Kris and I have a house policy that ensures life-long marital bliss. It goes like this:

You cook, I clean.  I cook, you clean.

Simple, yet very powerful. It means that, when it comes to food at least, all chores are shared. Of course, there's wiggle room in that policy. Health, deadlines and other issues, so sometimes the same person cooks and cleans. Fortunately, that's pretty rare.

When we're lazy, the policy shifts slightly to:

I order, you pick up.  You order, I pick up.

Usually, I do the ordering, Kris does the pick up.

Tonight, after returning home from the ASA MVP workout class, Kris did not want to leave the house. He offered pizza for dinner, I agreed, and he ordered.

Uh oh. He ordered? That means, oh no. I have to go pick up? Ugh!

Kris must have sensed this, because he offered roshambo instead of handing me the car keys, "Best 2 of 3. It was marital advise." (documented on our wedding video). So, I agreed.

And won decisively in the first two throws.

It was a crushing defeat. Worse roshambo ever. Kris ran away with the Cranberries, "In your head-ed! In your heh-eh-eh-ed!" ringing in his ears.

Poor Kris. Never rosham away what you already have.

Today, only Kris and I attended class, as Lisa was working this evening. We started with abbreviated ladders, each x2:

• LR-RL
• Outsides LR
• Ali-shuffle
• Inside-Outside-Inside-Outside
• Outside-Inside hop scotch
• Hip twists, R foot first, then L foot first, then alternating

Gino didn't think I had warmed up properly, and asked me to stretch further before continuing. No problem, as my left hamstring is, once again, bothering me.

G continued us in the circuit training format, with one person doing one exercise while the other person does another. Kri started with the T drill (five sets): run 10 steps (about 10 yards forward, shuffle 5 yards to the right, back 10 yards to the left, back again 5 yards to the right, then the 10 yards backward to the starting point. His times lowered each time he ran his 5 sprints, from 11 seconds to 10.6 seconds.

Meanwhile, I was doing 10 side-to-side jumps over a cone, then sprinting forward 10 yards or so on the last landing. The goal was to not drop a foot backward after the last landing, just explode forward at the landing. I had good ones and bad ones, but got better at the end.

We switched. My T drill times were 11.6, 11.5, 11.4, 11.4, 11.6 and 10.7. We're convinced either I cheated on the last one (by not going all the way to the side cones), or G was trigger happy with the stopwatch.

Next came weightlifting. Kris started with one footed squat / leg press, while I did one legged leg extensions. I started with 15# for the leg extensions, but was doing fine with 25# on my last set, so I can probably increase next time. I had difficulty with the leg press, as I was using my glutes more than my quads. At Kris' suggestion, I dropped my foot lower on the push pad, and managed to get more quad action in the lifts.

3 sets
toe touches 
side to sides with med ball

sumo squats

We then finished with abs, as usual.

• bicycles
• russian crunches
• overhead abs, V ups
• lower back
• side to sides, round the world
• partner push down with med ball
• 6" - 12" leg holds

Another lowerbody workout at ASA's MVP class. And yes, another ass kicking.

G has adjusted his workout strategy. Instead of working each of us individually, we did mini circuit training. G would set up three stations (or two if the two stations were particularly difficult) and we'd each cycle through them. It works well enough.

Abbreviated ladders to start.

3 sets of:
hamstring curls (lifting)
4 point star lunges
walking lunges, carrying 25# weight, twisting outside, inside, both

3 sets of:
squat jumps over hurdles
20 skaters (10 each leg)
shuffle ball toss (6#)

And then abs, focusing on lower abs.

V ups with weights

Notes:

Kris McQueen: We did jump rope
Kris McQueen: the single legged toe touches w/ a 10 lb. weight
Kitt Hodsden: Yay!
Kitt Hodsden: Oh, yeah.
Kris McQueen: more ab stuff (single leg V-ups, partner leg throw downs, 6-12" leg lifts
Kris McQueen: I forget what else.

Mom sent me this email. She nearly had me in tears.

Date:    Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:35:23 -0700
From:  	 Vicki B
To:  	 Kitt Hodsden 
Subject: RE: Good morning!

> Overwhelmed with things I want to do, but not overwhelmed
> with things I have to actually do.  So, doing okay.

I can certainly relate to that! I don't know if I ever told 
you this, but I admire you for leaving your last job. It's a 
real act of courage to step away from something that's 
comfortable and provides a reasonable income. Whenever I think
of you doing that, I always see one of those high divers off
some cliff in Mexico, leaping out into the sky with such
incredible freedom, arcing down toward the water. I just love
that image, the idea of not being confined, touched by nothing
but air.  You're my idol.

M 

Wow.

The first sprint workout I've been to in a long while. Mostly because of the ASA classes.

We started with a warmup run. I arrived late, so everyone else was already done. Keith showed up after I did, so we did the 800m (so short!) warmup run together.

Long shuttle A
Normal shuttle A
4 x 55m