Round 4.1 Day 37

On Tuesday I took the day off because I was sick (of work). I wanted to go to the city gym and do Chest & Back, but when I got there I found out it was closed for the day, so I went to a newer city leasure centre-type place. They had a gym with plenty of weights and pull up bars and stuff, so I paid my 400 yen and off I went. Gyms are funny places. Lots and lots of machines, people watching TV on these machines. I'm starting to think cardio is a real waste of time. I'm sure there is some cardio-vascular benefits, but if you're doing it to lose weight, it just doesn't make sense. The calories lost in one hour on a treadmill can be wiped out by a donut. Rigourous excersise is the only way to go. Lifting till you can't lift anymore, running until you can't run anymore, doing somethign until you can't do it anymore, that's the only way to go. And then not rewarding yourself, not eating any crap for weeks and weeks. That's the hard part. Walking for an hour won't do much except grease the moving parts. Better than nothing, I guess. It just seems so boring, walking and watching TV. Especially here, with the TV as boring as it is. Then there are the machines. People lifting really light weights, 10 reps, hardly raising a sweat, filling out the form when they finish. Waste of time.
I wish there was a Crossfit gym here. I'm sure there are some in Melbourne, and if I were living there I would definately join up. If you are serious about getting stronger and having your ass kicked every single time you go to the gym, go to a Crossfit gym.
But anyway. I guess I'm lucky that they had weights and a pull up bar at all. One thing I've learnt living here: take nothing for granted. I took my time doing the workout, and I think doing it in a different environmnet made a difference, and I really did well. I didn't have my previous workout details on me, so I wasn't sure how I was doing comparitively, but when I went home and checked I killed it. Most pushup and pullups in a Chest & Back workout by far. I did the full workout too, not the half workouts I've been doing.
Tonight I've got a 4 km run, which will mess me up, I'm sure. I'm not a very good runner. And then when I get home I will read the chapter of "Where Men Win Glory" where Pat Tillman gets killed. I'm not looking forward to that at all. I wish I had paid more attention to it when it happened. I remember seeing his photo when it happened, the one of him in uniform with a beret, and he looks like a typical thick-necked jock, and if I thought anything about it other than "more lies" I don't remember. All I remember is that 2004 was a year when a lot of awful things happened, like the war in Iraq, the Tsunami, just death and destruction one after the other. Anyway, I'm ashamed that I didn't bother to find out more about it, and especially ashamed that I judged him so quickly and wrongly. I saw his brother on Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago, and that got my attention. There's a documentary out soon too. I tell you what, the US Army fucked with the wrong family when they messed with the Tillmans.
I watched "The Other Guys" the other night. Not a bad movie, got a few chuckles out of it. I've never been a huge Will Farrell fan. I get sick of him after a few minutes. But he was good in this, probably because he's playing a pretty normal guy. One thing I don't like about his films is how one character says something stupid, and then they talk about how stupid it was. Like the tuna/lion thing. Yea it was stupid, but somebody wrote it in a script, so that kind of just makes it lazy. But then his character liked the Little River Band! Hah! Genius!