Exercise

I have been thinking about making photos like this for a long time... Unfortunately my dreams don't exactly match the reality (I don't have nice enough software) but this is certainly clear enough for you to get the point.  

This was taken when I was home for Christmas... that sweatshirt is so old and has been to many places including more chilly Town Band concerts than I can count and chores at Boston Post Dairy, hence the lovely poop stain under the "N". I do NOT need it in Kinshasa. Evidence:

New Christmas workout clothes! As you can see, my neck is red in both pictures but for very different reasons! Doing Crossfit in Enosburg was crazy, I wasn't sweating (relatively) at all. However, at the moment physical activity commences in Kinshasa I start sweating insanely as you can see from this post-workout picture. We are VERY lucky to have extremely effective air conditioning in our gym here at school, but I am still very sweaty. Then sometimes we work out outside completely and sometimes we need to use the outdoors outside the gym for specific exercises, which causes more sweat to ensue. At least I feel uber-productive and fit after sweating this much! (Yes mom, I drink water, even though I don't love it...) 

We are super super lucky to have a nice gym at TASOK:

 

This is what you see as you walk in the door. To the left, red legged box for jumping onto: I can NOT jump up that high but there are shorter ones for me to use. Weights behind the box. In the foreground is the do-dad that we use to hold up the weight lifting bar if we are doing a lift that doesn't involve picking the bar up from the floor. Always more pleasant from this height. To the right is the large black contraption that we use for pull-ups (I have to do jumping pull-ups with that little grey box holding me up) and other exercises like back extensions, leg lifts, sit-ups starting with your head lower than your legs etc. 

On the board is our warmup and WOD (Workout of the Day): Blake (The person it was named after): 100 ft (outdoors) walking lunges with weight overhead (I started with 25lbs and had to go to 15lbs, not sure why I didn't try 20lbs but 15 was plenty hard by the 3rd round), 30 box jumps, 20 wall balls (Squatting with a 15lb ball in your hands and then standing up and launching it up onto the wall in front of you) and 10 push ups. I did those exercises in that order three times and then called it a day... I was supposed to be timing myself but wasn't in the mood. Time: Slow and steady! That's me! To the right of the black contraption are the two A/C units and more equipment we don't use, as well as a water cooler and storage for the wall balls, smaller box jumping boxes, jump ropes, and other stuff. We are very lucky!

Have a great weekend all! Next week: Kinshasa Summer Flowers and Greenery!