward dog with heels on the floor for 25 seconds. That's a very good sign for me that I'm making progress.

I've just burnt myself out pure and simple, saef, and have had trouble getting through the rest of the day. Did this guy have the potential to be in The Movie Of Your Recent Life?

I always read Gravy Train when you mention the Gravitron. (I have no idea what it is.) I think, "Good, saef deserves a bit of a break. She works hard. It's time for her to get some money for old rope." Then I realise it does not quite compute.

Michele, those pics you posted a while ago were very impressive. I know how hard you work to look like that. I still don't want to do bikram yoga though!

Birchie, the Gravitron is a machine that enables you to do assisted pullups. I don't understand the physics of it, but I know how to do the math. Take away from your weight whatever weight it's set at, and the remainder is what you are actually lifting.

Here's a video demonstrating the Stairmaster Gravitron, which is the one I like, because you stand upright on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CrZK...eature=related

This is one the few videos that I could find with that brand of Gravitron. There are a lot more of the Nautilus Gravitron, which you have to kneel on to use.

Friday, Nov. 4:

45 minute spin class, with the teacher who pushes us to use heavy resistance -- at what she calls "the push point" -- again doing tabatas with us.

And I had my same feeling of amateurishness afterward, looking at the marathoners and the triathlete guy in the front row.

Also I have missed all opportunities to take yoga classes this week, after Monday night. Thinking back, I believe I felt embarrassed at yoga that night -- an un-yoga-like feeling. We had to stand with one foot at a right angle to the other, twist and look over our hands. And I had trouble doing this. I kept falling over. There were 70-year-old women in class who could do this, but not me. I do not know if it is psychological or has to do with my poor physical sense of balance as a result of being mostly deaf in my left ear and having lost my inner ear equilibrium as a result. (Most probably the latter, combined with a bit of the former.) Anyway, I do want to go back to yoga but keep missing classes. I am resisting psychologically.

Saturday, Nov. 5:

60 minutes on the Cybex arc trainer, hands free, resistance at eight and hill intervals. Again, quite a workout.
60 minute beginner yoga class. I went back to the yoga studio. All is forgiven. Even if I wobble during the crane pose and only get my foot up to my calf in tree. I was able to quiet my mind more during corpse pose, at the end. It was beautifully sunny for November and I could feel the sun on my face and closed eyelids and for a moment there was a bit of silence. Very brief. But now I know what it feels like, the absence of thinking, and it's a good feeling.

Sunday, Nov. 6:

A little bit more than 10 minutes rowing on the Concept 2, and I was able to get to 2,000 meters. At one point I fell into a pretty steady rhythm that seemed to eat up meters and was comfortable. I want that to happen again. I may start recording my time again. I have not been doing that, to put less pressure on myself.
About 45 minutes arm and shoulders routine.
45 minutes on the arc trainer, interval 2, resistance at eight
60 minute yoga class, with an instructor I hadn't had before, a sardonic blonde with excellent taste in classic soul music, which was the soundtrack for class. (Maybe a tad too much Sade mixed in with the old school stuff.) There's this standing half-moon pose that I have trouble with. Anything balanced on one foot, I start wobbling at, filled with self-doubt. ("Oh my GOD, I have to BALANCE! And I CAN'T BALANCE" ... which is self-fulfilling, because I tighten up and no, I can't balance.") I kept moving, despite wobbles. This is really athletic yoga. I prefer the yoga studio's version, which is meditative & about breath and, at the beginner's level, at getting the poses absolutely right rather than keeping up the flow.

Saturday, Nov. 7th:

45 minute spin class, heavy resistance, and one burly guy was missing. There was much talk about him. "He's a machine," they kept saying. Last month, he'd been competing in something that I kept hearing as Conan. You know, as in Conan the Barbarian. Finally I realized they were speaking of Hawaii, and meant Kona. Which is apparently a major triathlon. So I wasn't wrong when I felt like the athletic talent in the class was quite strong.

60 minute Kripalu yoga class. Again, this was difficult for me. I cannot sit back on my hams and keep my feet flat. In fact, I can't sit that way for long at all. In a short time, I'm in actual pain from doing that. This class is an exercise in humility.

Hi maintainers,
Rabbit hopping by here just to report that I'm well, not up to your levels of exercise, but still hanging around. And I want to share with probabely the one woman that I know who will appreciate this specific nsv: birch, i actually got myself an electric chaisaw and am already halfway through my 5m3 of firewood for the winter. Something strangely satisfying in chopping wood to little bits with a chainsaw.

Why, thank you!