Long Time No Post

There had been an anniversary hike to the Turkey Creek Hot Springs scheduled for May 21 of this year. But the Gila was on fire, and the area was closed. Since then, everything has closed. Even the river is closed, so I can't even hike on the sand next to the water.

I am however, make to weightlifting. The thing that led me to all this. My hydrocele made itself known when I started weightlifting in 2009. The hydrocele caused them to find my blood sugars. And those made me try to become healthier. So here I am.

The surgery to remove the hydrocele was crippling. I should have just told them to chop it off rather than fix it. Oh well. Live (in pain) and learn.

Weightlifting has been going on for some time. Day one, we lifted the bar with no weights. It was a bit hard. We started lifting in late May of this year. We started with a pure strength program, StrongLifst 5x5. It is a pure strength-based program that just builds strength. One person hated it the entire time because we were building too much strength at 5 pounds per workout-day, so we recently switched to a more endurance based program, but still following the core exercises of the 5x5. The same person still hates it because he thinks we are doing too much endurance each workout day. I think he would be happier not lifting. I'm not sure which program I like more. I felt I wasn't doing enough work on pure 5x5 to make me feel accomplished, but I liked how quick the sets were and how easily we were progressing in strength. With the endurance sets I like that I feel sore afterwards (something I seldom got from 5x5) but it does take a while to do the workouts.

I bought a pedometer a few weeks ago. So far, I'm not aiming for any goal, though when I bought it I had said my goal was to outdo someone else I know who has a pedometer. I need to start walking for a goal soon. As it is, my steps counts varies wildly per day, depending on what I do.


I should mention that I'm tremendously stronger now than I was this time in May. And I like the feeling of being strong.

I guess that's a good catch up post.