The Oracle of Apollo Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

Ringing in 2008

New Year’s Eve 2007. Finally, it arrived. I decided a little while ago that my recent clubbing exile should end. I was being reclusive for no good reason and, hey, it’s time to celebrate.

I reserved a rental car for the purpose, just in case something happens. I don’t really want to be out celebrating the new year, driving a car worth the same as my shoes. Once in a while, we splurge and have a nice evening on the town.

I didn’t buy presale tickets to any of the retardedly overpriced parties that triple the price of a normal club night on New Year’s Eve. This holiday is certainly amateur hour, so I wanted to pick a low key party that was going to have a good crowd. The first stop: Bring Your A Game at Mars Bar, thrown by Green Gorilla. It was $20 to get in, the crowd was full of familiar faces, including my long lost Patrick & Gigi. Rick Preston played a classic set and gave way at the end of the evening to M3. If you’re going to celebrate the New Year in style, these are the two men who provide the soundtrack. A lot of working DJs play the same records over and over again, but these two are always on fire, playing interesting, unusual tracks that keep the crowd engaged.

After that, I intended to go the End Up, but with a $50 cover at 2:15 am, I decided to find an underground party. Unfortunately, both of the places I wandered to were either not happening or had a dress code. So, after consulting a reliable source, I popped over to Mighty and, despite a $30 cover, wandered inside until about 4:15 am.

Krafty Kuts from the UK played a vicious set of breaks to a mostly dazed crowd. At that point in the evening, most of the less experience partiers had gone home. This group were dancing around on the dancefloor, sweating it up, and taking the pounding Krafty delivered. After 3:30, Samara took over the turntables and played her music. Mighty was a good find. I should have come here directly after Mars closed.

I met lots of great people tonight and reconnected with some friends I haven’t seen in a while. I hope everyone had a safe and fun New Year’s Eve celebration. I’m already making plans for next weekend. How do I put 4 hours of sweaty dancing in my exercise log? Maybe I should wear my heart rate monitor next time.

Happy New Year, everyone. May 2008 exceed your most amazing expectations.

PT Test Echo

Today’s workout was “CrossFit Total” again, a baseline for the new year. I don’t have a barbell, so I doing my fifth APFT today (Previously: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta).

I didn’t really have a specific goal for today’s numbers, other than the fact that I wanted to improve all of the events. Last night, I got about five hours of sleep, before I had to get up and take a rental car back to the airport. I wasn’t sure how much I could improve my scores, but I gave it a good effort anyway.

First, I did the run. It was cold out at the track, but once I stretched out and started pounding, I warmed up. The new stopwatch I got for Christmas (the most useful gift I got) kept me from needing to enter numbers in my cell phone to email back to myself. I could concentrate on the run and the music in my headphones. It worked well. My slowest lap was still faster than 2 minutes and I destroyed my previous time. This 2 mile run shaved 31 seconds off my previous personal best. If you’re going to throw down the gauntlet on a new year, you might as well throw it down hard enough to make it bounce off the track, right? <flex />

I knocked out the pushups and the situps in my warm sun room. I still tend to rest too much in those sets. I’m sure that if I slowed my pace down a little and concentrated on focused, complete repetitions without resting, I could have drastically better scores. But, I added 2 pushups and one situp to my previous best. That’s not nearly as earth-shattering as shredding half a minute off the run, but it’ll do.

PT Test Echo

• Sit Ups: 56 (APFT Score: 76) – required to pass: 42
• Push Ups: 48 (APFT Score: 72) – required to pass: 36
• Two mile run: 15:12 (APFT Score: 83) – required to pass: 17:42
• APFT Total: 231

Next goal: 240 points (56 pushups, 59 situps, 15:30 2 mile run)

Eight Years of the Oracle of Apollo

On this day in 2000, I started blogging on this site, the first post of which was about Planet New Year, which was the New Year’s Party that said goodbye to 1999.

There have been a couple of month-long or multi-month hiatuses here since then (and the archives here are incomplete, since I haven’t moved all of my 2001 – 2005 archives across from the old flat file system I used before I installed WordPress here almost two years ago), but I’ve been here fairly consistently over the last eight years. I’ll be sifting through the archives (and the flatfile archives locally) and trimming back the archive to the juiciest, most awesome posts. Once in a while we have to do some house cleaning, right?

This year, I’m starting a couple of new blogging projects, including a music composition/production blog. I am hoping to build some audience here, too. I know some of you read this site, and I know that some of the things I write about are not of interest to everybody. Of all the bloggers who have been at it as long as I have, I probably have the smallest audience.

For those of you who have read my inane babblings over any portion of the past eight years, I thank you for your interest. I’m going to try to make it a point to post more interesting things in 2008. What kinds of things do you find interesting?

Thanks for joining me on this journey. Happy New Year and may 2008 blow your mind.

