♣Ambitious♣

This lesson is getting broken into two posts because it would be a mouthful to have in one. If you're into weight lifting, you've probably heard of "training to failure." This is a method where you continue an exercise until you, quite literally, fail and your muscles give out. The idea is that you push yourself fully as far as you can go to ensure progress. It's a controversial method, to say the least. Alternatively, many experts suggest training up to the point of failure but never actually reaching it. This is the philosophy that I was taught with weight lifting. If you're struggling through your ninth rep and have the potential to fail at ten, this theory says to stop at rep nine. You've still pushed as far as you can go, but you've completed everything. Personally, as someone who has awful recovery 99% of the time, hitting the point of failure ain't worth it. Additionally, the psychological benefit of quitting right before failure works well ...

Allow me to explain. Ever since I began to delve into a serious fitness routine, I've had to work the frequency and type of workouts around my school schedule. Architecture is routinely listed as one of the most time consuming majors, so I always scale back for my own mental health during the semester and pick back up once a break rolls around. This works out great with riding because it allowed me to figure out exactly what exercises would help with my collapse. It's a double edged sword though; while I know exactly what to do in order to correct my balance, there is inevitably an annoying period of shoddy riding before things get back into place. Naturally, I expect less than perfect right bends and right canter transitions when I'm not quite fit enough to support a better movement. If you look closely, you can see her blowing off my right leg and moving sideways through the poles It usually takes no longer than two weeks in order for me to get back into a routine . . . u...

I'm switching things up a little bit this year. Previously, I used to do 12 goals for 12 months. Then, I decided to partition my goals into specific categories because it made more sense for me. That organization has worked pretty well for me the last few years . . . except this year, for obvious reasons lol. I would use my usual organization again this year, but because the pandemic is, uhhh, still happening, I'm trying not to get super attached to competition based goals, which typically tend to take up the bulk of my Hashing and Unicorn Fairy goals. There's also just a lot of life changes that are likely to happen once I'm officially done with grad school. Student loan payments ain't cheap, and when I begged my parents to let me take our nearly 18 year old BMW to grad school with me, no one warned me that luxury cars, no matter how old, cost a butt ton of money to maintain. Lord, give me a Honda Civic. Remember when this was peak comedy on Twitter? In summary, B...

Happy (Very Late) Mental Health Awareness Month! Figured it was worth it to check in since one of my goals this year was to do more than the bare minimum to take care of myself. Ain't doing too bad on that. Well, minus the copious amounts of cake and biscuits I've consumed over the past two days, I'm taking care of myself! I think having a regular job at a place I don't hate has definitely helped. I like being able to get away from school work, and it's one more thing that gets me out of the house and prevents me from becoming a complete schlub. Since the start of quarantine, my work life balance has also improved, but that has more to do with my commute time being completely nixed. Instead of rushing from one city to the next, I'm taking a leisurely stroll from one computer to another. It's refreshing. Here's some fun stuff I've been creating! Work project, a deck design for a plant loving couple My studio project from Fall 2019, an a...

And by "discerning" I mean "couldn't cook even with the blood of Gordon Ramsey in their veins". I tried out this recipe a couple weeks ago after finishing a work out and having no dinner planned. I went straight to the Equestri-fit Group and asked Gabriela for some ideas. She recommended taco salad. I hadn't had Mexican food in a while, so I rolled with it. I used this recipe as my reference but decided to put a bit of a twist on it. It's easy to make one serving of this, and it's probably decent in the nutritional value things, but I don't pay much attention to all that. Just follow the 20 steps, and you're good to go. Step 1: Rush to the grocery store directly after riding because you need to get the pictures done for this blog post before your parents return from Turks and Caicos and start asking questions. Step 2: Venture into the produce section. Avoid buying copious amounts of blueberries while simultaneously losing ...

Gonna be honest, I *think* we're on Week 5 at this point, but I haven't had to do math in a while, so no guarantees here. I've been meaning to write posts all this week because I have been doing things, but my mood took a turn for the worse last Sunday, and I haven't had the motivation to do much of anything. I ended up not even riding on Friday because riding green horses when you're an emotional wreck is definitely not a good idea. Yeaahhh not easy when your serotonin abandons you Despite how this week turned out, it actually started out pretty good with the 8:45 mile. My pace has stayed generally around 9:00/mile, sometimes getting too close to 10:00. Most of the fluctuations come with the weather; when it's hotter, I run slower because I'm dying. Simple correlation. Riding 5x a week has definitely put a strain on how long I can make my workouts, but the elimination of intense abs with every workout has opened up the schedule quite a bit. Things w...

Since last year, I've been trying to find a running app that I like. I couldn't put anything on my phone because it had no memory, and I was limited as to what I could put on my iPod because it only has IOS 6. I guess the one perks of finally switching from Android to an iPhone is that I can actually do things with the phone. After visiting my aunt on Saturday, she recommended the Nike + Run Club. She uses it. My sister uses it. My cousin uses it. My cousin's boyfriend (who I am just now hearing about, what gives?) uses it. I probably have friends who use it, too, so I jumped on the bandwagon. It's a bit confusing to use, not gonna lie, but I'm also an old woman when it comes to new technology. My skillset peaked with the iPod Nano and whatever TV came before HD. I figured out how to set up a regular run and took it along with me. The app works just fine behind music and updates you every mile. First mile, the app pipes up "Time, 8 minutes 45 seconds, one mil...

