Monday's Workout

The pros of being back home after two and a half months of living in an extended-stay hotel due to a flood-damage:

• New floors that give our abode a "new house" smell!
• The joy of sleeping in our own bed and cooking in our own kitchen.
• The relief of being back home in time for our seven-year-old to recuperate from surgery.
• The fact that the WiFi connection is a bazillion times stronger here than in the hotel.
• Being reminded that bathroom towels aren't crispy like the ones at our hotel.
• No overpowering odor of powdered "eggs"in the morning, and no industrial cleaner smell in the hallways.
• No surly desk clerks!
• No de-magnetized hotel key cards that bar your entry to your room when you have two kids and three heavy bags of groceries with you.
• The dishwasher in my house actually works.

The cons of being back home:

• The sawdust.
• Having to devote two solid days moving everything -- clothing, electronics, kitchen supplies, food, books, etc. -- back into the house after it had all been thrown haphazardly into storage.
• The sudden realization that we are pack rats, and that we accumulated an embarrassingly vast amount of utterly useless crap over the past six years -- all of which needs to be donated or thrown away.
• Not remembering how to hook up the speakers to the receiver to the TV to the cable box to the wireless router to the phone jack to the whatever.
• Paranoia about scratching the new floor.
• No more daily housekeeping.
• No free breakfast in the morning. (Of course it was crap, but IT WAS STILL FREE.)
• Being so exhausted from moving that I can barely type, let alone remember yesterday morning's workout.

(See what I did there? Nice transition, right?)

Strength Skill:

• Pistols (5-5-3-3-3)

I was happy to see pistols in this cycle -- I need the practice. When I'm doing 'em with my right leg planted, I can crank out pistols like no tomorrow, but I've always had trouble with my left (weaker) leg. Like a lot of other folks, I need to clutch a counterweight (like a kettlebell) to keep my balance when doing pistols from my left left. I suspect it's an ankle mobility issue for me, and it didn't help that I had -- and still have -- a left Achilles tendon that's been bothering me for a couple of weeks. That said, after massaging it with a lacrosse ball, I felt good enough to push through the sets.

Here's how I know I did 'em right: My butt cheeks are sore.

Metcon:

For time:

• 400-meter run with a medicine ball (20lbs / 14lbs)
• 45 medicine ball sit-ups (20lbs / 14lbs)
• 45 medicine ball overhead squats(20lbs / 14lbs)
• 400-meter run
• 45 Abmat sit-ups
• 45 PVC pipe overhead squats

The most challenging movement? Hands down, the med ball OHS. With your hands on either side of the ball, your shoulders and arms are in a much narrower position than with a barbell OHS, and you're pressing in on the ball instead of punching up on a bar. It's crazy-awkward, and I kept having to fight the tendency to bend my arms and let the medicine ball rebound off the top of my head.

The Terminator and I kept pace with one another until the very end. Although I started the final movement (PVC OHS) before him, he turned on the afterburners and zoomed ahead right at the end of the workout. He beat me by one measly second.

Dammit.

Result: 11:22 as RXed.