Outdoor fitness challenge and Parliament House relay

This morning it was chilly when I headed off to the fitness challenge. Fortunately I was wearing a jacket although I was wishing I'd worn two. I tried to remember some of the things I'd learned at Friday's cycling lesson. It certainly felt easier riding with my toes on the pedals instead of the middle of my foot.

Our session this morning was a circuit. The various stations were labelled with activities such as military presses, side crunches, shuttle run, pushups, bicep curls, lunges, squats, crunches and dips. After our warm up run we got a demo of all the activities and then we were in to it. I was partnered up with Clare, which was a hoot. She's excellent company. We were getting the whole "boot camp" treatment from Krissi for a while there. For some reason we seemed to synchronise our "breaks" with Krissi or Brad paying us attention. For example, what were the chances that when we both worked out our necks were sore doing side crunches and we stopped to discuss it that one of the trainers would be on their way over to see how we were going? Also, it seemed perfectly reasonable to us to do a slow shuttle run and chat on the way. Unfortunately Krissi didn't seem to think we were getting value for money.

After a few stations we worked out that if we got started quickly and had the form right straight away we'd get left alone. Then, to my amusement, Clare turned into a mini-me version of Krissi, hustling the people in front of us off to their next station and then stirring them up when they slowed down on the triceps dips. It was hilarious.

I really struggled with a couple of exercises. My arms were like spaghetti. I'm putting it down to last night's swimming. I was running out of energy really quickly. I didn't even attempt to do real pushups and my dips were terrible. I liked Krissi's attitude though. She told me that as long as I was doing 100% with what I had left in my arms then that was fine. I hadn't thought of it like that.

We did the circuit a couple of times (shorter the second time around) and then finished off split into two teams. The other team had to do the shuttle run while my team did 300 dips. Fortunately, we were able to do them as a relay, so we ended up with 50 dips each. We did them in sets of 10. It's amazing how motivating it is to have the other five people counting the set for you.

During the cool down people were complaining that everything hurt. Jess said even her eyelashes were sore. After the normal stretches, Brad did a special eyebrow stretch for Jess. It might be one of those things that you have to be there for, but it was hilarious seeing him stretch one eyebrow and then the other.

On my ride home I had an unpleasant pedestrian experience. I was on the footpath and a large gentleman (tall and broad) came around the corner. Instead of walking around me, he stayed really close to my side of the path and then, as he passed me, he swung his arm into my handlebars. I ended up having to step off the bike as it came to a complete halt. I don't understand why people have to do things like that. He must be carrying a lot of anger to have footpath rage at 7:45 am in the morning.

This evening I was running in the Parliament House relay. 1-2-1 Personal Training had two teams entered. There were eight runners on each team. One of our girls on my team pulled out with late notice so one of the people on the faster team volunteered to run for us as well. Not only that, but Michael came and ran the last 500m with a number of us as well, which was really encouraging.

I was the fifth runner. I'd thought beforehand that I'd probaly get around in 11 or 12 minutes. It took me 11:30, so I was pretty much on track. I did the first km in 6:20 and I was on about 6:40 pace for the second according to my Garmin. The course was a little longer than a mile. I measured it at 1.77 km.

Kellie managed to talk Sharon from her workplace bootcamp sessions into doing the relay, telling them that she would run their lap with them. I volunteered to split the lap with Kellie, so I met up with them part of the way around and then ran the rest with Sharon. I was really looking forward to the second run, even though I struggled through the first one. I am still amazed at times by the difference in my attitude to exercise. It's gone from a burden into something that's fun even when it's hard.

I don't know how many teams were entered but there were people everywhere. The faster runners were doing the circuit in about 6 minutes. When Sharon and I were running the last 500 m we were passed by a group of guys who were picking up the cones that marked the course. Michael still had to run a lap after the course was packed away.

One of the course officials suggested that the team ran back to meet Michael and run the last part of the course with him. He ended up with a pack of runners coming in with him. I don't know how much we were behind the other teams, but we were well and truly last. It didn't matter as we'd been out there and we'd done it!

Lola made it along after her chemo session yesterday. It was great to see her. She was in excellent form and was taking photos for us. There were a couple of cameras so I'm sure there will be photos up on facebook soon.