CrossFit Day 72

Today’s workout was Helen, a “girl” workout, named for the face that launched a thousand ships. I’ve done this once before, just over a month ago. This time, I’m doing kipping pullups, instead of the jumping negative pullups I did last time. This will give me 36 honest-to-goodness real pullups in one workout. To review, here’s today’s dance:

3 rounds for time:

1. 425 m run (that’s about the distance I went around the park)
2. 21 kettlebell swings (35 pound KB)
3. 12 pullups

After each round, I took one minute of rest before beginning the next round. This worked out pretty well, even when I hit the wrong button on my stopwatch and blanked it. Fortunately, I have a surprisingly accurate memory and could pause, rethink the numbers through, and get very close to the actual numbers.

The pullups were the sets that took the longest, by far. In fact, in most of the rounds, it took me longer to do the pullups than it took to do the whole rest of the workout. In the first round, I did singles, because I’m still working out the rhythm required to keep my momentum swinging into multiples. In the second round, I did five singles, two sets of doubles, and a set of three. In the third round, I did a bunch of singles and a few doubles–not counting the two where I got my nose to the bar (those would be fails).

My goal for this workout was 30 minutes, because I expected the pullups to take much longer than they did. I managed to pull off the whole shebang in 28:02, which is the same time that it took me to run 3.35 miles the other day. I was 8 minutes slower than my last Helen, but I did jumping pullups then and real ones this time. So, I’m considering this a personal best.

My rounds:

1. 8:54
2. 9:46
3. 9:22

My results: 28:02, 7:23 zone (hard); HR: 166 avg, 185 max; 396 cal

CrossFit Day 71

Today’s workout was another punishing ass kicker. This one was going to require a lot of gumption and a lot of time. Well, no sense in wasting time. Let’s do it.

5 rounds for time:

1. 50 sumo deadlift high pulls (35 pound kettlebell)
2. 50 air squats
3. 30 standing back extensions (35 pound dumbbell)

After each round, I decided two minutes of rest would keep me from passing out.

I had to subdivide all of the work, in various divisions from 10s to 25s. The squats took the longest in each round, including a 4 minute round of squats in which I was interrupted by my housemate (I forgot to turn off the beep alarm on my heart rate monitor). With the 2 minute rests between the round, I still needed more than 45 minutes to complete this bunch of work.

I was a little slow on the squats, because of Barbara-induced soreness. Otherwise, a lot of time was eaten up by me panting and catching my breath. Excellent workout.

My rounds:

1. 06:26.82
2. 09:53.59
3. 10:18.91
4. 10:05.40
5. 09:04.88

My results: 45:45, 17:02 zone (hard); HR: 162 avg, 182 max; 613 cal

CrossFit Day 70

Today’s workout was the 5 km run again. It was fairly cold (about 42° F) and it started to drizzle as I made my way to the track. I considered substituting ten miles on the bike trainer, but I decided that a little drizzle couldn’t stop me. My legs were still sore from yesterday. Ah, well. Sometimes, you just have to man up and go for it.

Now that I’ve practiced split timing on my new stop watch, I can get fairly accurate with my numbers without spending half a lap attempting to key in the time on my cell phone. The increasing drizzle didn’t change into a deluge and I was able to get a good rhythm going. Given the soreness in my legs from 250 squats the other day, I just wanted to post a decent time to my log book. Yet again, for the third 5 km distance, I improved my personal best yet again. I sprinted the last lap, hoping to finish strong. I missed that 28 minute mark by only 2 seconds.

My results: 3.35 mi (5.39 km) in 28:02 (0:21 faster than last time)
More stats: 6:04 zone (hard); HR: 175 avg, 194 max; 441 cal

Split average 2:09.38. Fastest: 1:56.60 (last). Slowest: 2:17.08 (tenth)

CrossFit Day 69

Today’s workout was called “Barbara.” Barbara is not nice. Barbara, over the course of a whopping hour, gathered up what I thought was my ass and handed it assertively back to me. I tried to refuse, but she latched on and would not let me go. I am done. Barbara is not easy. If you want her, you have to work for it. What do you have to do? This:

Five rounds each, for time:

1. 20 pullups (total: 100)
2. 30 pushups (total: 150)
3. 40 situps (total: 200)
4. 50 squats (total: 250)

(Rest exactly 3 minutes between sets.)

I saw a bunch of people posting that they got through a set of one of those in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes. Seriously? My goodness.

Set 1: Since it was raining and 40°F outside, I set up the pullup bar and did assisted pullups from the floor. Even in a seated starting position, it still took me nearly 8 minutes to get through the 100 pullups required. Oh, this is not going to be pretty. Time elapsed: 7:37.

Set 2: My most recent APFT pushup score was 46 in 2 minutes. This workout calls for 150. I subdivided my rounds into 5s and later into 3s. This took me an eon and I had to shake out my arms frequently. Time elapsed: 14:08.

