Hockey, gym, boxing and running

If I updated my blog more frequently it wouldn't sound like so much exercise!

On Sunday night I played twilight hockey. It's a mixed comp, with a max of 5 men on the team. Fortunately we had 7 men and 8 women, so we were able to sub regularly. I started on and played the first half, so I was glad of a break at the start of the second half. When I went back on, I played inner, which was fun for a change, as I'm usually a defender.

During the game I had one of those "Wow, all this exercise is paying off!" moments. I took off after someone, sprinting as fast as I could. Now, normally this means that I'm trailing the other player and getting further behind, but I actually caught up with them and then stayed with them! I didn't make the tackle, but gee I put her under pressure. I was going to tell her how excited I was that I kept up, but my sensitive side stopped me when I realised she was 20 years or more younger and might not appreciate an "old lady" making that comment.

On the way home I had another of those "WATEIPO" moments. I may have mentioned before that there is a hill on the way to my house from the hockey centre. It's always a struggle to walk up it after a game of hockey. I plod along, lifting up my feet, which feel like lead in my hockey boots, asking myself "What on earth do you think you're doing, running around on a hockey field? Why didn't you drive over to the hockey centre?" etc. This Sunday I was walking up the hill realising that it was much easier than it had been before. I was so stoked I forgot to show TB my injuries. Don't worry, I showed him a couple of days later when the bruising looked impressive.

I didn't check the bootcamp timetable before I went to the gym on Monday night. If I had, I might not have been so enthusiastic about doing an upper body workout. It's been quite a while since I made it to the gym, so I was determined to get there on Monday. There were new faces everywhere, behind the counter and around the gym. After being a regular there for so long it was quite strange to be anonymous. Fortunately I soon ran into a few people that I knew and the place started to feel like "my" gym.

I pretty much did my old workout, cutting the leg work right back to one set of walking lunges and one set of hip abductor exercises. My right shoulder has been sore since carrying the 20kg weight plates and dragging the tyre, so I paid attention to it to make sure I didn't make it any worse. I only had to cut one set of one exercise back from 12 reps to 8 reps, as it was getting tired. I managed to get quite a sweat up while I was working, which was a good sign that I was pushing myself hard enough. I find it all too easy to slack off a little when I don't have a trainer watching me.

On the way out of the gym I had a huge smile on my face. I was feeling so happy. You've got to love that exercise high.

On Tuesday morning we had a cardio-boxing session at Lennox Gardens. After our warmup we were put into groups of three, one punching, one holding the pads and one doing a shuttle run. We went through a series of one minute each doing four different punches, jabs, hooks, uppercuts and jab/hook combinations before our first real break and then did another series of one minute doing crosses, uppercuts, and a four punch combination. It was hilarious trying to do the four punch combination. I couldn't get the pads right for my poor punching partner, although I was trying hard. She was punching faster than I could move them.

After the cooldown, Krissi and I went off on our run. My legs felt like lead from the beginning. Krissi was taking me off somewhere new too, which meant that I didn't know what to expect. The first run somewhere I'm always a little anxious. We headed off towards Parliament House so I had seen the first part of the run before. That helped me to relax. Mind you, I was feeling whingey. Luckily Krissi has a complete lack of sympathy for minor whinges. I was able to moan "My legs don't want to do this" without her saying "Oh you poor thing, we'd better stop now."

As we jogged along I was paying attention to the fact that I'd never managed to do this part of the run before without stopping to walk. I didn't think it was worth mentioning to Krissi, as we're both over the "Oh my goodness, you haven't walked" commentary now, but I was internally telling myself how great it was. I don't think I'm ever going to get over the fact that I can run now. And, when I think about it, why should I?

The first part of the run is a bike path which turns into a pathway as it nears Parliament House. Even though we were shaded by trees most of the way through this section, it's a lot hotter when we run now. I was wishing I'd drunk more water before we started. Fortunately, there was a bubbler at the top of the hill when we reached the road immediately around Parliament House. We ran around the back of the building on paths, through a car park and over a bridge before reaching another path to run on. It almost felt like we were out in the country, except there we'd just crossed a large intersection and there were people walking along on their way to work. We made our way towards the front and then ran down towards Old Parliament House. It was as though we were doing a tourist route.

It was amazingly pretty. We were in among the trees, running on beautifully kept paths, and then we were running beside and around attractive well-maintained buildings. We ran across the park, on the far side from the tent embassy, down across reconciliation place and through the middle of the flags, facing across the lake towards Anzac Parade and the War Memorial. It was like running in the middle of a set of post cards. We ran along the edge of the lake back to Lennox Gardens.

When we got back to our stopping place we were ten minutes early, so we did another lap of Lennox Gardens, which was a bonus as it meant we got to see the cute duck family again. Once my legs would have said, "Stopping place means you have to stop" but they have the ability to go a little further now. When we did finally stop we'd been running for 55 minutes. It was such a lovely run.