Stretched out on the couch, typing this over the offending belly, and thinking, rationally, that this thing was probably, objectively larger a year ago, 16 months ago. Too bad I failed to measure at the outset of the trip.

One of the pre tasks on the BLC21 was a baseline fitness test, just the run of the mill how many crunches/squats/pushups can you do in a minute. Now, I've done the crunches and squats portions of that before, but I just hadn't done a pushup in a long while, probably based on how I've never been able to do many, bad shoulders, whatnot. Surprised myself, in a couple of ways. One, 21 pushups in a minute. Wasn't aware I was capable of that. Curious to try again, but that'll have to wait a couple of days. That flu shot I took yesterday is having its usual effect on my, and I've got a sore shoulder/neck. Maybe best not to compound that, methinks.

The other surprise came from the 1 mile run/walk portion of the pre-task. The gym I go to has a two lane track around the top of the basketball/volleyball/badminto
n/pickleball courts, which measures out at 1/12th of a mile per circuit. After the treadmill experience last week, I decided I'd rather go around that than timing myself on the treadmill, and so I did, jogging for the heck of it for the first time in years. Actually, I started out walking to warm up, and then tried running a bit, making two circuits before slowing back to a walk, and then sticking to that pattern. Ended up doing the mile in 14:03, half walking, half jogging, aka wogging, which, until I looked it up a minute ago, I didn't realize was a real thing.

The surprise was from both the time, which felt slow, as well as the fact that I was able to run. In a way, neither factor should have been a surprise. I usually walk at about a 17 min/mile pace, and adding running in ought to make that faster. And the running part, well, I've been playing ultimate frisbee the last 9 years, there's a little bit of running involved there, so, why the surprise at being able to run 1/6th of a mile at a time? But still, surprise. Given the timing, I'm wondering if I can do a mile run in 11 minutes? I suppose the determining factor would be if I had the stamina to keep jogging for the entire mile, rather than in intervals. Think I might have to try to get there.

Of course, I'm paying for that a couple of days later, sore legs and all. Or maybe that's the squats, or lunges, or the pickleball I played yesterday, or furniture rearrangement. Basically, I'm a ball of sore today. And unlike some of you, I'm no masochist. It doesn't make me eager to do the next workout. But hey, I told myself 10 squats and lunges a day, and 20 minutes of something, anything every day, so...