Out of Shape!

Well, it appears that sitting around playing Wii, XBox and PS3 for 2 months does NOT improve your endurance or physical strength, even if you do lots of running in the game running from wolves, terrorists, giant bugs and aliens.

I managed to make it 750 feet today on my unicycle, and then stopped because I couldn't pedal any more. There is a fence that is right next to the path at about 300 feet I've been using to remount and ride back the other way. I am not having any difficulty getting back and forth between the bridge and that fence today. A few times I made it past 500 feet. At least two times I rode from the bridge, down the 3" drop to the path and kept going without touching the fence or the pole-to-keep-cars-off-the-bridge.

So since it seems to be an endurance thing, I decided to start running. My hernia operation was 9 weeks ago (I think). I ran around the block today, I had some sharp pain the first block and considered stopping, but it became less and less and was gone by the end of the block. I'll see how I feel tomorrow and consider getting in shape for the Bolder Boulder... that will hopefully be good enough shape to unicycle up much steeper hills than the path I'm practicing on!


On a yoyo related note: I got my DNA yesterday. It seems more stable than the 888, I can even put T stacks on and throw it hard without it going crazy! I'll try to post some pictures and my impressions of it later this week. I definitely think I like it more than my Pyro... but I'm wondering if I shouldn't have got a Superstar or Peak just to have something a bit more different than my 888. I really was starting to not like it, but then I took off the green highlight string it came with and put on a lemonade gString and I successfully did white budda for the first time on my first try. (Except the weird magic trapeze bind thing at the end, which I'm not convinced is possible with a DNA or 888 because of their wide gap.)

Unicycling

Dawn gave me a unicycle for Christmas, but I have not really commented on it here yet. Basically I spent the first week I had it learning to not fall on my head while getting on, then I found out I had a hernia (probably not from unicycling, but I did have one nasty fall before I learned to fall off). While waiting for my surgery, I learned to go along a wall or fence and not fall on my head. Then I took a couple months off and I did not ride again until a week ago.

I have been practicing on a small 60 foot bridge over the emergency drainage ditch about 2 blocks from my house. The fence is maybe 4 feet high, perfect for holding onto while learning to mount and pedal. A week ago I managed to go 3 full rotations of the wheel without touching the fence. Then 4 rotations. Then Monday I managed to make it a full 8 rotations, which is about 40 feet. Since then I've been busy and we had lots of snow.

Today I went out again and managed to go 8 rotations several times, then 12 a few times, then I started running out of room on the bridge. At one end of the bridge is a steep drop off, and the other end has a pole to keep cars off and I'm afraid I'll fall off and impale my head on it like in some B movie. Plus there is about a 3" drop on either end, which wasn't really noticeable on a bike or walking... Anyway I made it the full 60 feet of the bridge a few times and even had a few PDs (Planned Dismounts) once I gave up trying to go down the hill.

Then I started at the bridge just past the 3" drop and started riding down a path that runs about 1500 feet along an easement between two rows of houses. I've been doing that all along, I just usually only made it about 2 rotations before falling off. The tricky thing was I immediately had to turn right to not run out of path, and then left again... oh and it was down hill... oh and there is still melting snow all over. Anyway today I made it 240 feet down the path, a ways past where it starts going back up and past lots of little pockets of ice where the snow that melted was refreezing.

My next goal is the end of the path... then I need to learn to free mount. I'll try to post some newer pictures soon.