Here's something I made for y'all. Hope you like it!
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Working out vs. working outside
There are a lot of long days out here at CARE. There are a lot of sweaty brows & scuffed up knuckles. There are a lot of sore backs, & a lot of aching feet. A facility like this requires a lot of backbone to operate and there are days where there is simply not enough ibuprofin & epsom salt in world to take away the wear & tear.
People who work outside know what I'm talking about. There are a lot of oilfields, construction sites, rock quarrys, & farms/ranches out in this region, and they are filled to the brim with gritty, callused hands & worn out steel toed boots.
Working outside in this way has it's fringe benefits- I can open jars really easily, I don't mind touching spiders, & I find canvas to be very stylish. On the other hand, working outside can have its downfalls as well- I sometimes shake hands too hard, I often smell like a grubby dog, & I have the aforementioned aches and pains on the regular.
Now I've introduced the Mud Run training regimen into my world & that's been interesting to say the least. Some people might ask, "Derek, if you do such physical work with the cats, why are you training for this mudrun? Is it necessary?"
Yes it is. There is a HUGE difference between manual labor-functional muscle type stuff, & doing real cardiovascular-muscular endurance type stuff.
Huge difference, guys.
Huge.
Since I started this thing, there have been mornings where I wake up & feel as if I've been thrown from the back of a truck, but I'm happy to say that my recovery rate seems to be getting better. Things were really rough early on, but my body has been adapting to the training regimen and, while I still often feel like I've recently gotten an asphalt body wash, I'm able to bounce back into the next day workouts easier now.
Take today for instance- after a full day of work outside, butchering & feeding, I improvised a solid workout which utilized big logs & a sledgehammer. Not gonna lie, I feel pretty banged up right now, and I can barely fathom how I'm going to feel first thing in the morning, but I know I wasn't able to go this hard when I first started training, so that's good.
It's not that this stuff has gotten any easier, it's that I've actually gotten better, and that's pretty cool.
Time to go lay on the floor and look at the ceiling for a while.
-Derek
People who work outside know what I'm talking about. There are a lot of oilfields, construction sites, rock quarrys, & farms/ranches out in this region, and they are filled to the brim with gritty, callused hands & worn out steel toed boots.
Working outside in this way has it's fringe benefits- I can open jars really easily, I don't mind touching spiders, & I find canvas to be very stylish. On the other hand, working outside can have its downfalls as well- I sometimes shake hands too hard, I often smell like a grubby dog, & I have the aforementioned aches and pains on the regular.
Now I've introduced the Mud Run training regimen into my world & that's been interesting to say the least. Some people might ask, "Derek, if you do such physical work with the cats, why are you training for this mudrun? Is it necessary?"
Yes it is. There is a HUGE difference between manual labor-functional muscle type stuff, & doing real cardiovascular-muscular endurance type stuff.
Huge difference, guys.
Huge.
Since I started this thing, there have been mornings where I wake up & feel as if I've been thrown from the back of a truck, but I'm happy to say that my recovery rate seems to be getting better. Things were really rough early on, but my body has been adapting to the training regimen and, while I still often feel like I've recently gotten an asphalt body wash, I'm able to bounce back into the next day workouts easier now.
Take today for instance- after a full day of work outside, butchering & feeding, I improvised a solid workout which utilized big logs & a sledgehammer. Not gonna lie, I feel pretty banged up right now, and I can barely fathom how I'm going to feel first thing in the morning, but I know I wasn't able to go this hard when I first started training, so that's good.
It's not that this stuff has gotten any easier, it's that I've actually gotten better, and that's pretty cool.
Time to go lay on the floor and look at the ceiling for a while.
-Derek
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