Midterm #3

This year I think that Iv'e reached both of my goals that I set at the start of the year. Iv'e gotten much stronger because Iv'e started lifting weights almost everyday and doing things like push ups or sit ups. Also doing yoga has also (Surprisingly) had an effect on my strength. The endurance goal may not be as achieved as the strength one because I only just learnt how to pace, but I still think that through pacing I will be able to get better and better at running long distances without stopping. I still think I deserve a low A because my level of fitness has increased a little, I still am trying as hard as I was in September and I think I'm getting better at team sports. Fitness still remains the thing that I try hardest in. The only change that has occuered since the start of the year is that fitness has become my favourite  activity that we do in gym. Mainly because after it's over I feel like Iv'e actually done something instead of stand and wait for someone to pass the ball to me. One activity that I wasn't so great at was football. I had never played before and I'd wanted to try something new that day. I was ignored by my teammates , perhaps it's because they could tell that I had no idea what to do. One goal that I did not reach is the goal of getting back to the gym. Even though I haven't gone to an actual gym I have been working out on my own, in my room. There are a few reasons why I haven't gone, the two major ones being a busy schedule and not being confident enough but I won't get too far into a sea of excuses. To get better by June my only goal is to try to get back into the gym, it's been way too long and if I want to gain more muscle and work on my endurance even more the gym is where I'll be able to work on these goals.

(After our last community run)

One thing that I was proud of was my time on the last community run. I got around 25:42 and my goal was to get 25. Although I didn't get to my goal I think that I was very close. This is my fastest time and I think during the run I too only four brief breaks.I think that this shows that Iv'e made an effort to better my running endurance and succeeded in this. Outside of school iv'e tried getting more active. I do weekly yoga. walk everywhere and do weights at home. As Iv'e said in previous posts I try to eat as healthily as I can, which isn't hard when your diet is completely plant based. So in conclusion I don't think Iv'e changed a lot, I still think I deserve a low A and I'm steadily trying to improve my level of fitness and overall health.

Learning to pace

 (A very unflattering picture after I had finished running)

Last Friday when Ms.Miles was talking about pacing I realized something I didn't know how to or what pacing was and by extension I couldn't run efficiently. I'm used to running as fast as I can and running well for a little bit but I'd soon get too tired and stop for a breather. By the end of (For example) the community run I usually take anywhere between 4-9 breaks and I didn't like that because it made my time on the run longer. Before we did the 30 minute run on Friday I was told that to get to my goal of 6 I had to run 5 minute laps. My first lap ended up being a four minute and thirty second one and after that I had to stop. Once I slowed down to 5 minute long laps I didn't take nearly as many stops as I had on previous 30 minute runs and I reached my goal. I think that if I learn how to properly pace I can reach one of the goals that I had at the beginning of the year which was to be able to run for longer without any breaks.

Partner day

Today we were assigned partners from the senior class. I think that  the point of this day was to give both classes the chance to exhibit leadership in P.E. class. My partner was Meghan today and at first it was a little awkward because I'm not very good around new people and also most of the seniors were rather intimidating. In the small gym I learnt a new game. I think it was called bench ball, it didn't make much sense and was ruled by the senior boys. The weight room was my favourite part of today's class because it gave me a chance to talk to Megan about different techniques for building muscle. She taught me how to build muscle in my back with dumbbells. What I had to do for this was to bend over and keep my back straight, then I had to lift the dumbbells up and pull our shoulders together. Another thing that I never knew was that to do a successful pull up when you're jumping right when your hands meet the bars you have to pull immediately, hanging there for a moment won't help. I still can't do a successful pull up so I  guess I'll have to do a little more wight lifting. I also taught her a couple of my favourite arm work-outs. The first one is in a video below.

The second one is what I call 15 of 15 and basically it's 15 (Or more if you'd like) sets of five jumping jacks, five push ups and then five sit ups with no break in between the sets. Usually by the 10th one it gets tiring. We spent the remainder of the weight room time talking about different activities to do and lifting weights.

