I’ve bought several Illinois masks to wear in hopes of going to some football games. I might even move to the upper row for some of the games, not that the games are that well attended. But we shall see; I am hoping the university announces either a mask or vaccine mandate, as other sports teams have.
As far as my job…I have some uncertainty as to what might happen..ultimately, though I think that, as of 3 months ago, it sure SEEMED rosy. I honestly think that we’ll go the way of Missouri, Florida and Arkansas by the time school starts, at least in terms of infections, hospitalizations and death.
I’ve designed my course with the ability to pivot to hybrid/online on a dime.
I HOPE that was wasted effort. I fear that is was not.
And yes, if a student is uncomfortable with the “in person class” set up, it will be very easy to accommodate them.
Workout notes: rehab itself took about 1 hour …really could not be helped. I do..a LOT. Then my usual 1 km loop (measured this time as 0.6 miles..it has also been measured at .66, and .62 miles…
Then 7 loops of the “Campus route” on the Expresso cycle (14.3 miles, 57:10) which, was similar to a month ago. Go figure.
Chiefs: with Tracy last night; a huge rally came up short and the Chiefs lost 5-4, though in the 8’th inning they were down 5-2 with 0 outs and bases loaded…Kernels put in a relief pitcher who struck out two; gave up a long single which scored 2. But no more.
In case you are wondering: yes, I wore a mask for entering and for the concourse. But I think there was a good amount of “social distance” in the ball park..we had a whole row to ourselves and the row in front of us: two people on the opposite side of the section.
Last night: the Chiefs won 7-2, though I left after 4 innings when the rain came down hard and delayed the game for over an hour. It was 6-1 when I left; the Chiefs looked sharp.
Ok, there weren’t many there.
You could see the rain moving in.
This morning: walk with Lynn (11 minutes, woo hoo!)
went home; more rehab,
pull ups/chins: 55 reps; 5-5-5-5, 10, 5-5-5-5-5
push ups: 2 sets of 20, 2 of 10 with legs up. Shoulder held out ok.
deadlifts: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 235
Later: my new plates (55 lb bumpers from Lu Xiaojun) came in!
As I type this: some soreness in the shoulder; not that bad.
My own stuff: yoga, 10 minutes of walking (5 laps, woo hoo) and then 20 fake miles on the Matrix bike in 1:02:30 I was 19.3 at 1 hour; 30 km (18.7) in 58:12
I admit that my back, while not “painful” is “what did I do” sore..probably because of both the rehab and the deadlifts on the same day. That is a lot to ask of it.
What I did: limber up, some rehab.
deadlifts: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 224
On the 3: I used 251 and did: 4, 4, 3, 4, 3. I did NOT push that last rep.
Then 2 sets of 10 x 134 Romanian
Then: 1K walk (woo hoo) at 15:20 mpm or so (watch gave me too much credit)
more rehab: included quite a bit of banded walking
Well, shoulder hurt a little last night; glute pain is now more along the IT band.
Today: a LOT of rehab at home (1 hour), 1K walk (15:50 pace; Bradley-Cooper block…woo hoo! 1k!) quit before pain; had a few tingles.
Matrix bike at the Riverplex: 1:02:10 for 20 “fake miles”; slowly at first, 38:43 for 20K, 57:41 for 30K, 19.5 miles at 1 hour even.
Stretching…that is when my glasses fogged up big time. Weight afterward 204 (lockerroom scale), with shoes. and sweaty shirt, shorts and yes, mask.
Rehab just takes so long but I did a LOT of it. Hey, I have cords, stretch bands, you name it.
Discouraged? Well, my physical troubles are “first world” troubles. I know people who are dealing with much, much, much worse…they would be delighted to be where I am. My troubles are really sports; I want to walk 5K pain free, to be able to swim a little bit of crawl (say, work up to a set of 10 x 100), and do bench presses and shoulder presses again.
So…whining from me is just unwarranted whining.
I’ve fought through this a few times: 2000: shoulder, 2006-2008 piriformis, glute, 2010-2011: glute, knee AND shoulder again, 2012-2013 back.
