Thursday, February 22, 2007

Spring is on the way!

I'm not sure what happened to this post. I tried emailing it to blogger, but I guess it got lost in the cyberspace. Soooo ... this was from Tuesday.

There are still random melting chunks of ice everywhere, but it's in the 40's today -- halleleuja!! I cannot WAIT until spring is here. It's bittersweet because several weeks of lovely, brilliant weather are followed by brutish heat and humidity beyond what is humanly tolerable. Sadly, our nation's capital is built on humid lowlands unfit for human habitation. If you don't believe me, come here in August and walk in the stifling sauna for 15 minutes! I can't wait to run outside again. In the summer, even running before sunrise leaves you soaked from head to toe, but I don't care! Anything but the Dread'!!

After the end of the wallowing, plus sleeping 10 hrs a day for THREE days in a row (yay for sleep!) I had really fantastic workouts two days in a row. I had a fully destructive leg workout involving squats, deadlifts, split squats and step ups. Then, despite sore legs, I completed my first HIIT workout! I've tried to do some intervals recently, to no avail. They've always left me hunched over behind the machine in a dizzy stupor. I finally realized -- duh -- I didn't START doing intervals at full throttle, and I can't expect to jump right back in and kick it like I did before the surgery. So I did a modified interval workout on the step machine - BFL style, where instead of level 5, 6, 7, 8, I hit level 5, 6, 7, then 7 again, four times. Not bad! Next time I will throw a couple of 8s in there and gradually work my way back up. I then jogged for 10 minutes at 6 mph, focusing on my form.

In the weight room, I've been doing a different workout each time I've been in. Mostly they've been high rep total body workouts with upper/lower supersets (like pairing squats with assisted pull ups). This week I'm going to do a leg day, and upper body day and a total body day, plus 3 days of some kind of cardio (not necessarily running unless it's nice enough outside cause the Dread' is making me batty). Leg day is done. Here's my upper body workout:

These are all 4 sets of 10 reps each, supersets with full rest...

Dumbell incline bench press (30's)
Seated cable row (number 5 on the machine, not sure of the lbs)

Standing shoulder press (15's)
Wide grip lat pull down (number 6 on the machine, not sure of lbs)

Close grip barbell bench press (55#)
High shoulder pull (30#)

Swiss Ball crunches - bodyweight - 3x15

I'm thinking moderate cardio tomorrow - maybe a 3-4 mile jog, then lift again Thursday. Friday is rest day. Saturday I may attempt the 6 miles I had planned but did not complete this past weekend - IF the weather cooperates. I will not run 6 on the Dread'. We went and saw Bridge to Terabithia yesterday, which was pretty good. Then we met friends for Vietnamese food. For the record (I'm sure I will probably offend someone here), I detest Vietnamese food. Especially pho (gak). And the person sitting across from me, of course, ordered a gigantic bowl of (you guessed it) pho. I spent the meal gagging privately to myself as that unmistakable odor of dirty laundry water wafted across the table into my face. Ew.

On the orchid, Chris, where do you come up with this stuff?! Since when do you cultivate orchids?! :) You're funny. I have determined that I have a phalaenopsis that looks like this. It is planted in bark in a container that allows draining. My main concern is that it is at work under the bright neon lights - is this a bad idea? Too much light? It will probably stay cooler in my office than at home, especially in the summer, but I'm worried about it getting too much light. I read that they like cool shady spots.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It should be fine. I assume when you say "under the bright lights" you don't mean "literally less than an inch away". If it's just on a desk or bookshelf or something, it should do very well.

Sunlight is much stronger than office light, in terms of the energy it provides the plant. The main thing to avoid would be it sitting on a window sill getting bright direct sunlight day-in-day-out.

For the record, I have one of these for the two psychopsis and one Phalaenopsis I have at my office:

http://www.amazon.com/Glentronics-PL-1-Intelligent-Plant-Light/dp/B0007CXXB4

The phal is in a semi-hydroponic setup, which makes it easier to water and avoids over-watering. The two psychopsis are in pine fir, but I wouldn't advise a medium that fine for a phal. Bark should be good, much better than sphangnum moss.

The main thing to remember is phals are actually very easy to take care of, and if it starts to die, it's probably not your fault, but was already unhealthy to begin with (even though it looks beautiful!).

I have all sorts of weird and unlikely interests :-). My basement has a full-sprectrum light garden (yeah, kind of imagine the marijuana setups you see in movies, only not a whole room full). I've got some herbs down there, Kalanchoe (which grows like weeds, and is always blooming), three or four Phals, a dendrobium, an oncidium, a paphiopedlium, and best of all, a phragmipedium (slipper orchid). The paph and phrag look similar, but the paph is from South-East Asia, and the phrag from South America.

Orchids are fun, and whenever one blooms, I can pull it out of the light garden and set it in the living room for a few weeks. They are, however, very slow-growing plants, and different kinds can take a long time to bloom. Some require weird stuff, like a 20 degree temperature drop at night for a week or so, then they bloom.

For the record, I love pho!

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