If only I listened to my own advice. As I mentioned in a previous post, the waning daylight hours are forcing me to become more of a gym rat. It’s not a terrible thing, though. I’ve started lifting again after a coup,e year hiatus, and rather than focus on the legs, I’ve decided to work on total body strength and avoid the T-rex effect. After all, when the only hill on a race course is that little bump halfway between turns one and two, who cares about hauling around a little extra weight?

On to my piece of advice: when you’re just getting back into lifting… start slow, retard! I was pretty easy on my upper body at first, but my first day back a couple weeks ago I looked at the leg adductor machine and said, and I quote, “Bring it, bitch!” Yeah, stupid idea. I pulled my Magnus a little and it’s still bugging me a tad. Doing squats the adductors kick in to stabilize the knee and help with knee extension a little bit, so I basically have to write those off. As well as specific adductor lifts. And running aggravates it a bit, too. Nice. Then today, after an extensive two weeks of building base I was doing really high weight, low rep shoulder shrugs. Last lift of the last set and what do I do? Tweak my levator scap. Seriously, start slow, retard!

On the plus side, I’m picking up some new toys in Seattle over Thanksgiving break. Pictures will be forthcoming!