My neck, my back, my neck and my back!

Sweet christ. I stumbled in the door tonight after CrossFit and could bare control my body as I lowered myself onto the couch. My legs were giving out, my back was spasming, I was a mess. I am sitting with a heating pad over my lower back as I type this.

Diet8:30 a.m. Half a Naked juice. 1:30 p.m. Small Penn Station sub, fries, med. soda. I fell off the soda wagon when I got the flu but my weight has still stabilized around 245#. The work never ends. 7:30 p.m. Mac & cheese with broccoli florets and tuna. 10 p.m. Couple beers and some chips at a party.

Strength & Conditioning Did a 1-1-1-1-1 workout at Indy CrossFit, max reps of five exercises for a minute each, three rounds. Deadlifts, squats, box jumps, wall balls, and pull ups. I had a good pace during the first round but as Jeff said "The wheels feel off in the second round." My legs seized up, then my back seized up. It was rough but I gutted it out and came up about 60 reps short of the second lowest total.

Skills Nope. I get back fight training tomorrow.

Thursday

Extremely sore from CrossFit yesterday. My mood is much improved.

Diet 8:30 a.m. Cereal, two eggs, two sausage links. 9:30 a.m. Switch. Noon Salmon and wild rice LeanCuisine. 5 p.m. Banana and soda. 7 p.m. Spaghetti and meat sauce with broccoli florets, garlic bread. I had a voracious appetite, maybe because I ate so little for lunch.

No skills or conditioning, just rest.

I usually avoid the genre of fake news that involves people yelling at each other about things they pretend to care about, but I saw this on Sam Caplan's blog and wanted to comment on it.



I know Jay Mariotti gets paid to wear clown pants on ESPN, and I know having 4.37 seconds to discuss issues doesn't lend itself to informed debate, but I cringed when he started talking the way I do when middle aged white people talk about rap. It's likely that he doesn't understand the history of the sport, the martial arts involved, the rules and how they developed, you know, the things you should know if you want to speak intelligently on the subject of MMA. He could have even said, "I don't really know what I am talking about, I'm just not comfortable with the sport." But then he would have owed an explanation for his enjoyment of football or how MMA is substantively different than boxing.

Jackie Macmullan says that young people love MMA because it involves violence and "that bums me out." It's such thoughtless thing to say, and I mean that literally. People would simply not say things like that if they put any thought at all into the subject. Violence has been a part of human culture since we started walking on two feet. Violence for cultural/political/religious dominance closely followed by violence for entertainment.

Hearing braindead megaphones like this spout off about the harm MMA does to our culture when they probably write hundreds of inches a year about football, a sport that cripples the minds and bodies of men across America every fall and winter, is akin to arguing about the war on drugs with a liquor industry lobbyist.

hump day

Diet 8:30 a.m. Orange juice, bowl of cereal, banana. 11 a.m. Tuna over greens. 1 p.m. I had to drop off a package on my lunch break. Slice of pizza, two breadsticks, water. 4 p.m. Granola bar and water. 7 p.m. Wendy's combo. I couldn't stand up long enough to cook and Amanda was starving after a long after-school mandatory meeting.

Strength and Conditioning I got a little bit of my mojo back at Crossfit tonight. We did a 21/15/9 with sumo deadlift high pulls, dips, and double unders (jump rope) followed by descending distance rows of 600/400/200 meters. My time wasn't great - 19:31 - but I finished strong and knocked loose some of the emotional/mental crud that had been building up for weeks.

Hello, old friend.

I am back on my feet and functioning at something approaching normal. It is disturbing how much being sick, hating my job, and not being able to work out for two weeks affected my mood. I hit bottom over the weekend, feeling listless, having problems with confidence, self-esteem. I haven't felt that bad in a long time.

I went back to Indy Crossfit yesterday and lasted two out of the proscribed five rounds before running to the bathroom to heave for a while. It's going to take me a week or two to get back into the groove. I passed on my MMA workout today because I have a lot going on with work and my job hunt and needed to assemble a new resume and portfolio. I think I may just do some light workouts on my own until next weeks. Dudes are getting ready to fight in Columbus and I'd rather jump back in next week at something approaching full strength.

This sickness was the universe's way to tell me to slow down and I am paying attention. No more two-a-days for me. I will be doing Crossfit and MMA on alternating days from here on out. On paper it might retard my progress but I think I'll be able to learn more and train harder when I am recovering fully and not getting knicked up, sick, and worn down every week.

I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel

Still coughing pretty bad, congested, and having trouble hearing. Earache symptoms on the right sid of my head. In good news I am down to 244#! Haha.