Week One!

As of yesterday I have successfully completed Week One of both the Couch to 5K program and the 100 Push Up Challenges.

Which is, well it's kind of awesome, if I do say so myself.
And I do.

The running was a bit harder than it was the first time I completed Week One, but knowing that I did it once already was enough to keep me going. Hills are a bother, as is the ever increasing heat.

On the Push Up front, I'm very surprised at how easy those first few push ups are. I should disclose right off the bat that I'm not doing full push ups, but the modified knee ones. Still, when I began this project over a year ago I could barely do one or two of the modified sort. Now I can easily do ten. If that's not progress, I sure as hell don't know what is.

For those interested, here's my playlist for my Week One run:

Name	Artist	Album
Head Like a Hole	Nine Inch Nails	Pretty Hate Machine
Tuolumne	Eddie Vedder	Into The Wild
Señor Burns [From the Episode Who Shot Mr. Burns?, Pt. 2]	His Latin Ensemble/Tito Puente	Songs in the Key of Springfield
Tuolumne	Eddie Vedder	Into The Wild
Prologue	John Williams	Hook
Tuolumne	Eddie Vedder	Into The Wild
Trinity Dream	Don Davis	Matrix Reloaded: The Album Disc 2
Tuolumne	Eddie Vedder	Into The Wild
Indian War Whoop [Instrumental]	John Hartford	O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Tuolumne	Eddie Vedder	Into The Wild
En Zum	Cirque du Soleil	Zumanity
Tuolumne	Eddie Vedder	Into The Wild
3 House At Swamp Bottom	久石譲 (Spirited Away)	Spirited Away
Tuolumne	Eddie Vedder	Into The Wild

The silly songs make me laugh. Laughing is what keeps me going.

Bump in the road.

Technically it was a trip on a curb, but the result was the same:

Road Burn.

Yup, I was all geared to get going on Week Two today when I tripped and came to a skidding halt in the middle of the road.

Classy.

I'm now sporting bruises on the heels of both hands, a skinned left elbow, and some pretty spectacular road burn on my left leg.

The hope is to give Week Two/Day One another try on Friday, but only if the skin around my knee is up for it.

Gravity is not kind to me.

Goals for climbing

Probably not the best of all possible plans to go climbing with my road burn, but I did it anyway. That's how hardcore I am.

Made three runs up the wall this class.
The first one barely brought me up to the 10 foot "bouldering" limit before the panic set in. The tears started to flow the moment my feet hit the mat.

That's how hardcore I am. Heh.

Told my climbing partner that I needed a few minutes to collect myself before trying again somewhere else. Somewhere without an outward bending face. He was more than cool about it.

Second climb brought me waist above the bouldering line. No tears after this one. So...progress.

The third climb on a different part of the wall brought me well over the bouldering line. There might have been an endzone dance when I got back to the ground. Maybe even a joyous, "I'm the best at space!"

I even attempted bouldering, which is climbing wall without a safety rope. Though I quickly discovered the problem with that is you have to actually climb back down because of the lack of rope.

So yeah, class was a success. Go me!
I even have a goal for the end of class. There's this flat platform just about the bouldering line that I'm totally going to reach. I'm going to climb up to the line, shimmy my way laterally, and then climb up on the platform.

I have plans.