between the rock and the cold, cold sea

I can now officially benchpress more than half my bodyweight. FEAR ME I GROW STRONGER.

Benchpress: 4x5 @60kg.
Assisted pullup: 2x5 @25kg assist, 2x5 @30kg assist.
Treadmill: mile in 12:00, intervals.
Exercise bike: 12km in 32:30.
Rowing machine: 500m in 3:00.
Exercises for the weak ankle.
Modified salute to the sun.
Stretching.

Mass: 107.6kg

Exercise bike: 12km in 32:30. Treadmill: 0.5 miles in 05:00 continuous, 2 miles in 24:50, intervals. Benchpress: 2x5 @30kg + bar, 1x5 @35kg + bar, 1x5 @40kg + bar. Deadlift: 3x5 @40kg + bar. Assisted pull-up: 2x5 @35kg assist, 1x5 @30kg assist. Chest fly: 3x10@5kg/arm. Shoulder fly, same. Military press, same. Bicep curl: 3x10 @7kg/arm. 1 x salute to the sun.

Mass: 105.7kg.

Today is the fifteenth day without rain.

Yesterday I went to the gym and ran 2 miles in 23:30 and biked 10km in 28:00. Benchpressed 37.5kg, three sets of eight reps, deadlifted 40kg, four sets of five reps, completed two sets of four assisted pullups with a weight assist of 35kg.

I've been insomniac and lazy this week, unwilling to get out of bed in the day when I have finally got some sleep. All forward progress rather shuffled off into a corner to lick its wounds and whine. I will strive to change that.

Mass: 105.5kg

Since my post of this morning, I have writ upon my thesis and made a chewy sponge cake and gone for a run in the evening sunlight north along the beach with a low milky tide gradually turning inwards.

Unfortunately, it transpires my right ankle is a conscientious objector to running and swimming in the same 24-hour period. Still, I did intervals, and came home in time for my mother to torture me show me a couple of yoga poses.

And now I have legs covered in Deep Heat ointment, because of the tightness of the muscles. Clearly I need to work on the flexibility with more vigour.

That's the only way I can really describe it. An awful mad urge to lash out at people who care for me. One of these days, I'm going to figure out how to go about being a decent adult human mammal who doesn't have days filled with selfishness and bile and vicious resentment.

That day is not today.

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Today, gym. It helps to have the right shoes. Makes running so much easier. Treadmill: Mile in 11:30, 1.5 miles in 18:30, 2 miles in 24:30. Intervals. Exercise bike: 10km in 27:00.

I'd done weights first. Smith cage deadlift: 3x10 @40kg+bar. Free benchpress: 3x8 @20kg+bar. Bicep curls: 3x10 @8kg/arm. Standing chest fly: 3x10 @4kg/arm. Lat raise: 3x10 @4kg/arm. Upright row: 3x10 @4kg/arm.

Five minutes of rowing for the cool-down.

Mass: 106kg

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Meet three ladies on tour from Toronto on the train home. Nice tourists. Friendly and enthusiastic.

Treadmill: mile #1 in 12:20, mile #2 in 13:40, two miles total in 26:00. Weights. Lots of weights, which I am too weary to enumerate. Exercise bike, resistance 8, 10km in 28:30.

I have no spoons to organise accommodation and stuff for this Liverpool SFF & Classics conference, but I'm all out of spoons in general.

...and full of light. There are fresh green leaves coming on the willow trees in the back garden, and all about the estates are full of chirping birds and annoyingly noisy children.

Went to the gym today. I have put on 10kg in the last ~18 months, 6kg of it since last September. Living healthily is all but impossible when stressed and cracking up, it seems. I do think 105kg is at least 15kg heavier than I really need to be, all things considered, though...

Exercise bike: 8.5km in 20:25. Treadmill: mile in 11:10, 1.5 miles in 19:00, intervals. (Ouch.) Assorted weights, nothing very focused. Cool-down rowing machine, 09:00.

