Beards, Barbells, and Beer

I love Mad Tom so much. So, so much. I need to try Detour.

Have you had Twice as Mad Tom IPA? It's like Mad Tom but even more flavourful (and more alcohol). It's a Double IPA as the name suggests.

Saw the Sam smith apricot at a small craft beer shop in small town new Hampshire this weekend. Glad I did not.

Yeah it was no bueno.
 
Nice drinking Dr. I was out in London last night and there is a pub in the West End called The Maple Leaf, which, as you can probably guess, is a Canadian pub. I didn't have time to pop in, but next time I'm over that way I will and see what beers they have on offer.
 
Nice. I always find it odd to hear about Canadian pubs but I guess we have lots of Irish and British pubs in Canada so it's fair that you guys have a Canadian pub or two. Hopefully they have better beer than Molson Canadian.

In training news... there really is no news. I did some swimming and canoeing at my friends cottage and spent about an hour doing some chores for his parents but otherwise was pretty relaxed and inactive. The next few days will be more of the same since I'm visiting my parents for a few days. I'll be back on Saturday so I might try to do some conditioning on Sunday, maybe go for a boot on my rollerblades if weather co-operates.
 
Hey Doc.
What are your goals these days? Haven't really had a lot of time to talk in here lately. Just trying to keep in touch.
 
I haven't tried Twice as Mad yet. I can't find it.

Also, "go for a boot" 10/10 use of Canadian English.
 
Hey Doc.
What are your goals these days? Haven't really had a lot of time to talk in here lately. Just trying to keep in touch.

Hey Nurse, thanks for dropping by. My main goal right now is to get back on the healthy eating/weight loss train. The Summer was pretty bad as I started drinking more beer and then in August I started eating more junk food again. I was on vacation last week and ate a tonne of junk and now feel like it's time to buckle down again. Labour day always feels like a good time to re-evaluate things.

Other than that I'm hoping to get back to regular cardio and slow strength gains. My schedule should look something like this:

Sun - Hockey (league, starts Sept 14)
Mon - Squats, upper back
Tues - Mobility, Hockey (pick-up) in the evening
Wed - Bench, rows
Thurs - Conditioning
Fri - Squats/Deadlift (alternate weekly), upper back
Sat - Rest

Since my pick-up game has moved to Tuesday's I'll do that instead of conditioning at the gym. So basically I'm dropping a day of conditioning but playing hockey once more so it's roughly the same.

I'd like to do more pressing so I'll probably do push-ups along with the upper back work on Mon/Fri.

This week is going to be a week of getting back at it. I was going to lift light today but heavy rain kept me out of the gym. I might do some light upper body stuff at home and then do light squats tomorrow.

I haven't tried Twice as Mad yet. I can't find it.

Also, "go for a boot" 10/10 use of Canadian English.

Thanks, I aim to please.
 
Wed Sept 3, 2014

C2 rower, dynamic stretching

- Squats
45x8
95x5
135x3
165x3
195x3
225x3
185x3

Nice and light. Hopefully DOMS tomorrow won't be too bad.

- Facepulls: 3x20
- Push-ups: 4x5

My upper body was really stiff today. On Friday I think I'll do squats again and some actual bench and rows. I was going to do that today but ended up chatting with a gym buddy so facepulls/push-ups were faster.
 
Thurs Sept 4, 2014

Conditioning (LISS)

- C2 rower: 11 minutes
- Treadmill: 11 minutes
- Stairmill: 11 minutes

33 minutes total plus a couple minutes cool down. HR was around 130 on the C2 and 140 on the other two. DOMS from yesterday were minimal, as they should be with the low volume and intensity that I did.
 
Fri Sept 5, 2014

C2 rower, dynamic stretching

- Squats
45x8
95x5
135x3
165x3
195x3
225x3
255x3

Solid.

- Cable rows: 5x10
- Pushups: 5x8

Woop.
 
Mon Sept 8, 2014

C2 rower, dynamic stretching

- Squats
45x9
95x5
135x3
165x2
195x2
215x5
(+belt)
250x5
280x5

Going back to the last 5/3/1 cycle that I did before vacation. Last time I got 280x6 but these felt good so I'm satisfied. I didn't really push it today.

- Bench
45x10
45x10
75x8
95x6
115x4
135x5
145x5
155x5

Felt good.

- Cable rows
35x10
42.5x10
50x10
60x10
70x10

Felt good today. First time in a while that I've done squat/bench/row in one session.
 
Hey Doc. I meant to tell you when I saw you doing 531... I read Beyond 531 and its a solid read. I wasn't sold on 531 because of the lack of volume but with Beyond I have a set-up that's super basic but with what seems like enough volume. Wendler set it up for me directly, its golden 45 minutes tops. I've started to add complexes because I have that extra time at the end... You should give it a read, if you haven't already. essentially it takes all the good stuff from 531, madcow and texas method and smooshes it together
 
Sounds intriguing, thanks for the tip. I'll give it a look.
 
Tues Sept 9, 2014

Hockey (Pick-up)
First time playing on Tuesday night but the group is mostly the same as on Wednesdays. The arena we play it has 4 ice pads and I feel like the one we played on last night was slightly smaller than in the Summer which made for a more frantic game.

