From alpha testing to the QUERCUS 200

I think a goose tasting a bit livery sounds pretty good. But I also haven't actually eaten a liver in quite a few years, so I may be overestimating my enjoyment levels.

Congrats on the new low! You had to be patient, but it got here.
 
Thanks Cate!

Thanks Oaks! The goose was pretty tasty cold. A little BBQ sauce, habanero, and cayenne and it's great! Habanero for heat and cayenne for flavor if you were wondering.

Thanks Mystic! Feels good!

2,300 calories today.

Day 42 of run streak
indoor track
2.25 miles
23:30

I was hungry all day (still am) but I didn't overeat. Hopefully the low will stay as a reward.
 
Does the cold weather make people hungry because we actually need more calories or because we need more comfort? I want to think the first but I´m afraid it´s the second. Stay warm in (near?) the cold ponds!
 
Near hopefully. In would be bad!

My educated guess: When you eat your body warms because of the increase in metabolism. This is called the thermic effect of food. So when you are exposed to cold your body increases your appetite to get you to eat more to stay warm. That would be independent of caloric need.

272.8 this morning. I felt very thirsty so I may have been dehydrated. 1.4 pound down since yesterday and 60.4 since 1/1/2014.
 
Thanks Caroline!

Day 43
1 mile
12:30
indoor track
recovery run

I got so muddy today that I had to change pants, but I saw a lot of waterfowl and was outdoors. It was 19 and breezy when we started, but it made the mid and high 20s feel much warmer. The wind quit and the sun was shinning. I walked several miles mostly in half frozen mud. Hopefully the back behaves as I am doing it again tomorrow.
 
I hope your new low is a true one Q! Your job has so many benefits that many would envy. Even being outside, in nature, in the middle of Winter, appeals a lot more to me than an office job.
 
Same here Cate, I worked in a lab for many years before I found this. Now I'm on my 7th year of this and more than a couple days in the office drives me batty. I would have done today for free so earning a salary on days like today seems a cheat. Some days I feel like I earn it and then some, but there are enough good days to keep me at it. I saw 6 different types of ducks today, great blue herons, blackbirds, sparrows, wrens, a red-tailed hawk, buzzards, a beavers' den, and a young cottontail rabbit. I also slid rocks across a frozen part of a pond and threw rocks into a deep culvert just to hear them splash like a little kid. Sure I have to calculate areal coverage of vegetation to determine hydrophytic predominance, dig soil pits and determine it's chroma, value, hue and texture, as well as identify dozens of plant species, but I also manage to play around like a kid a bit too.
 
There is so much reward in doing what you truly love. I am so fortunate to be able to do that. I remind myself of that on days like today where I'm kinda broke because I've chosen to do what I love.

My best friend from college got heavy into biology. Algae I believe was his specialty. He's spent most of his life in academics since (partially because he had a family to raise and that was more stable) but he always loved getting out in the field.
 
Speaking truth Vee! Not a lot of private sector jobs in algae.

I've been there LaMa and you'll get there.

271.8 for another pound down!

Back to the mines! Well a pond on reclaimed mine land.
 
LaMaria said:
Why do I suddenly picture you as a friend of Snowwhite´s, singing the hiho-song? Mind your head, though...
Click to expand...

View attachment 22569

This is a shot that I took from today at about halfway through a culvert that ran under a dam and roadway. No mineshaft, but definitely hiho worthy. Being a dwarf would have helped as I was crouched pretty low. It's like they didn't design the drainage culvert for 6' 3" paople to use as an escape tunnel. The nerve!

It was either the culvert or climb a barbed wire fence that was on a rocky muddy slope.
 
271.4 this morning which is 4 pounds down since Tuesday. I was 275.4 on December 5th. I rebounded 6 pounds while on track which makes me think 275.4 was anomalous. If I exclude that weight then I took a pretty reasonable path to 275.4 on December 20th and went up to 280.2 by eating like a little piggy between xmas eve and new years eve. Either way 8.8 pounds lost from Jan 1st and 3 pounds from my previous low from last year.

Yesterday's run
Day 44 of the run streak
1 mile
12:33

Lots of stretching and foam rolling after. My sciatca was really annoying me so I struggled to make the mile.I had wanted a half hour run or maybe a modest 5K, but I knew walking up the stairs to the track that it wasn't likely. It got worse as I ran so my pace fell off as I went. It feels a bit better today.

I think muscle fatigue plays a role in the pain as my legs felt tired from the field work. I tracked my distance walked around the medium sized pond and it was 1.5 miles so for the 3 over 2 days it was around 4.5 miles with lots of that in thick veg and half frozen mud and 2 slow miles run.

My thought is that pain from fatigue is strength built. Pushing a little to make myself better and hopefully be beyond much fatigue/pain in whatever my job throws at me. It has gotten better and I am learning to access my pain and limit what I do while still going forward with work and running. So much better than overdoing it then stopping and losing ground which was all too often last year.

So what's next? Well I intend to keep running daily and hopefully the field work stays steady. I also want to start doing things to focus on reducing weakness and imbalance in my body to hopefully rid myself of this pain for good.

Where I am:

I can't perform some freeweight lifts safely.

I am obese for another 31.4 pounds and overweight for another 40 pounds after that. In other words I have "added resistance" built right in.

I am without equipment for up to 5 days in a row.

Inflexibility and weakness on my left side allow the pain that I feel from my back injury. The herniation won't go away, but if I can gain flexibility and strength the pain will reduced or eliminated as running has showed me.


So I have concluded that I need something low impact, gradual, and needing little or no equipment. At my current ability level yoga helps more with flexibility than strength. Bodyweight exercise progression focuses more on strength. Both do well challenging balance which translates to stability and coordination.

So a 3 pronged approach requiring a bare minimum of shoes for equipment.

Running
Bodyweight exercises
yoga

Running 7 times a week
Both yoga and the bodyweight routine will start out a 1 time a week and I will very gradually build intensity and frequency to prevent injury and make the added workout load non-disruptive to my running regimen.



This site seems thorough and reasonable. Every category has a beginning level that I can do and builds to something I currently consider impossible. It has a dynamic warmup for before and static stretching for after as well as good information on how to do the actual routine. Best of all he offers this all for free. He offers a customized routine for a fee which makes sense.

My expectations:

The new routine will have it's setbacks. The frequency and intensity will depends largely on how my body and injury responds. I intend to make it super easy and increase slowly. Just literally go through the motions at first.
 
Well done on the loss Q! :D The next step, hey? Sounds like you will be taking it sensibly, which, of course, is no surprise to me. Go team!!!
 
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