TandemHearts

I get asked a lot what I do to have  such great arms.  Thom came to an upper body training session and a picture is worth a 1,000 words – more or less. (more…)

Thom came to my trainer session Wednesday morning and took photos. It amazes what he can do with that camera. He took probably 40 or 50 photos, and we have whittled that down to these six.

The tire weighs somewhere between 100 and 150 pounds according to my trainer. I flipped it over ten times then low crawled back to the beginning, did twenty jumps and then kicked Shawna 15 times on each side. I didn’t really kick her, she was wearing mitts. I did that routine four times.

The second routine started with sideways jumps. Jump into the tire pop up and out onto the other side. Do that twenty times.

Next was 30 step taps.

Then take off and sprint as fast as you can for about 30 yards, turn around and sprint back.

Do this group three times. The last round instead of sideways jumps, I got to jump forward – way easier!

My workout started at 5:15 AM and ended at 6:15. It was great, but tiring!

Clicking on a thumbnail will bring up a larger picture.

Stupid quotation.  It’s on the front of my training log, along with this picture. 

  It’s suppose to inspire me. (more…)

I asked an experienced group of people what I should carry in my first aid kit, and they responded, “What do you know how to use?” A little reflection showed that it has been 20 years since either of us had formal first aid training. We decided that was not a good thing and signed up for a Wilderness First Aid course. This 2 day course is an introduction to first aid. The “real” serious wilderness medicine course is an 80 hour course. We don’t have time for that this year, so we’ll get by with the 16 hour course.

The course focuses on identifying the severity of injury or illness so you can decide do you “stay and play” or “load and go”.  Treat what you can, stabilize what you can’t treat.  More than half a day was spent on just patient assessment. CPR is not covered. (Did you know that only about 5% of the people who get CPR outside of a hospital survive?)

The course uses scenario based training, where students take turns being victim and responder.  So we got to have had wounds, road rash, broken limbs, and hypothermia.

The training was very valuable. The instructors were excellent and, most impressively, the students were all engaged and knowledgeable.  All of the questions that were asked were thoughtful, probing questions.  Nobody asked about something that had been answered 10 minutes earlier.  It was a pleasant surprise.  We highly recommend the course to anyone who spends any time more than an hour beyond the range of emergency help.

The email from Thom said, “Come home early from work, I’ll make it worth your while.”  (more…)