Saying Good-Bye to Cardio

When I was a little girl, and for as far back as I can remember my dad used to make me and my brother run.  I’m not talking about a light jog on sunny weekends.  I’m talking everyday rain, shine or snow, running laps either around the neighbourhood, field, park or ravine.  For me, it was the absolute most dreaded thing on the planet earth.  I was have rather crushed one hundred red hot chillies and smeared them in my eyes than have to go for my daily run.  I actually, inwardly rejoiced when I got sick enough that I couldn’t run.  For the first 15 years of my life, I swore that when I was an adult, I would NEVER run again.

130426-Quin-Sprinting-048

Well that never happened.  As soon as I moved out on my own, what did I find myself doing?  Running.  Mind you, I was never a natural runner who could run for miles and feel great.  It pretty much always felt like death, especially after taking a break for a few weeks.  So it shocked me that it became my chosen form of exercise.  I guess I have to thank my dad for giving me that gift of fitness, even though it took me 20 years to accept it.

As I became a mother and approached the big “3-0”,  I faced the constant battle I think pretty much every girl faces: low self-esteem related to weight issues (whether obvious to anyone else or not) multiplied with post-pregnancy weight and extra flabbiness pummelled my self-worth.  The amount of running and exercise I had to do to keep me comfortably in my clothes, skyrocketed.  It became a downward spiral of doing hours of cardio, counting and eating minimal calories, feeling completely low on energy, and hungry ALL THE TIME.

Enter, P90X and Insanity.  These two programs made a huge impact on my fitness perspective.  They were time intensive, but they gave me strength, muscular definition and a fitness level I never achieved by running alone.  If I have an hour to spare exercising a day, I still love to pop in a P90X, X2, or Insanity workouts to get my sweat on.  But most days, having that much time to workout is a luxury.

The balancing act of life; managing multiple businesses, growing up two little boys, cooking healthy meals for my family, exercising, travelling, serving our church community, requires that to do it all, something’s got to give.  Today, I’ve given up cardio.  That is, steady-state cardio.  Never again will you find me running for hours on end.  Instead, I’ve traded that for 20 minutes of intense hill sprints which not only pushes cardio to the max, but is one of the best ab workouts I’ve ever done.  It makes me happy to think I don’t have to run for an hour to reach my fitness goals.  I can do it in 20 minutes.

I’ve also traded in lifting light weights hundreds of reps, for lifting heavy and building strength.  So good bye silly pink 5 lb dumbells, I’m going for the big boys.   I say forget being skinny, I’d rather be strong.

Oh, and I’m also not hungry 24-7.  Hallelujah!

DAVE’S GEEKY BEHIND-THE-SCENES (BTS) SPRINT SHOOT NOTES

I’ve been forcing myself to shoot everything everyday with the Fuji X100s to get to know it: for better and for worse.

Fuji X100s settings for this shoot: RAW capture. 3-stop Neutral Density engaged. 3x Nikon SB900’s triggered at full power via Pocketwizard’s Nikon ControlTL system (TT1 + AC3 on cam; TT5 on each SB900’s).

Fuji X100s with 3-stop ND engaged:  1//250  .  f5.6  .  ISO200

Fuji X100s firing radio flashes: 1//250 . f5.6 . ISO200

No impressive super-high sync achievable. Weird: because the other day I was getting 1/1000 sync via the same system, though it would only work for a few shots, then fail until I cycled all flashes + TT5’s off then on again.

Sadly 1/250 wasn’t quite fast enough to freeze Quin while sprinting (you can see some jitter around Quin on the previous page’s image).

But here’s the cool part and why I’m excited: I was able to control the power of my remote Nikon SB900’s via the Pocketwizard TT1’s + AC3 on the Fuji X100s hotshoe! The system was reliable for this shoot with the only mis-fires due to overworked strobes.

I should note this was a short shoot because it got *really* windy (gusting up to 70km/h).

More testing needed as this was just 1-camera with 1-transmitter firing 3 flashes all ganged on the same group. Wondering if Pocketwizards fall apart when multiple cameras trigger the same lights ….

Shoot-position control of remote flashes is most awesome for lighting Geeks like me, so color me happy … for now 🙂

Would love to hear from anyone with a Fuji X100s + Pocketwizard ControlTL for Canon – does it work for you too?

Below is a list of the gear used for this shoot. (The three strobes were mounted to the stand via a custom-made aluminum mount.)

THANK YOU! + THE NotSo FINE PRINT

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