Thanks everyone

Thanks for all the encouraging comments. I appreciate your support. Andrew, congratulations on your own marvellous achievement, and on staying there! Celeste, I'm sure you'll get there when you're ready. (The speed on the treadmill is only for a minute or so at a time!)

Now for my exercise update.

This morning I did an nice easy cardio - Fatburner at 5.6 km/h on level 6 for 20 mins, then a bit of walking on the level, some stretching and I was done. This evening I did my weights session as planned. I managed two full sets of chinups without a break. To get used to the weight I was managing as many as I could, then dropping back to finish first one set, then the second. I finally had the weight the whole way through, but had to rest part way through the second set. It was great to get through both sets without stopping until the end.

I upped the weight on my leg exercises. It's a bit like running, you have to be careful not to take it up too much all at once. As I'm a natural bludger, I find increasing in small steps quite an easy approach to follow. I got through the whole program, even the dreaded roll downs. I'm supposed to do 2 sets of 10, but I've only been doing 1. I decided that I'd build up to the second set in stages, so I did 12 rolldowns tonight. I'm going to increase by 2 each time I do my program, so I should be doing the full two sets in a couple of weeks.

I was watching this woman at the gym. She was using heavy weights and seemed to be going at it with incredible vim and vigour, but her technique was all over the place. I really wanted to check with her was she trying to do a "one arm row" at one stage, because there was no way that she was using her back properly, but she was so gung-ho that I thought she might get insulted if I approached her. I wish I knew whether or not you can make suggestions to people. I always err on the side of caution. I did have a "Dirty Dancing" flashback though. Her arms were all wrong at one stage, and I had this "spaghetti arms" quote going through my brain. At least I didn't say it out aloud.

I was chatting to one of the team members at the gym and was invited to join her and some of the others on Monday for a walk (it's a public holiday here in Canberra). Some of the group are running and some are walking. I bumped into one of the others later and was again asked if I'd like to do the walk. I think I'll go along, but I'm going to join the running group. I checked how fast they'll be going and they'll do the 5km in about 34 mins. That's a bit fast for me, but I'll keep up as long as I can or I'll just run along behind them.

I've booked myself in for RPM tomorrow. If I still have the energy I'll do the Pump class too, then I'll come home for an afternoon nap! I don't have quite so much on socially, so I should be able to do some serious relaxing over the weekend.