Anyway, I got back into the gym after 3 days and it felt great to be doing some exercise. I’ve been trying to figure out an exercise timetable for the New Year after realising that it’s 10 months to the Marathon on Christmas day. I need to get jogging and swimming into the training regime, because cycling and cross training will only get me so far! I was thinking of doing 3 days on, 1 day off, like this Jog – Swim – Cyle & Cross train – Day Off – in a cycle like that. But I’m wondering if that’s going to be too much without a day off. And maybe I Should try Jog – Swim – Day Off – Cycle & Cross Train – Jog – Day Off – Swim – Cross Train/Cycle – Day Off

Still trying to work it out. I still have to get down to Amphibian King to try and get a proper pair of runners too, but having talked to my physio friend, it looks like I will need inserts or orthotics, so even good decent runners might not do the trick.

Here’s the money shot from yesterday’s training!

Huzzah!!

I guess this is probably the first of what I am assuming will end up being many injuries. It’s always frustrating to get a small injury that keeps you off training for a few days, as you loose momentum really quickly. Anyway, when it happens it happens, hopefully it will fix itself and be fine in the next few days!

My Back Fixer!

It’s a bit mad to think that I’m nearly 3 weeks into this training regime thing. I have to say I don’t feel that I’m any fitter or have more energy or anything, but I guess you probably don’t really notice things like that over night do you?? By the way, operation “touch my toes” is making steady progress. I’m incredibly inflexible and have never been able to touch me toes, but I’ve to stretch every day now before and after exercise, so hopefully when I’ve been stretching every day for a year I’ll be able to touch my toes. It’s a small thing, but worthy of mention, I feel.

Where all the magic (and by that I mean sweating) happens

I”ve been at this training lark for nearly 2 weeks now, and I’m feeling really good about myself and my progress, which I’m describing as very slow, but steady. I told my friend Deirdre the other day that I was going to run the marathon next year, and she laughed, which I thought was a little mean! But she’s probably right to laugh, I’ve come up with schemes like this many times before and never followed through with them. Plus, in the 5 years or so that she’s known me, I don’t think she’s ever seen me do one minute’s exercise, let alone anything that would inspire confidence that I could ever hope to run 26.2 miles. I told Orla about it, and she said that maybe I shouldn’t tell people I was running the marathon yet, in case I didn’t end up doing it. That misses the point of the marathon blog. One of the reasons I’m shouting from the rooftops that I’m running it is so that I have to go through with it. The more people that know, the better, the more pressure I’ll feel and a sense of responsibility to them to follow through on this.

Anyway, having duly convinced myself of my own righteousness, I sulked off to the gym. My standard routine at the minute is 20-25 minutes on the sit down bike, and 20 minutes on the cross trainer. I’m still not touching the threadmill for fear of injuring myself and am happy just to be doing anything that raises the heart rate, burns calories and makes me sweat. The above regime does all of those things admirably. One of my favourite pasttimes in the gym is people-watching. Not in a pervy way (and not just because I’ve never seen a good looking girl in our gym), but more in a “ooooooh, that’s how you use that thing” kind of way. Sometimes you see people who clearly know what they’re doing, sometimes you see people who make you fear for their personal well being the way they are wrapping themselves around any particular machine. Often, they make me feel very bad about myself, being fitter, healthier and generally in a better state of repair than am I. But that can also be quite motivating, and make you push yourself so that hopefully one day you can be the person that makes someone else feel bad about themselves!! Hurrah!

I often find weekend training the hardest, because it’s the weekend and training feels a lot like work, but it can also be quite rewarding when it goes well, which it did today, so lets put it down as a good day today, and go watch the X-Factor!!

My Reward