The Exercise Motivation Thread - 2015

[Norachan]

Oh no @Winchester  that sounds really painful. I hope the swelling goes down soon. At least you timed your injury to coincide with the bad weather, it would be really frustrating to be laid up if it was warm and sunny out.

@JTbo  I can't believe you're still shovelling snow, do you usually get snow right up until April?

@Columbine  I've mucked out a few ponies in my time, that counts as a good work out. 

90 minutes of yoga today

 

[jtbo]

@JTbo
 I can't believe you're still shovelling snow, do you usually get snow right up until April?

Sure, it is not unheard of getting snow in second week of July either, but usually at June weather starts to be something less snowy here, often we have good snow amount to second week of April, but it varies really a lot.

Sometimes snow comes in January and is gone in March, that is very rare, then sometimes snow comes in September and stays to late June, depends how winds blow, but where I live we have 2 months shorter summer than 200km south from here, of course winter is 2 months longer too.

It will be about week until snow starts to really melt and two to three weeks that I can see what is under the snow in my yard, can't except to do much of garden work in a month or so, I believe.

But this next 4 weeks or so is bit troublesome time as roads are going to be too soft for bicycling, sure it is possible after two weeks or so (as slush disappears, hopefully), but costs lot of chains and gears as mud and wet sand grinds metal really well.

Time is good for wood chopping though.

 

[Norachan]

That sounds like a tough climate to live in @JTbo  We get a lot of  snow here, but it's almost all gone now. Still down below freezing at night, but I can tell spring is coming.

I did 4 hours of gardening today. Raking up the fallen leaves and dumping them in the forest, hauled out another load of fallen branches, dug up the vegetable patch ready for planting and covered it with net to keep the cats off.

I can feel it in my shoulders now.

 

[Columbine]

It's not much but...walked into town to do some shopping. It's a 20 ish min walk with very steep hills (though probably not on the same scale as your mountainside Norachan )

 

[Norachan]

It's not much but...walked into town to do some shopping. It's a 20 ish min walk with very steep hills (though probably not on the same scale as your mountainside @Norachan

)

Well, every little bit counts.

I had a nice long walk along the hiking trail from Lake Motsu to Lake Shoji today, took about 3 hours. I didn't take my camera because it was a bit overcast but I wish I had. The forest looks beautiful right now.

 

[jtbo]

I did 6 hours of shoveling snow and splitting firewood. Snow is really wet and heavy so it will not be very long until we start to see some ground and perhaps then it feels bit more of spring.

Cats decided to come to bump into my leg every now and then, maybe they thought some resting moments would be good every now and then.

I don't know how much time cats took, but eventually they did settle to only observe from top of the trailer and occasionally sniff wood that I did pile up, maybe they did do some quality monitoring?


@Norachan, there is a law, bring the camera and bear stays away.

 

[jtbo]

huhtikuu_maata_nayttaa.jpg

• jtbo
• Apr 4, 2015

I had to take photo from snow amount, it has been decreasing quite rapidly now as it was raining water last night, reason why each bucket load of snow was very heavy, I had to actually push all I got to make it move, 40kg log is not very hard to pick up and move around, two of them is possible to move if I get picked up one for each arm, moving that snow was much harder, attempting to lift that bucket was futile, so each bucket load had to be more than 80kg of weight and I moved those tens and yet again tens, probably not hundred but certainly more than 30.

Of course I could not take less snow to bucket, as much as barely did stay in bucket, that was the minimum amount, usually some fell off and I had to scoop it after emptying the bucket

I can really feel that workout already, I guess that tomorrow I will have sore muscle or few.

 

[Norachan]

@Norachan, there is a law, bring the camera and bear stays away.

Thanks for the tip @JTbo  We only get small bears around here, but I still don't want to meet one face to face.

That's a lot of snow for April!

I didn't do anything active on Saturday as I had to work, but Sunday I managed a 90 minute walk in the evening. Going out to dig the garden now. I have potatoes, corn, cabbages and carrots to plant. 

 

@Winchester  how is your ankle now?

 

[jtbo]

:lol3:
Thanks for the tip @JTbo
 We only get small bears around here, but I still don't want to meet one face to face.

That's a lot of snow for April!

I didn't do anything active on Saturday as I had to work, but Sunday I managed a 90 minute walk in the evening. Going out to dig the garden now. I have potatoes, corn, cabbages and carrots to plant.   

@Winchester
 how is your ankle now?

I forgot to mention that black shovel/bucket thing has 72cm width, don't know if such are common in Japan or is only smaller shovels used there?

@Norachan, Don't you have higuma there or are those near the other side of island? I remember reading about Kesagake and horror of Sankebetsu some time ago, but I can't remember if that was near other coast than where Fuji is.

Anyway I hope you can avoid them, I try to keep camera always with me too, but it seems not all bears respect the law as last spring there was one on my yard too, luckily when I was sleeping.


Today I did not do much, well mostly have been destroying some chocolate, which I will feel bad about tomorrow and then I have to try to burn it off

 

[Winchester]

Finally, after two weeks of not walking:

3.75 miles walked during lunch today. 

OMGosh, it is just an absolutely perfect spring day! It's just gorgeous! Gorgeous, I tell you! 

 

[jtbo]

Finally, after two weeks of not walking:

3.75 miles walked during lunch today. 