Second Term Post

I don't think my level of fitness has really changed all that much since I last graded myself. I still try very hard in most activities and I still eat very well. I have been going for walks and the occasional bike ride, so I have been doing more extracurricular activities. I've also been able to run for longer without stopping so I suppose that could show some progress, an example of this would be when I finished the community run in about 21 or 22 minutes (I'm not entirely sure, but it was somewhere around there).
As far as grades go I still think I should be at a low A because I haven't noticed too much change regarding my health and effort in this class.

My digital evidence:

After speed ball, one of the days I tried very hard on.

(Note: I had a video but it wouldn't upload, technology doesn't seem to like me.) 

As far as exercise goes, I'll be truthful, I'm really not the most physically active person. I used to go to the gym every other day and, well that eventually fell apart. My lame excuses are not having enough energy for anything after school and that the gym is a truly horrible place.I get exercise mainly through school and I always walk or ride my bike if I go anywhere (In a reasonable distance). I do sometimes work out at home by doing sit ups, push ups, lifting some weights and other easy. One of my big goals is to start exercising regularly again but that takes lots of motivation that I don't have which is the root of my problem with a lack of exercise out of school. But at the same time it also leads to how hard I push myself on fitness days because, I know I'm not going to do any physically challenging activities outside of school, when I am presented with a physical activity I might as well push myself in it
Even though my physical activity isn't that of an olympian I think I make up for it in my eating habits.  I eat very healthily, I'm a vegan, so naturally my diet is based on fruits and vegetables. I believe that diet is more important than exercising to be a healthy person so if I started going to the gym again I could probably be a lot healthier than I am now.

Active Learning Reflection

1. I'm prepared every day by bringing my gym strip and being prepared to work as hard as I can. I think I show that I'm willing to participate because I usually break a sweat and I always try to push myself. The days that I usually do well on are the fitness days and the days that we can go into the weight room because in the weight room you are not usually told what to do in there so it gives you complete control of how hard you'll work that day and what you do to work hard, I really like to have complete control over this. On the fitness days I always try to work quite hard because I think that the fitness days are for working hard, all classes are for working hard but I think fitness is more so because we're usually presented with more physically demanding challenges than classes that are not fitness. Also some of the exercises we do (Insanity, the partner 30 second on 30 second off thing etc. ) are varied in which parts of the body are used which is much more challenging and if you try hard, rewarding. The days that I have trouble with are usually the ones that we play sports because usually those classes are dominated by the big, athletic guys who think that only they and their friends should be able to touch the ball, also I don't have many sports skills (Catching, throwing, keeping track of rules etc. )

2. I don't think I bring too much to the class because I'm not really a popular person who people see and in school it seems like your opinion is only valued if you are socially visible, nor do I really try to talk to my peers which probably adds to social invisibility. I'd say that social interaction and attitude are probably my weak points because I tend to be quite bad at speaking to other people (Especially those who I go to school with) so that makes me a bit reluctant to try to speak to them. My attitude probably comes off as bad or unhealthy one because I don't really socialize much or seem all that pleased to be there but I actually do enjoy class most of the time.

3. I do push myself quite a lot on the fitness days and I always try to keep moving during the activities. I quite like the obstacle course, the 30 second on, 30 second off one and the one that Mr.Vaughn made up. My fitness goals for this year is probably cardio endurance and to work on my upper body strength.

4. To me leadership means taking charge and doing what you think is best for the group you may be leading but also being able to understand and accept other people's ideas. I'm not all that sure who is a leader in our class because there doesn't seem to be a defined leadership role that needs to be taken. (Besides the role of the teacher and the class assistants.)

5. As I said before, I really want to improve my endurance and upper body strength. I think I'm proud of how much harder Iv'e been pushing myself this year than I did in grade eight also I think my health has gotten a bit better because I eat quite healthily.

For this term I think I deserve a low A, around eighty eight or ninety percent.