Boxing Day Score

Once upon a time ago, I used to go Boxing Day shopping (the day after Christmas and everything is on sale) with my brothers.  We would spend hours and hours at various malls around the city shopping for clothes and electronics.  We had it down to a fine art.  Leave the house by 6:00 am and hit several stores by 7:00 am.  Sometimes we'd be done by 11:00 am when the malls where getting crazily busy, other times we'd push on through and fight the crowds and come home late afternoon.  We'd usually spent lots of money and come home with tons of stuff.

Fast forward to this year.  I had zero desire to go out although I did browse on Best Buy's website for the Boxing Day sale which started Dec 25th at 8:00 pm.  I was mulling over getting a plasma TV for the bedroom to replace the old but still working 20 inch TV.  I passed as the prices weren't cheap enough.  Something about "need" versus "want."  However, I did decide there were several things I "needed" at Running Free.  They had 25% off everything plus and additional 20% off if you spent more than $500.  We got the full 45% off everything.  We picked up three pairs of shoes, two for me and one for Tammy.  I changed my shoes after the Toronto Marathon in May and the shoes are completely destroyed.  Talk about a heel striker.  The heel is completely worn down on the right side.  We also purchased new riding shorts, gel, bathing suit, and a new foam roller

This one is a lot more expensive but different than the other foam rollers I've been buying.  This one has a hard plastic tube inside so it can't be crushed unlike the foam rollers which over time lose their shape and effectiveness.  Not this one.  They sell for $50 but with the sale, I got for 45% off.  We spent over $700 after the discount.  Ouch

Last week I went to a physio therapist downtown a the Toronto Athletic Club Clinic in one of the office towers.  Ryan had come highly recommended by Scobie and I was looking for someone to build a simple but effective workout schedule for strength training and that I could do in my basement with minimal weights (ie body weight).  I had not used any my physio coverage from my work benefits so this was perfect.  I saw him three days in a roll.  The Toronto Athletic Club is on the 36th floor of an office tower and is pretty high end.  It caters to all lot of the downtown executives.  I'm not sure what the monthly fee is but it can't be cheap however, if I worked downtown, it would be super convenient.

On the first visit, I went through a series of strength and balancing tests.  Overall I wasn't bad but came up with a failing grade with a score of 13/21.  Basically any score lower than 14 can lead the body to injuries and oddly enough, I get hurt every year.  The second and third visit were going over the program that Ryan built for me. Its a pretty basic program that focuses on the glutes and legs and can be done with minimal weights and within 30 minutes but Ryan assured me that's all I need to minimize the injuries.  This should be perfect as I thoroughly agree that I need a strength training program but could never get anyone to build me one.  We'll see how it goes