Greetings!

 Good day, dear reader(s). Me again. This time writing on everything not reading or language related, which I cover in my other blog, A Handful of Eels, but Where Did I Park My Hovercraft. However, that's not completely true. Not everything. More like, IronMike's fitness blog. Sure, I've got IronMike's Marathon Swims, thanks to the wonderful folks at the Marathon Swimmers Federation, who host it. But I don't write there regularly. I do, however, do much more in the realm of fitness that is not swimming, and I wanted a place to track these activities. Thus, this blog.

I've always been a dipper, or as the late Barbara Sher called it, a scanner. I like dipping into different subjects, learning what I want about it, then moving on to other things. Fitness has been similar: through the years I've tried many things, like rugby (not good at it), lacrosse, triathlon, speed skating, biking, volleyball, 10K racing. I had varied success in each of those, but not many stuck. I've probably done open water/marathon swimming the longest (first half-marathon in 2010 and still going). Lifting I (finally) started in early 2018; I say finally because I'd lifted in fits and starts over the years, to include in my late teens with Time-Life's fitness book series (see pic below). But I lifted seriously and heavy for two years before COVID shut everything down (including beaches!) in Boston in early 2020. Started back up when we moved down to northern VA in 2021 and have been lifting steadily for over two years now. 

I've wanted to orienteer since I was a kid in Boy Scouts. I think I even tried it once, but it really wasn't available, or at least I couldn't find it, in the Houston area in the early '80s. Helped my boys with the sport when they were Scouts in northern CA in the early 2000s and had a blast. Started up for real in Boston, during COVID! (they ran the meets no-contact using QR codes) then started again here in NoVA with Quantico Orienteering Club. Really enjoying it.

So here I will write about my attempts to stave off atrophy, sarcopenia, laziness, and other issues related to age and, frankly, the relentless pull of a comfortable, sedentary lifestyle.