Today, I'm going from the gym to the range to get more experience shooting offhand after thrashing myself with a two hour workout. At the range, I'm going to do 10 minutes of ready drills. I do this just about every range session, so I have times and targets for comparison, to measure my performance. Then a timed, three-magazine rapid-fire exercise with 10 rounds in each mag. It's time I started working on mag changes.

Good on ya!  I need to work more on reloads too.

Definitely good to induce some physical stress to the process.

Thanks for the encouragement.

My accuracy was about the same but my shot times were lower by about 15%. I felt more tired than I did muscle soreness or weakness. It felt more challenging mentally than it did physically; I didn't feel like I was making decisions as quickly and I was hesitating before taking some shots even with the sights on target. That seems to be reflected on the shot times.

It's all kind of the opposite of what I expected. Which is why I do stuff like this. I'm going to do it again one of these days soon and make a conscious effort to focus on focusing and bearing down.

And ...  I sink at mag changes. That's okay, though. I haven't worked on it at all.

Today's training will be about 20 minutes on the dry-fire range with my wife's AR. She has a mil-spec trigger and I have Giessele SSA-E triggers on mine. I practice with hers as well as mine so I know the difference in the way they shoot.

Today's training will be the same drills as Wednesday, with the same rifle and ammo. I'll even ask for the same lane. I'm well-rested, well-fed, and feeling great.

More data points ...

"If you can't measure it, I can't improve it!"
-- A cornerstone of my consulting business

Accuracy was the same but shot times got faster.

Today's training is two hours of Olympic weights and an hour on the basement dry-fire range working on trigger control.

Today's training is Active Recovery. Swimming, 500 yards.

Today's training is two hours in the gym and 20 minutes on the dry-fire range.

Some days, I just do not want to go to the gym. Today is one of those days. I'm going to force myself to go anyway. I know that once I get in there and start warming up and stretching, my entire attitude will change and I'll start hitting it hard.

It's times like this that I tend to run my finger up and down the scar that runs the full length of my sternum and feeling the roughness of my sternum, where it grew back together after they cracked me open like a Dungeness crab to rebuild my heart for me. And I think about the Grim Reaper and his list. And that checkmark next to my name he had to erase when I survived. He can still see the remains of that checkmark next to my name and he don't like it. Not one little bit. He has his eye on me and is just waiting for me to fail. So I say, fuck that bastard, I'm going to the gym. He had his free shot at me and he screwed it up. I'm not going to give him another easy go.

Hell yeah!

I don't feel it every morning, but I still do it...and then feel better the rest of the day, mentally AND physically.

Today's training: 500 yards of swimming and a hundred rounds down-range (accuracy and ready drills).

This morning before work, core, consisting of 180 of each: Russian Twist w/ 15lb. kettlebell, situps w/ 10lb weight, side dips w/ 33lb dumbells.

I used the Steven Segal thread in GD for motivation..."I'll NEVER be like you Steven Segal, NEVER!"

Hoping to do some shooting in next few days.

That's some hard-core core work. Salute.

Today's training was an hour on the dry-fire range with the .300 BLK and 55 minutes of EMOMs at the gym starting soon.

Whew. I added weight to about half of my EMOM's yesterday. What a great workout!

Today's Active Recovery is 500 yards of swimming and a 1.5 mile run on a local trail that runs along a big river. If I get those done early enough, I'll go to the range for some ready drills. Otherwise, more time on the basement dry-fire range.

Today's training is a mountain work party. Four miles in, spend the day building a staircase up a muddy slope with the materials available; fallen trees, rocks, and gravel. I'm trading physical labor for the chance to learn some back-country engineering skills.

Wow, what a day. My sore spots have sore spots. It feels great to be able to do it but it's going to take a couple of days to recover.

Today's training is ... nothing. I can barely move today so I'm going to take it easy.

I learned how to build steps out of locally-sourced materials, aka rocks, ... as well as how much hard work it is. I mean, I already knew it was hard work but you never really know until you do it. It all got started by finding large rocks to use as the frame, then filling in the flat spots with gravel, and adding gravel where otherwise needed. There was no gravel nearby so we made our own by turning big rocks into little rocks with sledges. Then carried it in buckets to a three-foot wide trail perched on the side of a cliff. We rotated jobs all day and they were all physical. We all slowed down late in the day. Working with heavy stuff on a narrow trail with fatigued legs calls for more care. Kudos to the leader for his situational awareness and his control over our work pace.

If I ever encounter a situation where I need to build steps up a muddy slope with nothing but rocks and tools, I think I could build something serviceable. It might take a week if it's just me and there are more than a few steps, though.

I signed up for two more work parties this summer with the same leader.

Nice "classroom," too.

beautiful view!

It is, indeed. I hike on all four sides of that mountain. It's a 20- to 30-minute drive from home to this trailhead, traffic dependent.

20 swings, pass the tool. Three people of average hiker fitness can go almost indefinitely.

Sadly, I overdid it. By the time I got off the mountain, my left foot was going numb, my left abductor was so weak, I was having balance issues, and my left calf was burning in pain. I'm still feeling it. My doctor banned me from working out until Monday, when I can see him. He thinks there might be something else going on. He doesn't feel that the work party would have caused problems that would last this long.

So today's "training," like Saturday's through yesterday, is two long sessions of stretching and two half-mile walks on the treadmill at about 2 mph. The stretching is okay but the symptoms come back near the end of the walking. For point of reference, by the end of last summer, I was doing 15-mile day hikes with 3,000+ feet of elevation.

A minor set back in my training, I hope. I have a 6-mile, 25-obstacle race to run in September.

Remember, training should strengthen you, not break you!

A fair point. I sometimes forget I'm 67 years old and my body isn't as resilient as it used to be.