Week 2: 1/16/2018

Due to the snow that came through, I was unable to complete my second week workouts until today. The place I live in has a driveway that slopes somewhat like a 'V' between the garage and the road. Yesterday, I was unable to get into my garage nor leave my driveway since the compact snow made the road too slippery for my car. A kind neighbor shoveled my driveway while I was out getting lunch so I'll be sure to thank them this weekend.

The GI block has been pretty tough. I am not too confident that I will do well on the exam this upcoming Friday but can't let that get me down! Need to keep grinding. On a different note, we learned the procedure for a well-patient visit, which mainly involved memorizing immunizations and screenings for different demographics on my end. Unfortunately, no progress in mahjong was made this past week.

Table tennis-wise, my experiment with using the Yinhe Pro Feeling has now ended. Before winter break, it was suggested that I try out using an ALC blade. Years ago, I tried out the Timo Boll ALC blade but was unaccustomed to the speed and disliked the feel. In addition to my blade, I tried some other ALC blades from people in my local club including TB-Spirit, Viscaria, and TB-ALC (again lol!). My conclusion was that the gears in speed for the blade was something that would take way too much adjustment and I still disliked the feeling/feedback from hitting the ball. The former criticism might be something I could work through if not for the latter reason that removes any motivation I would have. If I ever do switch to a ALC or other carbon blade in the future, I would prefer something about 90g (the TB-ALC and Viscaria was too light) and a handle height of 23mm (the Pro Feeling handle was too thick and caused some pain in my index finger PIP).

Cardio-wise, I did a 25min bike at 8 resistance. I ended up taking a break around the 15 min mark. I did a 2mile run on the treadmill at 1.5 incline. Overall, I feel slightly out-of-shape, having to push myself mentally alot more than I am used to. I felt that way as well during my weights workout, where a combination of gaining weight (177lb now) and having a sedentary lifestyle for the last 3 weeks is requiring extra effort to push through mentally.