Ah yes, another semester of suffering. Today marked my official start of architecture studio. I'm excited but also terrified; I watched fellow students and brothers go through junior and senior studio last semester. It was a trip, I'll tell you that. My less important classes will begin tomorrow, but one of them already has a reading to do before the first day. I also don't know when I'm going to get the book for one of my other architecture classes. Fun times, folks. The eq team had their first meeting yesterday. I'm pretty sure we've officially hit the 40 member mark, which is insane. We also got the lesson schedule, and I am on Fridays at 11am, which means I have to book it out of my 9am class that ends at 10. Also means I'll be wearing riding clothing early in the morning then have to bathe and change before studio at 2pm. I'm praying that we get back on time. already miss the old man I've put together a regular workout schedule, but...

As I got older, I realized that I don't like the concept of New Year's Resolutions. If something in your life needs to change, just change it, fam. Time is a concept. New Year's isn't real. As much as I don't like it, I made a (low key) life choice recently, and since it's still January, I might as well peg it as a resolution. the motto Guys, I'm going to do more push-ups this year. I hated the PE tests in grade school because 1) sit-ups suck, 2) my asthma was so bad back then I could never go as far as I wanted on the pacer, and 3) I could do, at max, five push-ups. 1 & 2 have been resolved. Now it's time for 3. The inspiration for this actually came from a workout set that I found on The Sun's Secret : 50 jumping jacks 20 squats 50 jumping jacks 20 push ups 10 jumping jacks 20 sit ups Squats and sit ups are nothing to me (except I do crunches, fight me). Still, I can only do five regular push ups before putting my knees d...

Dear Right Side, First off, let us both agree that I am painfully average. I am right side dominant. From the day I was born into this world, I have favored you. Right Side, I have groomed you and strengthened you all my life. 19 years I have spent giving you ample attention and praise while my left hand can barely open a door knob (it can, but I'm being dramatic here, just roll with it). Right Side, I have done everything in my power to give you the upper hand, and yet, you forsake me. Every time I get on a horse, you scrunch up and let my left side bow out, like it's the one that I've spent nearly two decades building up. And honestly, I don't get it? Where did I go wrong? Right Hand, you don't know how to let go of the rein. Right Shoulder, you're far too low. Right Hip, you're stiff, and you make Right Thigh incapable of support. Right Knee and Ankle, you bear no weight because those above you have distributed it elsewhere. Right Foot, you could ba...

Back to school and back to work (technically still working, constant working, perpetual internships). Today was the first official day of classes, meaning it was time for me to start working around my ridiculous schedule. Seriously, on Wednesdays, my day is entirely open until 7pm, then on Fridays I have one class from 8am to noon, then that's it. I'm doing my best, though. Making the best use of my time has meant pushing workouts to the morning instead of the evenings with Friday either being a lesson day or an off day depending on how things land. Some friends asked if I wanted to join them for yoga at 8:30, which I happily agreed to. Since stretching cold muscles is never a good idea, I took a short run around campus. Oh, yeah, and to the person that honked at me, IT WAS A CROSS WALK. OPEN YOUR EYES. I've never actually done yoga before. It was a strange experience. I'm so used to being up and moving while working out, but yoga is all quiet and painful. image...

So, I decided on Thursday that I would take it easy on Friday in terms of working out. I added in a day of arms and a day of legs last week, and I was pretty sore. Dialing things down seemed appropriate. I had planned on doing some yoga on WiiFit, but then Friday came along, and I just . . . didn't. Then I did nothing on Saturday, too. And I also rode for a half hour on Sunday. I'm the pinnacle of health. Yeah, and he's the pinnacle of Dressage, too But, yeah, whatever, can't go back in time. Max was the same old, same old yesterday, kinda there, kinda not, had some really good moments, had plenty of bad moments too. It was certainly better than last week. We did mainly serpentines for the whole ride at the trot and canter with halts on the center line. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I lost his shoulder, and it's hard to get back because big dude still doesn't yield to leg pressure all the time. Now, moving forward off the leg? No bigg...

Today, I was finally (FINALLY!) able to do a proper right facing oblique. It has literally taken all 6 months for me to achieve this, and while it still has some way to go, I'm glad that my body is actually responding to the tougher parts of my workouts. Work on your weaknesses until they become strengths! look @ that collapse (image from Your Tango ) Related also are my weighted lunges. I've realized that my physiology while doing those is quite similar how I am on a horse, at least on the upper body aspect of things. My right side collapses, and it's much harder for me to recover on my own two feet than it is on a horse. Solution: lift the right shoulder. Even though I had no issues during my last ride, I'm labeling my collapse as something sporadic. Yeah, it's probably a part of my actual, natural anatomy, but it screws with my flatwork, so I need it to not. Horsey things, my most recent delivery from Divoza came in. FedEx said it wasn't going to get ...

Believe it or not, I'm still on that fitness thing. I started piddling back to my old ways around finals week, and I temporarily settled there once I got home. In my defense, I started working for money again, and then we went on vacation a week later. Who works out on vacation??? . . . Well, my sister did and asked me multiple times to run with her. photography > exercise Anyways, enough self dragging. It was probably a message to the team group chat (which is still going on, y'all, we shared pics of our dogs the other day) that got me back into the healthy living mindset. At first, it was just running for 25-30 mins, then it was running for minimum 30 mins, then I started doing abs again, and last week marked my first arms day in a while. Needless to say, my body has undergone some changes since the first team workout in February, but some haven't been quite what I expected. For example:     - My legs, calves, and arms have all grown, and none of my pants o...