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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Wood Chopping Fools

I probably should have done a Happy Thanksgiving blog.  Or a day-after-Thanksgiving blog.  Or something like that.  But I got lazy.

My fam comes to our house for Thanksgiving dinner, so things are stressful enough.  The hubbs is an awesome cook, and we had some very tasty food, including smoked turkey!  He got up bright and early to put the bird in the smoker, and a bunch of hours later we had tastiness.  The fam did their normal bickering, and I told them all that next year, they are either doing a shot  when they walk through the door or taking a Xanax, just to mellow out.

Aside from turkey day, I've had a couple of fairly active days, which is quite fabulous because it makes me feel like I'm getting back to my old self.  On Wednesday, right after physical therapy, I went on an hour long bike ride with a friend.  Friday, another bike ride.  Saturday was a bike ride to Death Gym, a Death Gym workout, another short ride, and then a couple hours worth of chopping/hand sawing (no chainsaws allowed!) wood.  Our local bike path has trees and branches and all kinds of crap blocking it.  And because of DD's crazy loopy run (ooops, I'll have to explain that one to some of you), a friend and I decided to hack away at some of the debris to help clear things up.

See what we had to contend with?  What a mess!  We left the big, huge logs, and trimmed away all the gnarly branches.  So now the path still isn't passable by bike, but DD's loopy run can happen!  (Yes, yes, I'll explain it!  Sheeesh, give me a second!)
Please note....there are NO CHAINSAWS in the above pic!

Gayle, hacking away at a log.

It seriously took me 40 minutes to hack away at this!  See the splintered hunk of wood in the upper left corner?  Yep, that's what the bad boy I'm holding was attached to.

This is just some of the wood we collected.  We also had two decent boxes of kindling, and ended up tossing a ton of logs to the sides of the path.

Today, I went to the gym and did 3.4 miles of walk/jog intervals on the treadmill, and then went back out and hacked away at more trees for another hour!  Surprisingly, my arms aren't nearly as sore as I anticipated.  I figured I wouldn't be able to move today.  I'll have to thank trainer Frank for all the lifting we've been doing back/shoulder-wise.  Which is something else....my back didn't get wacky at all during this venture.  Sweetness.

Now, back to DD's loopy run.  There is this bike path nearby that has a 4.3 mile "hilly loop."  Actually, the first two miles are flat, and the last 2+ miles are hilly.  Nothing deadly, but enough to keep it interesting.  Anyways, DD is a crazy fellow.  (Hello, he ran a 100 miler, and he's done the Rim to Rim to Rim Grand Canyon crossing.  He's certifiable.)  He's going to have everyone start a lap of the hilly loop at 7 am on Saturday.  You have to finish within the hour, or you're disqualified.  Then at 8 am, they all do another lap.  And at 9, another.  And they'll keep going on until everyone drops and there is one person left.

Personally, I think it sounds like fun (don't let him know I said that), but because I'm just coming back from being hobbled, I'm going to hang out and heckle.  I'll bring my bike so I can get a ride in, and maybe I'll bring the hyena for a bit so we can walk the hilly loop, but I'm not participating in the race.  But it was nice to help clean things up and make it a little safer for everyone!

Ohhhhh.....and guess what???  Friday started my Month of Mayhem.  That's what the hubbs and I are dubbing Nov 23 - Dec 23....the time that we're tracking our fitness minutes.  So all this chopping wood helped me out in that aspect too.  ;)

On Tuesday I have an appointment with the ortho.  I'm pretty certain I won't have to go to PT any longer, so that will free up more time for me.  I just have to be diligent about keeping up with it at the gym.  (You hear that Chris and Kimberly and Melissa?  You all better get on my bum about keeping up with it!)

Back to work tomorrow.....boo.  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and that you're as optimistic about the upcoming week as I am!

3 comments:

  1. All this talk makes me think Tough Mudder or something of that sort. Ready? Remember when you fell on your head and kept going? And others are crazy?! You're right up there! Turkey sounded good. Bobifer

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    1. Hey.....in my defense as far as the Mudder is concerned, I was already 8 miles in and only had 3 to go. No way was I stopping.

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  2. Yes I hear you and ready to heckle/motivate you & Chris to keep it interesting!! -Kimberly

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