I ended up playing right wing with one of the best players as my center so I spent a lot of the game trying to keep up with him. Having not played in a few weeks it took me some time to get back into it. I missed a bunch of chances early but eventually settled down and scored a hat trick and an assist or two. Conditioning felt pretty good.

I'm back playing on a league team on Sundays this Winter and our first game is this weekend. I signed up as an individual with a few old teammates so I'm not sure what the rest of the team will be like but we're in a fairly low division I should be able to do well myself. Hopefully the rest of the team is half decent.
 
Beer update!

On the long weekend I did a bunch more drinking to finish off my vacation. The only beer of note was an Okanagan Springs Summer variety pack:

07000_MM_OSB-CraftPack_Product_TBS-WEB.jpg


It contained three beers:

1516 Lager - A smooth, easy to drink lager. A generic fruity sweetness but not too sweet. Maybe a hint of hops. The best thing about this beer is that it just tastes like a crisp beer. No funny aftertaste, no crazy additions. Just a good beer.

Pale Ale - Maltier than expected for a pale ale and not very hoppy. If this was supposed to be an Amber Ale I would say it's average but for a pale ale it falls short.

Summer Weizen - I didn't notice when I bought the beer but this is actually an Apricot Summer Weizen. The apricot flavour is pretty mild and blends well with the weizen (wheat) beer, which isn't too bold flavoured.

I guess that's the common denomination of all of their beers, they are smooth drinking and not too bold. It works for the lager and weizen but not so much for the pale ale. That said, I definitely recommend this variety pack for an evening of drinking as it provides some variety and they are all easy drinking.

moroccan-brown-ale.jpg

Spearhead Brewery's Moroccan Brown Ale - I've had this before but never commented on it so here goes... this beer is delicious. It's nice and malty with hints of raisins and figs (not surprising since it's brewed with raisins, figs, and dates). That might sound odd but the taste is subdued so you just get some hints of it without tasting fruity. It augments the malts instead of over-powering them. If you like British things like fruitcake and minced meat (the kind made with raisins) then you will probably like this beer.
 
Wed Sept 10, 2014

C2 rower, dynamic stretching, DCSW

- Bench
45x10
45x10
75x8
95x6
115x4
135x5
155x3
175x1
175x3

The first single at 175 was solid so I decided to try a double and since that felt good I did a triple. Back in August I think hit 175x3 and maybe even more but I was really tried today after being up early the last few days so I wasn't sure what I had in me today.

- Cable rows
42.5x10
50x10
60x10
70x10
70x10

Boom.
 
Thurs Sept 11, 2014

Conditioning (LISS)

- C2 rower: 8 minutes
- Treadmill: 13 minutes
- Stairmill: 13 minutes

34 minutes total plus a couple minutes cool down. HR around 135. Did a bit of lower body stretching to finish.
 
moroccan-brown-ale.jpg

Spearhead Brewery's Moroccan Brown Ale - I've had this before but never commented on it so here goes... this beer is delicious. It's nice and malty with hints of raisins and figs (not surprising since it's brewed with raisins, figs, and dates). That might sound odd but the taste is subdued so you just get some hints of it without tasting fruity. It augments the malts instead of over-powering them. If you like British things like fruitcake and minced meat (the kind made with raisins) then you will probably like this beer.

That looks marvellous.
 
It is marvelous. This weekend that brewery is doing a tap takeover at a bar downtown. I hope to check it out because they will have three of their draught-only beers available.

Fri Sept 12, 2014

C2 rower, dynamic stretching

- Squats
45x8
95x5
135x3
165x3
195x3
225x3
(+belt)
260x3
290x4

Killed it.

- Facepulls: 5x20
- Push-ups: 5x8

Felt good today despite a lack of sleep this week. Hockey on Sunday, fuck yeah!
 
Also: How to shave your beard like a man:

 
Sun Sept 14, 2014

Hockey (league)
Last night I had my first game of the season with my new team. As I expected we have a range of skill and the first game was a complete clusterfuck since people weren't used to playing with each other plus we have a bunch of players that are fairly new to the game.

I think this will end up being a learning season for a lot of people and as one of the more skilled and more experienced guys I'm sure I'll end up as a leader. Everyone gave me their emails after the game so my first order of business is to figure out who is willing to play defense. I think we have 2 guys that will every week so we might have to assemble a group that will take turns from week to week.

As I said, the actual game was a mess. We were okay in the first period but as the game went on and people got tired everything got sloppy. It's obvious that some guys don't really know how to play their positions and other guys are just in bad shape so they were gassed by the third period. I scored our team's only goal in the first period and we went on to lose 7-1.

On the plus side it seems like a good group of guys (plus one woman) so even if we lose a bunch it should still be fun. It's maybe not a bad thing if we lose a bunch of games early because then they might bump us down a division which would be good for our weaker players.

So there you go, no where to go but up from here!

Oh yeah we are the Stars and here is our jersey:
10421124_10154568213190371_1360045470913563736_n.jpg


I was actually pretty surprised because we were a team of individuals put together by the league. They provided the jerseys so I expected them to fairly cheap but they are actually pretty nice and they included matching green socks too. Maybe by the end of the season we will be playing as good as we look :)
 
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