The Return of Music Sunday

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

Death Cab For Cutie - Cath (acoustic)

The National - Fake Empire

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life

Cat Power - He War

Okkervil River - Unless it's Kicks

The New Pornographers - Challengers

and for those looking for something that may remind you of when cartoons were good:

FGB

It's been a long time since I posted the results of a workout.  But I feel that it's time to let you, my faithful readers (reader?  anyone?) that I just posted a solid 367 on Fight Gone Bad.  Certainly, you may think, that that's not a terribly great score.  Solid, certainly no disrespect, but not a score to put n the history books.  To which I will reply, "Go fuck yourself."  This score comes after strictly strength training for a year, a two week hiatus and working off of the CFFB site for just a couple of weeks.  My time modalities aren't 15 minutes of work, rather they are in 15 second range.  This is a big deal.  This implies, at least through the small test sample of one, that training for strength my be the most important inlier for metcon success.  Put it this way: if 75# seems light to you, you can do more reps.  If you are used to cleaning 275# then 75# SDHP's are a breeze.  This isn't to say that a typical intense workout in the 20 minute range all the way through 180 minutes should never be done nor does it have benefits, but I would argue that increases in strength can't hamper those abilities and should be done more frequently to gain strength and maintain metcon "awareness." 

For people who wonder what Oly-Lift Training looks like, below is a video of the Korean National Team from December 2008

Take Me Away

I was not made for this.  Currently, as I type this, I am sitting at my desk at work, staring at a computer screen, listening to people bitch about jobs that they hate in order, to quote Tyler Durden, “to buy shit we don’t need.”  I’m two days removed from being nomadic, being diurnal and being completely content with everything in my life.  I was with my fiancée, I ate, I walked, I shat and I moved on.  Literally, I was a bow and some quivers from saying, “Fuck it, I’m staying out here.”  Now, I wish that I had. 

Our ancestors didn’t evolve for millions of years to stare into computer screens, wake up before dawn and be generally miserable.  I am the top of the food chain.  I am strong, smart, aware and agile.  My body was built to do work and I have built it to do more.  I should be out there, stalking deer, eating berries and grabbing fish.  I should be running for my life from some mountain cat and making sure that I fatten up for the cold hard winter ahead of me.

Maybe this is just the linger from my camping trip.  It could be that our cerebral evolution is so far ahead of our physical evolution that if only my physiological side could catch up to my psychological side everything would mesh perfectly and my life as it currently exists makes sense.  But I don’t want it to.  I want to be out there doing, not wishing that I was.  Going back into those woods for the first time since I was 18 years old felt amazing.  It wasn’t like pancakes where I was excited in the beginning but sick of it at the end.  The outdoors is where I, we, belong.  I moved, I focused, I was aware of the task at hand.  I want to go back; hopefully you’ll come with me, if only to understand what I’m talking about.

Guess Who's Back

That's right, me.  I'm back from the mud and mosquito's of the Adirondack State Park and am happy to report that I survived (I can't say the same for Little Timmy).  Mountains were hiked, lakes and rivers were swum in and we even snuck into a BBQ across a really long lake (go us).  All-in-all a grand time was had by all.  I didn't take very many pictures for two reasons A) the memory card that I bought had to be redeemed ahead of time and I was unaware of this and B) I don't take too many pictures.  My mancave is in disarray right now so I'm not going to load any pictures quite yet, but they'll come.  I promise.

For those interested, it's good to know that the hard work done in the gym translated well into going up (and down) mountains with excess of 50 pounds on my back.  I'd call it a very successful trip and can't wait to do it again.  Although the diet wasn't ideal (should've brought a bow + arrow and gotten some deer, or maybe bear) and I could definitely feel my body not enjoying its lack of protein intake we ate fairly well for our circumstances.  

Anyway, I'm excited to get back to the gym on Monday.  Hopefully it'll be like I never left.