Kris and I missed this morning's Velocity workout: I on purpose, Kris because he wanted to sleep in.

Today's workout was continual rounds of:

2 sled push/pull
2 barbell walk in a large figure 8
12 box jumps
4 50m sprints
40m walking lunge twists

There were a couple guys I didn't know at the class, one of whom was at least a semi-regular. The other guy was at Velocity for the first time, and, yes, true to form, trying the whole macho thing out. His level of macho came in handy when I went to do the sled push/pulls.

The sled push/pulls were rather brutal, in that I wasn't really "allowed" to drop the weight down to a weight that I would normally use. With the new guy around of course watching what everyone else was doing, I decided that having a woman who was no doubt older than he was and probably only 2/3 his weight not only doing the same sled weight as he was doing, but also doing the exercise more quickly and with better form, would have a sobering effect on his machoism.

I was right.

The push/pulls involved pushing the sled down the 20m on the turf, an exercise we all know I'm built for, then stepping back with the strap, squatting until our upper legs were parallel to the ground, then pulling the sled back towards us. When the strap was used up, we were to step back the 4m of slack on the strap. Repeat for the 20m back, then repeat the whole push/pull for 2 sets.

The barbell walk wasn't much easier, and was actually way way way harder for me, since, once again, I used the boys' weight. I had to hustle once I had the bar hoisted over my head, arms straight. We walked the bar in a figure 8 around two cone circles with a 7m diameter. The walking wasn't so bad, it was the turning part that was difficult for me.

I received one of the biggest compliments after I finished my second set of sprints. The coach/trainer, a new guy, asked me if I was a sprinter in school. I had to tell him no (alas), but that I do still play ultimate, which requires a lot of sprinting. Indeed. He was impressed.

"I am one of those... mel-lo-dramatic fools....

"Gah, what an awful song to have stuck in my head.

"I guess it could be worse. It could be Love Shack stuck in my head.

"Loooooooove Shack, it's a little ol' place where we can ....

"FUCK!"

Some time last month, our garbage disposal stopped working.

It didn't have a spoon or a knife or a fork jammed into it. It didn't have an excess of food in it. It just stopped spinning. If I had to speculate, I would have guessed it was all the string from the string cheese going down the drain caught on the spinning parts. Okay, not really, but I do think that the stringy something or other that I've been pulling out of the garbage disposal had something to do with the stop. Of course, the something that ruined the pipes could have something to do with the disposal problem, too.

Kris had attempted to clear it, using the Intarweb™ to find solutions. Unfortunately, using an allen wrench and turning the disposal in a counter-clockwise direction didn't solve the problem.

So, we did the next best thing.

We bought a new garbage disposal and bribed Mark to help us install it.

We bribed him with dinner.

More importantly, we bribed Megan with dinner, and asked her to bring Mark along.

Given our success with the kitchen lights, we were on a high, and ready to do the install ourselves. Mark, however, had recently installed a garbage disposal in his house, and commented that this install was going to be easy, and we didn't need the plumbers putty we had bought.

Turns out, garbage disposals have a part that attaches to the sink and is sealed. The disposal itself hangs off this part. If you need to replace your current disposal and have the foresight to purchase the same (or near enough the same) model as your old disposal, you can leave the attachment on the sink, and just screw the new disposal onto the attachment.

THIS is why I bribe Mark to help us with these things. I didn't know about these parts before today. This is also why I bribe Mark, and don't pay some recent college grad to replace the disposal. Two blinks after dinner, the disposal was in place and running.

As many rounds as you can do until time ran out of:

12 burpees
11 squat to overhead press
10 box jumps
9 squat jump single action
8 supine row
7 pullups
6 glute hammies
5 ab rollers
4 dips
3 farmers walks with 90#
2 suicides (liners)
1 minute rest

Five years ago today, I installed a copy of Drupal on my server, and decided I was going to start writing about my days. Having spent most of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood trying to forget my life, I decided that, no, I wanted to remember it. I could have kept all of my life in journals, paper bound books that I love so much, but that wouldn't have enabled me to search for entries very easily, nor cross reference them, nor delete them without ruining the book.

More importantly, even though this site is for me, it's helped me become closer to my friends and family. Instead of fumbling for answers to "so, what's been going on in your life?" they know what's going on. I often wish more of my family would keep journals so that I could know what's going on in their lives. I think I've managed to recover from the initial "Wait, how do you know that?" freak-out that bloggers have until they become used to the fact that having a personal blog means your life is no longer private, and have come to enjoy being able to relate parts of my life to the similar parts of my friends' lives.

So, happy birthday, blog. Here's hoping the next fives years are as memorable.

P.S. Yes, you should post a comment, saying hello. I'd love to know you're out there.

P.P.S. Holy crap, that's a lot of writing. Maybe I did have something to say.