Realistically I’ll get through this too, but it will take longer than I like and when I return, it won’t be to the level that I’d like. Hey…I’ll never take a pain free 5K for granted again.
I do think that my workouts will be a lot different this time around; lots of band work..rehab will be basically, permanent.
I’ll assume: 200,000 attendees there on a given day.
I’ll assume they come from a 70/100,000 a day new case location (based on Missouri, Arkansas, etc) which over a 7 day period works to 490/100000; I’ll make that 500 per 100,000 infected.
Calculation 1
The for delta is 5-6; I’ll call it 5, and assume that each biker spreads it for 2 days.
so, I calculate: new infections, and given a 1-2 percent mortality rate (older, less healthy group) about 250-500 deaths.
Calculation 2 Assuming a spread similar to that in a deep southern state, that is about 1 percent per day or 200 new infections per day, for a total of 1400 infections.
Then using 2 percent mortality (older, more obese population), 28 deaths…very different from the first. I wonder if this is low as people in a state aren’t as clumped together as in the first model?
BUT this assumes that they have a southern state vaccination rate; lower might lead to the first calculation and higher means that there will be less death than in the second calculation.
In short: I do not know. The spread between my two answers shows that.
my typical workout (without yoga class) will take about 2:30 to finish; this includes a 30 minute cycle session, rehab and whatever weights I am doing. It can’t be helped. I need to plan accordingly.
I do have some time to write and I had better get to it.
Football? I have my tickets and masks all ready to go..but if COVID cases are still surging and there are any sort of crowd…maybe give up my tickets to a younger person. Baseball isn’t a problem because crowds are kind of sparse.
My upper body looks like crap. No getting around it; I need to drop 20 lb if I want to look decent.
Shoulder felt better last night; glute was TIRED and stiff..sore in a different way (like I pushed it too much)
Today: rehab ..actually, no weights at all..strange. I’ll try to remember most of what I did. The non-rehab stuff:
pull ups: 2 sets of 5, 2 sets of 10, 4 sets of 5 (2 chin up style), 5 singles “penalty set”
push ups: 3 sets of 20 with better depth then 2 sets of 10 with lower handles.
rows with resistance cords. Last set: I used red, green and blue together. (3 sets)
single arm curls with resistance cords. I used green and blue together. (3 sets)
Rehab stuff: 2 sets of: “spinal balance with band”, “side single leg left for gluteus medius”, 3 sets of chest taps (video..need to work on these), 2 sets of banded walk; multiple sets of high elbow rows, low arm rows, lat pull downs, single arm rotator cuff, 2 sets of dumbbell rotator cuff.
Lots of chest stretching (with band) and piriformis type stretching.
Perturbation training (spinal balance; wife helped me)
Then 31 minutes (10 fake miles) on the cycle.
It doesn’t seem like this should have taken this much time, but it does.
Videos: 2 of the 3 sets of chest taps: way too much hip motion, and a bit less:
I know that my fall schedule WILL change and I am working out how to give exams; I have some ideas.
I will also “stream” my classes in case some of my students get ill or if some are just uncomfortable being in such a large room (yes, masks will be required)
I will also be going to physical therapy once a week. Funny thing yesterday: a young PTA was working under the supervision of a PT and was giving me perturbation treatment…the PT said “oh, you can hit him harder than that…”
Today: excellent yoga class, rehab (2 kinds of ab exercises, glute medius leg raises, chest taps, banded walks, shoulder stuff) and a good hard 45 minutes on the cycle (14 miles total)..enough intensity for me to stop (getting out of breath..mask was a sweaty mess)
rehab: some glute ..well…soreness..this is a bit different than the pain/tingles induced by walking. The PT and the deficit deadlifts (only 1 inch!) made my legs sore, in general. Shoulder: ok..sort of. This is a long slog.
Note: you can see mask use slowly inching up in the gym…with no mandate.
Personally, I loved it when NBC used their US platform (MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, etc) to give you a wide variety of stuff; I loved following, say, the boxing that way..and I didn’t miss the mainstream prime time nonsense with all of the “human interest” stories taking the place of, well, the sports.
