Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[Jonathon Sullivan]

weight: 248.5

what week. A cbu 100 packed with excrement landed and the submunitions kept exploding and splattering me.

wtf?!?

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Also, what med was it DB took for her nerve pain that caused such a problem?

[Mark E. Hurling]

Sorry, I'm around milspeak so much I repeat it to the confusion of others now and again. CBU 100. Cluster bomb, packed with dozens of smaller bomblets that don't all always detonate right away. Mine was a badging issue for some out of towners that got hugely complicated and kept bobbing to the surface resulting in me having to kluge my way through some semi-satisfactory solution. It took several tries.

Dearly Beloved took Zanaflex. She has since discovered that she can take one, but two put her down and out. She has a rather unusual response to opiates and a few other drugs in that they wire her up like meth. So she isn't easy to prescribe for. This one was a much different kind of response that took us both out of left field. I had to hold her up from the place where we were eating breakfast back to the car. And by hold her up, I mean a very supporting tight embrace fully prepared to take a sudden full load of her weight if her legs went. Very unsettling for us both.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 248.5

A good day today after lo' those many of the other kind. As the Raisuli said to the Sherif of Wazan at the end of The Wind and the Lion, "This has been a bad year and the next one is like to be worse." The tone was set when I saw that University of Oregon went down to ignominious defeat and that OSU had skinned the Cal Bears and salted the pelt 62 - 14. Then there was that whole reservoir of anger to put into something useful. So I decided to make a run at 405.

5 minutes warmup on the bike.

Deadlift: 135-3, 225-3, 315-1, 365-1, 4-O-fucking-5! for a single. It wasn't even hard, but I collected this signal victory and took the four (four!) Power Systems bumper plates off each end of the bar and put paid to this goal. I haven't done this weight since my early 40's and it seriously screwed up my back when I did it (badly I'm sure). I remember clearly one of my lumbars making a sound like a huge knuckle cracking and being in pain for over a week back then after doing it back then. But today, I feel tired but sound as I have ever felt in my back. I know more is possible. Which given my ability to bench press 275 and squat 315, puts me at a 995 total. But 1000 is on the way. Thomas Wolfe was wrong, you can go home again. The whumpiousity when I set the bar and plates down was resounding and oh so satisfying.

Pullover and Press and Hammer Curls: 2 sets of 8 with 110. This was supposed to be 3 sets of 12 but I left all I had in that deadlift. So sue me for woosing out. I am content with the 405.

[Gwyn Brookes]

405! Woo-hoo! Congrats.

[tertius]

Impressive. Like your taste in liquor, but in the opposite direction.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Thanks Gwynn.

I can't say I really have taste in terms of liquor. The citron was mere chance and happenstance when the regular cheap-ass hooch wasn't available. Likewise neither was aught else but diet Pepsi in the house last night and I was too lazy to go out for something else.

[Mike Mantzouris]

Congrats Mark!!

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Nice work on 4 Big Wheels, Mark. Nice.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Thanks and a tip of the Halto hat to both youse guys.

Weight: 250.5

5 minutes warmup on the bike.

Standing Overhead Press: 160, 5 sets of 3. I really concentrated on the valsalva this morning and it paid off. Locking up the upper body made the bar go right up. I'm debating whether to stay at this weight one more session so as to properly own it or move up. Probably move up.

Barbell Row: 255, 5 sets of 3.

Pinch Grip: 145 for 20 seconds.

My right elbow has been burning for a week or so and I was re-evaluating the pullover and press I have been doing since it seemed related. I reviewed SS:3 and discovered that I was doing exactly a pullover and press but that the recommendation was a tricep extension instead of a very close grip bench press. Time to drop the weight and conduct a form reset.