I know that so many folks around the LHRL group are strong.  Crazy strong.  I don’t consider myself to be physically strong when I see what the Olympic lifters and Crossfitters in our group are up to.  But I changed my mind.  Early in August I renovated/replaced the roof on my 80+ year old garage.  It’s a great garage.  Perfect for me and my life.  However, if it rains inside the garage when it rains outside, it’s time to address the issue.  The process was simple:  remove all the old roof layers down to the original boards, replace rotted or cracked boards, put new roof material back on.  I took 2 days off work and started on a Wednesday night. Two full days of removal and two full days of replacement work (my dad came to help with replacement).  Then another 5 hours of caulking.  So much caulking.  Northern Michigan winters are brutally hard on roofs.  Freeze, thaw, sideways snow, freezing rain, etc. More caulk is just better as far as my building inspector is concerned apparently.

Now, I want to note a couple things.  I’m nearly 48 years old.  I’m carrying 25 lbs too much on my frame. I have a disc issue in my lower back and my neck.  I do body weight strength and lighter weights than most when I strength train.  I use the LHRL app for my programming and it’s 1-3 days a week of strength.  I run 3-5 days a week.

Even after all those hours of brutal work on my roof with the removal of the material and the up and down on the ladder so many times and hauling material on to the roof and hauling myself on to the roof and my body felt great.  Tired.  But GREAT.  And I mean that.  My back never hurt.  My neck never hurt. My muscles stood the test of the project and came through with flying colors.

What I want to say is that you can strength train for so many reasons and health should always be one of them.  It’s about long term health and happiness and the fitness to live your life the way you want to live it – whatever that means to you.  I proved to myself that I may not be able to do traditional strength work and go to Crossfit or do Oly lifting but I’m strong and I take care of my body.

That’s my old and new roof!  To celebrate, I took the week off all strength training and did some speedwork and then a decent trail run at a local ski trail system.  That was enjoyable and the biting flies are done!  That’s a big reason to get back out on the trails. The main opening image for this post is from those trails that day.

Check out that sunrise below from my local high school track/football field.  (The sad part is that the sun is that orange because of smoke in the atmosphere from western wildfires.)  I’ve only been in this community for 10 months and have been enjoying the amazing track they have.  I ran track events a little in high school and I do love being there and doing speedwork.  It’s “fun” and makes me feel young again.  Get out there and enjoy the last weeks of summer if you can where you are or get ready for all the glory of fall running!