OMGosh, it is just an absolutely perfect spring day! It's just gorgeous! Gorgeous, I tell you! 

Good job!

Good thing when injured, spring still advances at outdoors


I forgot to mention that bit earlier I did manage to hit to my ankle with heavy axe, good thing I had Class A protection boots, it has been only little bit sore for two weeks or so, it is not getting worse or better and is red and bit swallowed, but does not hurt, so I keep going.

 

[Norachan]

Glad to hear you're feeling better @Winchester  

@JTbo  Higuma are the big, scary bears. We do have them in Japan, but not near here. I seriously don't think I would ever leave the house if there were any of them lurking in the woods.

We get Asian Black Bears, which are much smaller and mainly vegetarian. I saw one once, it was about as big as a labrador dog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_black_bear

I spent nearly the whole day gardening yesterday. Made a wooden frame to hold up the netting to keep the cats off the vegetable garden and planted all the veg. I also dug up the flower beds and put in some wild flower seeds and wheat grass, which the cats like to eat.

Cats are not helpful when I'm gardening. They keep digging stuff up and peeing on it. 

I did an hour of yoga this morning, then about an hour walking around the village doing my errands. I still have stiff shoulders from all the digging, I'm going to do a bit more yoga now.

 

[jtbo]

Glad to hear you're feeling better @Winchester
 

@JTbo
 Higuma are the big, scary bears. We do have them in Japan, but not near here. I seriously don't think I would ever leave the house if there were any of them lurking in the woods.

We get Asian Black Bears, which are much smaller and mainly vegetarian. I saw one once, it was about as big as a labrador dog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_black_bear

I spent nearly the whole day gardening yesterday. Made a wooden frame to hold up the netting to keep the cats off the vegetable garden and planted all the veg. I also dug up the flower beds and put in some wild flower seeds and wheat grass, which the cats like to eat.

Cats are not helpful when I'm gardening. They keep digging stuff up and peeing on it. 

I did an hour of yoga this morning, then about an hour walking around the village doing my errands. I still have stiff shoulders from all the digging, I'm going to do a bit more yoga now.

Oh, that is a good thing that big ones are not roaming there!

I think your cats are still trying to help, pee is good fertilizer, but they should forget about digging stuff up!


I'm trying to carry some sawdust upstairs of my sauna, so I could have bit better heat insulation, my cats think it is large litter box, work is not progressing as what I bring up they manage to spoil, I have to bring it down and when I bring new stuff up they manage to spoil it again.

That is a load of work and makes big workout alright, but progress is next to none

 

[tammat]

Thanks for the well wishes. I am all recharged.
So glad you are back walking Winchester. Yay!
I got back to it yesterday after a week off. I had lots of energy from Easter chocolate to burn. Boy those weights were heavy!!! I did hamstrings, chest and biceps yesterday. I am pretty sore today.

Today I did back, triceps and shoulders.

Keep up the good work everybody

I like the sawdust story JTbo!!! I don't think you're going to win that fight

 

[Winchester]

3.75 miles walked during lunch today. 

 Tammat! Glad you're feeling better!

JTbo, maybe you'd best let the sawdust idea go! 

 

Oh, wow, Norachan, I wish I could be gardening, too.

 

[tammat]

Norachan I missed reading about your cats helping with your gardening

It's great to be well Winchester. I bet you are loving your walks again.

I did my legs and abs today. It's wednesday here already. Where do the days go?

 

[Norachan]

Would you look at what I woke up to this morning.

Susy6.jpg

• Norachan
• Apr 8, 2015

More snow! @JTbo  have you been blowing your weather in my direction?

So, no walking or running today. I had to get the snow shovel out of the shed again. 20 minutes shovelling snow and then an hour of yoga. 

 

[Winchester]

Oh, that is not funny. Not at all. 

3.75 miles walked today during lunch. In the rain.....but it wasn't snow. 

 

[jtbo]

Would you look at what I woke up to this morning.

Susy6.jpg

• Norachan
• Apr 8, 2015

More snow! @JTbo
 have you been blowing your weather in my direction?

So, no walking or running today. I had to get the snow shovel out of the shed again. 20 minutes shovelling snow and then an hour of yoga. 

So that's where our cold weather did go to!
We have really strong winds and quite warm now, our met office issued dangerous wind warning and all the tree debris flying in air cats and I have been indoors for today.

 

[Columbine]

Good to hear you're recovered now Tammat and Winchester

Still no formal exercise, but spent 4 hours sorting my room out for Asha...her new cat tree came today and I had to make space. Also created a safe haven on top of my built in wardrobe for her. This involved lots of going up and down step ladders, ladders and stairs, lifting down three heavy boxes, sorting through them and lifting one back, vacuuming, cleaning, dusting, sorting two big bags of clothes for charity, and finally carrying the new (almost) 2 metre tall cat tree up in pieces and assembling it. Definitely got a sweat on doing it all.

Ungrateful so and so won't even look at all I've done for her...grr... She'd better decide she likes it after the time and effort it took :lol3:

Had a really bad few days with fibro and back spasms pulling my spine out (I'm not kidding...For 48hrs it looked like one arm was 4 inches longer than the other as a result!). Am hoping today was a sign that the worst is over ..for now anyway. Will try to do some yoga tomorrow