A Big Mess, Almost quit, In too deep

Usually I leave Trump chaos for the end of most posts but I wanted to get it out of the way. We now have entered into an undeclared war with Iran, the country whose nuclear capabilities were supposedly “obliterated” last year. Of course this has been pushed by Israel forever. They have wanted the US to be involved in Iranian military operations for a long time. The hypocrisy of action versus prior words when it comes to this conflict is ridiculous but that is the new status quo. What the administration says versus what they actually do changes daily. Their comfort with circumventing the constitution and general rule of law would be a huge cause for alarm in a normal reality. However time and time again these actions are met with no consequences so the hope for different outcomes fade away, at least for me. Short of divine intervention, all I feel I can do is try to survive until the state of madness is no longer the norm.

I did not play any pickleball this weekend. I have tired of the huge crowds on the weekend which make the wait between games 30 minutes or more at times. Those prolonged cool down periods just do not play well with my IT band problems. I did decide to test myself physically this weekend in another way when I went to the gym Sunday morning.

When I was huge into calisthenics HIT style workouts were a core part of it where you are doing high numbers of reps of different movements with as minimal rest as possible. They are very tough but also very effective as you are working your strength and endurance simultaneously. Somewhere between four and five years ago I was doing a 400 at the gym pretty consistently. The workout consisted of 100 pull ups, push ups, hanging knee raises and body weight dips broken into many micro sets.

The way I did the sets back then was an initial set of 10 reps of each and then sets of 5 each until I got to 90 reps where I would grind out a final set of 10. For reasons unknown to me I wanted to see how I would do with the workout now. I don’t do consistent cardio routines anymore, the closest I get is playing pickleball, which is not enough.

In my mind I thought I could complete the 400 reps in roughly a half hour. I vaguely recall that when I was doing the workout consistently I did it as quickly as 28 minutes and change. Wow was I wrong. I never feel all that strong first thing in the morning but man, it was a struggle right from the get go. By the time I got up to 100 total reps I was already feeling tired, a feeling that only increased with each set. The killer part of this routine is the pull ups.

I still do pull ups in my gym routine but not nearly the volume I used to do. All the sets of 5 exhausted me much faster than they used to and were the biggest reason the workout took as long as it did. For a good portion of the sets I would only be able to get four in a row and then would have to drop off, regrip and get the 5th rep which takes way too much time.

I mentally was on the verge of quitting several times. At first I thought if I made it to 200 reps that would be good enough. When I got to 300 reps I got the idea that I would do the other three movements but not pull ups for the rest of the time. I was so tired. However in the end my stubbornness won out and I completed all 400 reps. My time was 47 minutes, wow.

This was a good wake up call for me and illustrated how I need to add this type of intense endurance work back into the mix of what I do. When it comes to health and fitness the path of least resistance is never the best choice. My upper body was spent all day afterward and I am sure the next couple days the soreness will amplify further.

I’m not sure if the full moon was tweaking my head but yesterday I took on another challenge of a different variety that I had not done in awhile, ripping apart a perfectly functioning wheel to do an upgrade that I don’t really need.

My V12S has been a nice wheel. The one gripe I have had is it feels wobbly after I cross the 25MPH mark. I have a theory that a different tire might address that problem so I bought I Michelin Pilot Street 2 tire for it, a tire I have used successfully on other EUCs. Based on my research I knew changing a tire on this wheel was not exactly easy but I was hoping I could find a streamlined method to do it. Well that method doesnt exist.

After about 90 minutes of disassembly this is the state the wheel is in. I still have a couple more things to remove before I can even access the tire to change it. Then the fun job of putting it all back together will begin. I have no doubt there will be a couple bolts that might be left over at the end. It’s going to be a kick in the head if after I do all of this work the issue is no better which is a distinct possibility. There are no V12S tire swap videos on the internet so if nothing else, I can fill that void of content. I hope to be able to work on this after work this week as time allows.

Elsa had another good weekend, eating well, pooping well and being happy. That’s all I can ask for.