shanmonster | Popeye the Sailor Shan

Today was my first day of freeweight training. My workout is predominantly upper body, since my lower body is already kept in prime shape from all my kung fu, dance, and cycling. And man, am I ever feeling this morning's session! My forearms feel like they ought to look like Popeye's, post-spinach. They're thrumming like mad, and my sister was grossed out by the outcroppings of veins during my exercises. I expect to reap visible benefits within the month.

Then again, last night's kung fu class was particularly brutal. Well, no more so than usual, I suppose, except that my asthma kicked in for the first time in about six months, leaving me a coughing, wheezing, exhausted, puddle of goo. Yet somehow, I was able to run three laps on top of all the other stuff. And when I say laps, it's not the usual sort of lap. We run up and down a steep hill, around the soccer field, up and down a long, steep stairwell three times, do kicks up one length of the field, and then finish by doing 50 pushups/crunches/dragons. That's one lap.

Even though I hoped I might, I didn't die. I did finish my laps. And then I did sparring drills for the remainder of the class, which is another reason my forearms feel so big and throbby today.

In other news, I finished reading China Miéville's The Scar. Once I got past the first couple of clunky chapters (far too many uses of variants on "stupid" or "idiotic"--on par with Lovecraft's overuse of "eldritch"), the story was excellent, with plenty of creepycrawly bits.

elanya, you might like this. The setting is a huge, floating pirate city.

Now I've finally started on Roald Dahl's Boy. I've been meaning to read this for years....