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Tuesday night, I simply didn't have time for a normal workout. But I had a ten minute window between ordering take-out and going to pick it up. I walked out to the garage, completed Cosgrove's Evil 8 @ 65# in 9 minutes, then headed out the door.

That, my friends, is how you balance your life with your fitness goals.

Yes, I skipped my usual kettlebell swing warm-up and the farmer walks. No, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll do both tonight at the usual time.

Both the barbell and on-bike intensities stepped up this week, but it's still full speed ahead.

Last week went so well that I was concerned that the training load would be too low to actually trigger any fitness gains. But, I'm older and wiser than I used to be, and just stuck to the plan, knowing it would ramp up.

And this week feels just right. The intensity makes each workout tough, but the low volume lets me recover and be ready for the next one.

The bathroom scale (which I trust to be consistent, if not precisely accurate) says I'm gaining muscle. My weight has increased from around 186 to 188, and I've dropped from 20% body fat to around 18.5%. So, it seems that I've gained about 3 lbs. of muscle, and dropped a pound or so of fat. I'll take that, for now. Once my lean body weight reaches 155 lbs. or so, it'll be time to really focus on losing fat.

Litvinovs should do the trick, but they'll also make me hate the universe and everything in it. So I'm saving those for the next time my wife leaves town on business.

So, it seems that everything is in place. Nothing left to do but simply do the work, and maybe switch to a more fat-burning weight workout sometime in late February. "Bus bench training" indeed.