First experiences undergone today: I ate my very first protein bar ever. Blueberry flavour, allegedly. It didn't taste bad. But it had the texture of freeze-dried icecream, sort of rubbery, chewy, and grainy all at once. Not gourmet food, I should say - but it had 22g of protein in a 60g bar, so hopefully my muscles will be less achy than they otherwise would.

Cycling: 12.5km in 30:00. Benchpress: 3x10 @15kg +bar, 1x8 @17.5kg+bar. Attempted pathetic chinups: 3x3 (not much improvement but some). Deadlift: 3x10 @10kg. Lateral raise: 3x12 @5kg/arm. Bicep curl: 3x6 @10kg/arm. Back extensions: 3x8. Running, intervals: 2 miles in 26:30 (first mile in 12:30). Rowing: 550m in 3:00.

Mass: 103.4kg.

First time in the gym since... did I go last Wednesday? I can't recall. Very, very busy. Lots of waiting around for the thing I wanted. (There are only four non-spin-cycle bikes, for example, and I like being able to track my mileage.) The nice trainer bloke whose name I can never remember corrected my deadlift form, because I'd completely forgotten how to do it. He's a good guy.

Sadly, as always, the weights end of the gym was being hogged by lads showing off their muscles. Also, a pair of weedy guys messing around with the benchpress machine. (First they tried lifting 40kg...no go. They had to scale all the way down to ~17.5kg, which took them for-fucking-ever. Did no one ever tell them to go up, not down? And then they did bunches of sets of three-reps-only, resting on the bench in between. SERIOUSLY BOYS YOUR MANNERS.) And, honestly, some of the Muscle Boys side-eye me? (Mostly not, fortunately. Mostly they are polite lads. And the gym staff know me and have known me for years now, so I no longer have to deal with being talked down to lighter weights when I go to ask for advice on a new exercise. But tonight I am all THOSE BOYS. Alas.)

Brought library books back to college, overdue. Fines are annoying but my own fault. Should now do something productive, but don't really want to. Fie.

Log: 12km exercise bike in 30:30, benchpress 3x10 @20kg, bicep curl 4x5 @10kg/arm, back extensions 3x10, lat raises 3x12 @5kg/arm, faily attempt at chin-ups (perhaps one whole wobbly chinner, not sure), treadmill 1 mile in 14 minutes, intervals (pathetic, will have to relearn how to run), six minutes crosstrainer, 500m rowing machine.

Mass: 102.7-103.4kg.

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Books 2013: 12-24


12-22. Kerry Greenwood, Blood And Circuses (1994), Ruddy Gore (1995), Urn Burial (1996), Raisins and Almonds (1997), Death Before Wicket (1999), Away With the Fairies (2001), Murder in Montparnasse (2002), The Castlemaine Murders (2003), Queen of the Flowers (2004), Death By Water (2005), Murder in the Dark (2006). Ebooks.

Cosy mysteries starring the Hon. Phryne Fisher. Readable, undemanding, pleasantly period and wish-fulfillment.


23. Deb Taber, Necessary Ill. Aqueduct Press, 2013. Forthcoming, copy courtesy of Aqueduct Press.

Review forthcoming, I hope, from Tor.com. An interesting if somewhat odd science-fictional novel.


24. Aliette de Bodard, On a Red Station, Drifting. Immersion Press, 2012.

Marvelous, delightful space opera novelette. Dear world: please read this and put it on awards ballots, kthnx.

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If I read anything else, I've forgotten. Have an interesting link:

Everything Is Nice on "A Worm In The Well".

Exercise log: 8km in 18:40, bike; 3x8 @15kg benchpress, a bunch of other things (including really light deadlifts and attempted chin-ups); 2 miles in 23:50, treadmill, intervals. That first mile in 11 minutes, the second in 13.

Not too shabby for someone who hasn't trained in what feels like forever.

Weight: 101.8-103.1kg

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Hodges Figgis is having a sale. There were many shiny books stickered at E4.50. I could not resist several. Fortunately I had vouchers for twenty euro off.

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For the very first time, I've ordered trousers over the internet. Soon we will see if everyone's 36in waist/31in leg are actually the same size.

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My grandmother has stage four lung cancer, I learned this morning. So I'm probably going to be crankier than usual for the months ahead.