Set 3: Situps. I did 54 of them yesterday on that APFT. This set contains 200. Can you hear me whimpering yet? I subdivided these into 20s, then 10s, got up midway through and adjusted the towel under my tailbone several times to avoid chafing and rubbing in a very sensitive place. Cramping hips and abs that screamed caused this set to go on and on. Time elapsed: 16:38.

Set 4: Squats are the easiest for me, although I have to adjust my foot position frequently to avoid the creaking, crackling joints. I subdivided this into 25s, then 20s, then 10s. Around the middle of this work, I knew I was not going to get it done faster than one hour, so I aimed to finish in less than 64 minutes. The squats gave me no love. I was panting and exhausted. The end couldn’t come fast enough. Time elapsed: 15:54.

If I can walk tomorrow, I’ll attempt the 5 km run assigned, unless it’s raining. If it’s raining, I’ll ride 10 miles on the bike trainer in my heated, non-rainy sun room.

My results: 1:03:27, 4:40 zone (hard); HR: 125 avg, 155 max; 545 cal

Note: Time includes prescribed 3 minute rest periods between sets.

PT Test Delta

Today’s workout was “CrossFit Total”. I don’t have a barbell, so I’m substituting the entire workout. Today, like last time, I’m doing the APFT. This will be the fourth in the series.

I started out on the track today, despite a temperature outside under 40°F, I bundled up and went out. Oz gave me a fancy new stopwatch before I skedaddled to visit family this weekend. I figured out the controls and noticed my iPod had run out of juice. So, after returning home, charging it up, and driving back to the track, I was ready. I stretched out, and started my run. The first lap mark messed me up, because I hit the buttons in the wrong sequence (and thus slowed up on lap 2). My goal was to finish the 2 mile run with a time faster than 16 minutes. I beat my previous time by 14 seconds. Not bad!

After I drove home and took a breather of about five minutes, I set my timer and started on the pushups. I was really hoping to break 50 today, but after missing three workouts last week (one for rain, one for laundry, and one for travel) and two this week (while visiting family), I’ll take that result. My situp session had me doing 54, which is one fewer than last time. It’s time to lock it back down and recover from the Christmas Slackoff.

PT Test Delta

• Sit Ups: 54 (APFT Score: 74) – required to pass: 42
• Push Ups: 46 (APFT Score: 70) – required to pass: 36
• Two mile run: 15:43 (APFT Score: 77) – required to pass: 17:42
• APFT Total: 221

Next goal: 240 points (56 pushups, 59 situps, 15:30 2 mile run)

CrossFit Day 68

Today’s workout was the return of the 5 km run. Officially, we had a choice between running 5 km and doing the same distance on a rowing machine. There’s a track near my house. Guess which one I chose.

Since the inside lanes of the track were flooded with the recent rains, my laps ended up being about 430 meters, which makes the 13 laps I ran tonight total 5.59 km (3.47 mi). I tried to hold steady at a 2:15 lap, knowing I’d slow down. Initially, I felt sluggish enough during dinner that I thought I should aim at a 30:00 time. Like last time, I beat 30 minutes with a significant amount of wiggle room.

While it was really cold outside, I ignored the cold, finessed the volume up on my iPod Shuffle, and made sure my ears were covered. A man and his snarling mutt shared my track, but fortunately he kept control of the animal. Once I got into my rhythm, there was no stopping me.

My results: 3.47 mi (5.59 km) in 28:23 (0:22 faster than last time)
More stats: 3:27 zone (hard); HR: 178 avg, 192 max; 463 cal

Split average 2:11. Fastest: 1:57 (last). Slowest: 2:17 (sixth)

CrossFit Day 67

Today’s workout is a new hero workout, named “Badger” in memory of Chief Petty Officer Mark T. Carter (Navy SEAL), who died on December 11 in Iraq. After opting to push yesterday’s workout to Friday due to the triple threat of the sniffles, the rain, and sore legs from Sunday, I decided, after some hemming and hawing, to get off the couch and not miss two workouts in a row.

I also didn’t want to overdo it, so I grabbed the 25 pound dumbbells and headed out to the nearby park. Here’s today’s work (scaled back):

Three rounds for time:

1. 30 squat cleans (2×25# dumbbells)
2. 30 assisted pullups
3. 800 m run

The first round of squat cleans reminded me of how amazingly sore I am after that 450 meter walking lunge. Oh, goodness. I used monkey bars near the track to do my assisted pullups as some bewildered soccer players looked on. And, of course, the track I usually run on was half flooded.

On the second and third rounds, I was too sore to do full squat cleans, so I substituted power hang cleans. Even with the easier substitution, each round took me almost 12 minutes. I felt like garbage doing this workout. But, I toughed through it with numbers that legally constitute a crying shame. I expect much better results next time.

My results: 35:55, 9:48 zone (hard); HR: 172 avg, 191 max; 546 cal

Fair winds, Chief Carter.