I Speak With the Tongue of a Thousand White-Hot Lies!

I AM LEAVING THAT TITLE MY GOD I AM BRILLIANT.

Okay, so with the new job came new, normal hours.  Yay, evenings with the boys!  Boo, lost my prime walking time.  For the past 6 months I have had a hell of a time figuring out how to get some cardio back into my routine (and boy howdy, I did not realize just how much the cardio was working.  Things are fitting differently without it, and I do not like it.  I try not to get obsessed with the scale, because that only leads to not-so-great places in my brain, but I've not got money for a new wardrobe).  I tried adding extra stuff to the yoga, but all that did was make me not want to do yoga.  So last week I was considering how I tend to sleep, and I decided since I'm usually awake at 6 anyway, I might as well haul myself out of bed and do 20 minutes of biking before work.

So yesterday was Day 1 of that.  I get up, get the workout clothes on, lace up the shoes, grab the phone and the earbuds, don my helmet, wheel the bike out.

I get on the bike, start to pedal, and the gears slip (I think), my foot comes off the pedal, I have no balance at that point, we all know exactly how klutzy I am; I ripped my ACL climbing onto a jet ski, and I wipe out in the driveway before I even get started.  I cushioned the bike's fall, though.  Yay?

So now I am covered in road rash.  Let's see--the left knee, that has taken all the trauma since I was nine?  Badly skinned as a child, ACL surgery, skinned again during the Rafting Trip O' Doom in North Carolina when we all fell out of the boat?  Yeah, major nasty scrape all over that.  Also some to the side of it.  Left elbow is scraped all to hell.  I scraped the last three knuckles of my left hand.  I also, somehow, got part of my right ankle.  I have some interesting bruises along my back and ribs.

BUT I AM NOTHING IF NOT HARD CORE!  I took my morning bike ride, baby!  And it was nice.  A burrowing owl swooped thisclose to my face; I listened to "Tiny Dancer" as the sun came up. I was not eaten by a cougar.

Once I got home, Scott helped to patch me up and off I went to the doctor.  This is a new doctor, and she and I have been in discussions regarding my lack of spleen and what that means for my bloodwork results (yay, constant high white cell count); yesterday she was reassured that, yes, this is normal for me, so I'm glad about that.

But.  There is always a but.  I have a nice vitamin D deficiency going.

(waits for the "Whaaaa?" to fade out.  Also points out this is the second round of bloodwork, so I'm feeling pretty confident in the results.)

That's right, all you pale-skinned northern kids can take your porcelain complections and go home--I'm so hardcore I have a vitamin D deficiency in the goddamned sunshine state.  If I wasn't honorary goth before, I am now.

The googling about what lack of vitamin D can cause was quite interesting--I am most looking forward to the possibility that I'll be able to sleep through the night again once this gets straightened out--and I'm on a once a week dose of prescription vitamin D.  This might take a year to regulate (woot?), but that just means an entire year of inappropriate "D" jokes from David and Jason, so hey.

There are a gazillion possible reasons as to how or why I am, in this way, deficient as a human.  I have no idea what really caused it: my tendency toward layering?  My lack of exterior windows at this job and the last one?  Too much sunblock?  Age and weight? My hatred of the hideous light of the daystar​? Who knows.

So, in the end, that's me.  Everything hurts, possibly because of lack of ... um ... D (heheheheh), certainly because I remain a klutz, but my sense of humor is intact and I get out of "let the child climb on you like a human jungle gym" until the scabs clear up.

Okay, Mr. Women's Gymnastics Commentator, I feel that you need a lesson on the following topic:

Perspective.

A 20-year-old girl flubbing part of her floor routine, even if it does cost the US team the gold medal, does not constitute "a disaster of epic proportions" unless said gymnast is, say, 50 feet tall and the flub took down part of the city of Beijing.

Disasters of epic proportions include things like the Hindenburg, category 5 hurricanes, earthquakes, Chernobyl, tsunamis. If you stretch it, you could probably add in things like the lives of certain kinds of drug addicts. But an elite athlete missing a step? Personally devastating, sure. Upsetting, absolutely. Disappointing, I can see. But not nearly a disaster, and "epic proportions"? Are you kidding me?

And, wait, our winning the silver medal is, therefore, a disaster as well? Oh, give me a break. Nothing annoys me more, watching the Olympics, than someone crying because he or she won a silver medal. 6 billion people on this planet, and you're better than all but one of them (or however many are on the other team) at this sport. Whatever.

That said, the faces of the Chinese gymnasts as they landed their routines were part of the reason why I watch the Olympics--they were exultant. It was awesome.

And anyone else who works out but isn't a gym rat ...

Guess what???

On the hanging-foot thing? Two sets of ten!!! On Satan (aka the ab cruncher machine)? TWO SETS OF FIFTEEN!!!!

A bit of back story: when I started at the gym, I could do three on the foot-hanging thing (that must have a name, but like I know). Not three sets, just three. And the ab machine? Two sets of four. Right before I found out I was pregnant, I could do ... maybe ten? ... on the foot-hanger, broken into two sets of five; I could do seven (a set of four, then a set of three) on the ab cruncher.

While I was pregnant, I was told not to exercise. No, it wasn't the easiest pregnancy ever. Could have been worse, but hey--you do what the OB tells you.

I started back again in October, then didn't work out for a month, got two weeks in in December, and have been regularly going since the beginning of January. I don't know about how a real athlete would feel, but I am impressed with myself. Though I still don't have any weight on the ab machine yet (aside from whatever the default weight is)--in a couple of weeks, when I don't feel vaguely ill when I finish my sets, I'll add weight.

On all the other machines, I added weight tonight (I still don't know what the increments are--I either added 5 or 10 pounds on each machine). I got a little disgusted with the whole *pound* I lost last month, so I'm trying to kick it up a little. I also walk a little over a mile on the treadmill, and I need to up my speed on that next time.

I hate all but one of the arm machines, so I'm doing free weights for that. I need to figure out a good hamstring exercise, because the machine they have for it is just uncomfortable--I'm not sure if I'm too short or if it's my "bad" knee or what, but I can't stand that thing at all.

I'm seriously wondering if my kick-assitude has anything to do with having hauled Babysaurus Rex around for the pregnancy, and then hefting Mr. 22-pound-ball-of-chaos on a daily basis (did I mention he recently decided that his feet should not touch the ground in the afternoons?). I would assume it would help the arms, but the abs?

Anyway, I'm quite pleased. 'Cause I have always sucked at working out, unless I was riding my bike. Which needs a baby seat of some kind.

The internet was dead this morning. Scott suggested I unplug something and reboot. I unplugged the other something and rebooted, which, oddly, did not work. Scott got home and did what he'd suggested I do, and it works. Yay!

Went back to the gym tonight for the first time since shortly after I got pregnant (I was on restricted activity for most of the pregnancy). It didn't suck as much as I thought it would--Satan and Satan's Little Helper did not completely kick my ass. I am, however, back to just about where I was before I started working out in the first place. Except for my quads. My quads rock the house.

Thay have a yoga class Thursday nights!!! Totally joining next week.