Day 499: A Quick Commute, Fondue & 500 More Swings

When I woke up my lower back was feeling almost back to normal after being sore for the past couple of days as a result of the 1,000 kettlebell swings I had done on Friday and Saturday (500 per day). 

My commute is usually 45-60 minutes even though we only live 13 miles from my office. However, with so many people either on vacation or working from home, my morning commute was only 27 minutes.  

That was the fastest commute that I have had this year with the exception of when I have had to come in very early (6:00a) or come/go mid-day. 

It gave me a good chance to tackle more finance and admin paperwork that was leftover from Friday. 

With so many of our team members on vacation this week it is hard to move projects forward but is a great opportunity to work on admin tasks since they are usually items that I don’t need to work with others on. I can clear the actions from my queue for when the other teams can get to them for processing. 

I had a few meetings in the morning but they were all fairly quick because people were anxious to start winding down for the holiday. 

At lunchtime we had another cheese and chocolate fondue party. Instead of doing it just for our team, this time we invited everyone who was on our floor. It was a fun chance to hang out with colleagues for a bit. 

I left the office early so that I could beat any potential traffic on my way to the gym. 

I decided to try jumping up the kettlebell weight from 20 kg (44 lbs) to 24 kg (53 lbs). It didn’t seem like that big of a jump but by the 68th swing my lower back completely locked up causing me to fall to one knee. 

I had to pause my workout for a few minutes to stretch out my back and recover. I wasn’t even sure that I’d be able to continue my workout but I was determined to complete the other 432 swings that were scheduled for today. 

I dropped back down to the 20 kg kettlebell and worked through the sets. I had to take longer rests between each set and used the foam roller during the 3 minute rest between each round of 100 swings. 

With the completion of today’s workout I am now 1,500 swings into the 10,000 swing challenge. Tomorrow I will tackle another 500 before taking Wednesday off for a rest day.