As it turns out, I didn’t play all that much badminton, it’s always just a nit of a free for all and nobody ever really sticks to the plan about times and courts and teams. It’s very frustrating because you spend ages getting in and out of town to go to training (took me 45 minutes in traffic this time getting in) the you get hardly any badminton played and very little meaningful exercise for your efforts. Still, given it was supposed to be a ‘taking it easy da after my run yesterday it probably just about served as a decent warm up and down and a bit of exercise.

I also got back into the 8 minute ab workout programme I have been trying to do (unsuccessfully) every day. The 4 weeks off and overindulgence in food and drink while away skiing have taken their toll, I am now about 5lbs heavier than when I went away and that evil little belly has reared it’s ugly head again. Bastard

The badminton season finishes up this week with a match and after that I think I will go back to the squash which I had to give up because it clashed with badminton. They have serous training every week with a coach and a ladder system and everything which I think will suit my temprement a bit better (ie the badminton was a pile of arse and a complete waste of time for getting fit, so I’m going to try squash!!)

In summary, today was an ok day at best, things really need to improve!!

Ryan Phillips is a dj on spin1038 in Dublin. He is training for the Dublin city marathon 2010 on Monday 25 October 2010 and this is his training blog. This was day 120 of training, Tuesday 23 February 2010. Check back for more tomorrow!

Arse. So no cardio work for the next 4 days then, that can be taken as a given. But today is 1 January 2010, and that means a month of detox with no junk food or crisps, or alcohol. Eeek. It’s not quite a full month, because Orla’s cousin and her boyfriend are coming over to stay with us on 28 January, so I’m going to do to then without any bad stuff, then let myself have a few (a lot) of drinks when they are over.

I’ve also started doing ABs work, because I’ve been told that strong abs is a really important aspect of marathon running. I found a really cheesy 8 minute abs workout video on youtube. It’s from 1994 and it’s cheesy as hell, but I’m going to try and do it every day for the month of January and see if I see any improvement. If so I’ll keep going, if not I’ll back it in. Just need to be sure I don’t end up injuring my back trying to do them exercises!

That's me that is....

That’s the lot!

Anyway, ate my weight in junk food and wine again today, together with truck load of booze and the races at leopardstown (abandoned due to fog after 4 races, and I was only there for 2…arse), then mate up with one of my best mates who is about to emmigrate to Canada (eh) for a few years. So good for the spirit if bad for the health and fitness, can’t win all the time.

Not the Gym, strictly speaking...

I find it funny that even the best laid plans and intentions can still come unstuck when you’re tight for time. The plan today was to go the gym before going to my God Daughter’s Christening. But then my alarm went off at 7.30, which is very early for a Saturday morning, so I knocked it off. When I woke back up it was 9.30 and then I had to go to Dundrum to buy wrapping paper and get things laminated and finish of my Christening presents, and by the time that was all said and done it was time to leave and go on to the Christening, and straight from their to a family lunch in the Bijou to a night in Cafe en Seine.

So despite setting the alarm early to try and make sure I got training in, I maintained my recent run of bad form by doing absolutely zero training.

Arse.

And here’s the little trouble maker that ruined my training plans for today….she’s too cute to stay angry at though!!

The trouble maker that ruined my training!

Watch Out BOD

Firstly, the good. I played a full hour of squash and run around like a lunatic chasing balls I was never going to reach. Having been humiliated off the court last week, I managed to hold my own (I’m being modest, I killed him) today, and a good workout was had by all.

Then however, we move on to the bad.

The Bad

And of course, then the ugly….

The Ugly

I don’t really know what happened to be honest. I arrived home and was going to to straight to the gym, but I needed to go and drop my laptop upstairs and go to the toilet. Then I took some Rubex for my cold, and a phone call from a friend about a law thing, and next thing you know, I had stuffed all this lot down my gob and not gone to the Gym at all.

I’d like to say it pretty much balances out, but while the crisps and coke are relatively low fat and low in bad stuff, the sour sweets and M & S chocolate bites are most certainly not, and there’s no way I exercised off anywhere near that number of calories in 1 hour of playing squash at my leve.

Arse to it anyway, this has been a bad day at the metaphorical office…

Arse to it anyway….

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