May 7th, 2012: It’s just gonna be another one of those decades. What I thought was going to be a slam dunk is instead going to be a weight-eddy. Still 270. Damn man, it’s been like 2 weeks now – at least it feels like that. I’m sort of getting used to plateaus and I have an agreement with the plateau. I say, “ok plateau shit-head, you can have your fun with my emotions all you want for now, but in the meantime just know I’m going to be working my ass off in the gym trying to make it so my body doesn’t look like the underside of something. And when you realize that you will not win, plateau, you can get with the program and I’ll see you in the next decade south.”
When I was living in Chicago in the early 90’s, I was walking down a sidewalk, and here came a nerd just rapping away to himself about how he was “gonna find it and stab it right in the eye, and that will be what causes the nuclear war…” That’s all I clearly understood, the rest was just jibberish. He was obviously fucked in the head to some extent. When I passed him, I heard myself say to myself (out loud): “I am so sick and goddamn tired of people talking to themselves around here.” It was then that I knew I might need a vacation.
I sometimes feel like I need another vacation. A vacation from the program. However, I’m almost certain that a vacation from the program will be a permanent vacation, and I’ll never return. I don’t want that – I’d rather it make me be crazy and cause me to talk to myself than to give in to the demons. This is just temporary insanity.
May 7th, 2020: If I didn’t have music, specifically live music, to listen to on my i-Phone through my ear-buds, I don’t know that I could do cardio.
Ironically, boxing workouts are not my cardio workouts. I spend more time working on techniques and methods and things to teach, rather going all out. I take the same approach to swimming, I’ve always tried to keep my breathing under control in the water. Also, in either situation, running out of gas (getting winded) is a terrifying situation in which to find yourself.
The program I use extends my cardio zone-of-development using the treadmill and the stairmaster. These two particular machines are so goddamn boring and pointless at face value – seriously, you are running and climbing to literally nowhere – that without audio entertainment, and a perhaps a little visual stimulation, I’d just quit.
The photo in this post there is an example of one of my cardio playlists. I love those 80’s live songs. In fact, it’s gotten so that studio albums are so polished and so unlike my life that they’re beginning to sound over-produced and canned to me. Total personal opinion there and nothing else. The flip side is that live versions of songs sometimes have so much “character” that they’re actually tough to listen to – out of tune, off-rhythm, etc.
I press “GO” on the machine, I put my left-ear bud in, I put my right-ear bud in, I adjust the excess cord so it doesn’t snag and yank the buds out of my ears (frustrating as fuck), and then I start pretending I’m up on stage with that band. I step into my fairy-world upstairs, while the in the real-world downstairs my legs go to work.
Unless something more interesting comes up to write about tomorrow, I’ll explain how I modified the Rate-of-Perceived-Exertion scale so it fits my cardio life.