This year, mostly I’ve watched Youtube clips “after the fact” to get highlights.
And what do I want to see?
I want to see genetic outliers who have dedicated their lives to be able to do awesome stuff and then deliver:
For the US readers: 491.6 lbs. IN THE SNATCH, 584 in the clean and jerk. MONSTER weights! For those who want to know: he went 6 for 6 for his lifts (lifters get three attempts in each lift)
Snatch: 208, 215, 223 Jerk: 245, 255, 265.
But..what do I see on my feed? I see stuff about the transwoman lifter (who failed to complete the necessary lifts to even get a score), or emotional meltdowns, athlete political statements, etc.
I watch the Olympics to see the exceptional. If I want to see mundane to incompetent political statements, I can go on Twitter. I can watch emotional meltdowns and failure in my own life.
No, I am NOT criticizing the athletes for having human sentiments, desires, and, well, lives. I am not criticizing them for expressing such things.
I am talking about what gets covered in the media; what I want to see in the press; what I want emphasized. The athletes are exceptional for their sporting feats and that is why I tune in, when I can.
Public scrutiny of the athletes Now, that is a tough one. We become fans because they are outlier-level good. Another example: here are the women superheavyweights putting up some eye-popping totals:
Sara Robles scored a bronze for the US.
Li Wenwen of China won the gold with 140/180 = 320, which are the sort of numbers that would make a D1 football lineman proud. (not quite 400 lb in the clean and jerk!)
Sorry..I got excited..back to scrutiny. The athletes are critiqued by the fans, and given that most of us (myself included) are light years from being elite at sports, the critiques are often, well, incompetent.
But..many of us do have questions.
On the US team (I won’t mention names), one lifter was in the following situation: they were competing in a weight class that was well above their body weight (20 lb!) because that lifter was the best that country’s team had to offer; so that lifter stepped up to the challenge. Kudos and respect!
That lifter also trained very, very hard. Kudos and respect again!
But in the days leading to the competition, said lifter was on tik-tok making “my goodie bag is awesome” and “look how good my butt looks in my Olympic underwear (a genuine perk..and yes, tik-tok deleted it for a violation)”. So, was said lifter really in the correct mental space to compete? Evidently not; that lifter needed three tries to make their clean and jerk opener which was below their recent international meet best…and was in tears…and yes, got some public criticism and was NOT happy about said criticism.
So..the price of being followed is being subject to “did they really take it seriously and do their best” type criticism. Most of us do not live with such scrutiny from the public.
Was this lifter a failure? Well, top 10 in the Olympics plus golds and silver in recent international competition (like the Asian, European, African or Pan Am games level) in a weight class above their own is hardly failure..it is extremely successful, by any reasonable standard. But they certainly weren’t at their mental best for the Olympics.
Back to the mundane Yeah, watching these strong guys did NOT make me stronger…I still suck, as bad as ever.
Last night: a tiny bit of shoulder pain, some butt stiffness.
Morning: pull ups: 10 singles, 2 sets of 10, 4 sets of 5. Ok.
Rehab plus twist cruches
push ups: 3 sets of 20, better range of motion (went ok)
deficit dead lifts (standing on 1 inch plates to get that deeper squat)
10 x 134, 10 x 184, 11 x 224 (PB for deficit)
shoulder presses (seated) focused on shoulder blade squeeze: 3 sets of 10 x 44 (I know..just the bar, for now..felt it in the upper back (good), slight sensation in the bad part of the shoulder)
2 sets of wobble board squats.
Videos: yes, some shirtless shots to see my shoulder blades and deltoid muscles; I wanted to see if I am using the “correct” muscles in the “correct” way. I KNOW those are highly non-flattering; I am not happy with how soft and floppy my body is.
Back to the push ups: better range of motion and it gets better the longer the set goes on; better depth toward the end. That is the opposite from pull ups where my final reps are too short (during my sets of 10)
for delta is 5-6; I’ll call it 5, and assume that each biker spreads it for 2 days.
new infections, and given a 1-2 percent mortality rate (older, less healthy group) about 250-500 deaths. 
Life of an old goat 