Plan - Complete a blog entry

I nearly got through the whole of the first paragraph of my exciting tale about my morning run last Tuesday. I don't remember what it was that interrupted me but it's taken me until today to get back to it.

Normally I run with Krissi on Tuesday morning, but this week I had a meeting in Melbourne to attend. There was no way known I could fit in my usual PT session and get to the airport on time. I was all set to skip it when I realised that if I got out of bed a little earlier than usual I'd be able to squeeze in an hour's run. I told Krissi and TB the plan. I find that if I tell someone that I'm running I then feel obliged to get out there and do it. Given that I've been really struggling to run on my own lately, I needed to know that they were expecting me to run as extra motivation.

It worked. I was out running just after 6 am. I headed off towards the Kaleen shops, as that's the direction I went when I first started running again. I figured it would be a good measurement of my improvement. Now, if I'd written this on Tuesday, as originally intended, there'd be a lot more detail about the run, but this is definitely going to be the condensed version.

I ran most of the way, which I was really pleased about. I stopped for a brief walk three times on the way out and only once on the way back. The 7.5 km run took me a few minutes under an hour. I quite enjoyed it, even if it was suburbia for part of the way. I prefer running on bike tracks or trails, but footpaths are ok when there's not a lot of people backing out of their driveways. There were quite a few people walking or riding their bikes but I was the only runner out that morning.

The moment I was proudest of occurred at the top of a hill. I had enough breath to say goodmorning to a woman who was waiting for her dog. Normally Krissi is in charge of greeting people. I do this kind of puff, pant, look anguished thing and, if I have enough energy, a feeble wave. Saying goodmorning after running up a hill was quite an improvement.

I was also pleased that on the way home I took the tough route up around the road to my house instead of cutting across the park. There's a hill both ways, but one is much harder than the other. Mind you, I asked myself "What would Krissi choose?" which made the choice easier. I could have asked "What would TB choose?" but he's already dragged me up along the road because it's tougher.

On Thursday I had bootcamp at lunch time. It was the last session, and it was as tough as ever. We started off with the skipping, followed by the starjumps, power squats, half burpees and pushups. I was exhausted! Then Billy had the weight plates out for us to carry. My shoulder is still sore, so I begged off this one. While the others were running back and forth carrying weight plates, I was using the resistance band, and pulling Billy across the lawn. I realised that I'd only thought I was exhausted earlier.

After that, the whole crew did the resistance band stuff. They were different variations. I was teamed up with Billy again. Not easy, let me tell you. Usually your partner takes pity on you and lessens the resistance. I think Billy was probably taking pity on me but he still worked me harder than anyone else has for that session. To finish we did squats. And we did squats. And again. Sheesh! A few stretches, and we were done. I think I'll sign up for this again next year. It's been great working out with my team mates, and it's a good break from my desk.

I was going to go to Circuit at the War Memorial with Brad after work, but I got caught up there and didn't make it. I think it's probably just as well, as I was a bit stiff and sore later in the day.

On Friday I wasn't feeling the best but I made it to PT. Krissi regularly says she'll work with whatever I have left and that she's happy if I give 100%. I thought, you never know, I might feel better after exercising. In fact I did. It's amazing how that works out.

It was pretty much the usual session. 25 mins on the bike. Today we just built resistance for 1 min intervals after the warmup. I think Krissi was being kind to me because I had told her I wasn't feeling well. It was still a good workout. After that we did squats. I handled the weight comfortably, which means my knee is in good shape. I'm really happy about that. We did the weird back exercise. I was having form problems with this one, because I had it in my head that I had to lift the weight higher. Now that I'm concentrating on lifting with my back and on raising my elbows rather than my hands, it's working a lot better.

I am constantly amazed by how the human body adjusts to what it is doing. With chest presses I've been doing three sets of 10 for some time now. Sometimes I only get to 8 on the second or third set, but 10 is the goal. During the first set on Friday I was lifting really well. As I got to about 8 Krissi told me that my goal was 12. I was feeling good, so I expected that I'd be able to lift the 11th and 12th time without any trouble. No way. My body was used to 10 and that's all it let me do. I squeezed them out with Krissi's assistance, but there was no way I was going to do them on my own.

We did 2 sets instead of 3 as we were running out of time. I didn't make the 10th at all on the second set. It just wasn't there. Krissi stretched me and I headed off to work. Another good PT session.

I had been going to run on Saturday morning but it was raining heavily so I skipped it. I didn't even bother to think about it today as we were moving furniture for a friend of TB's. I was mainly carrying light stuff while the guys did the heavy lifting. TB's friend lives up three sets of stairs. That was 48 stairs in each direction. I must have been up and down them about 25 times. By the end I was really having to make myself go upstairs. There was a steep driveway as well. I was glad that I wasn't pushing the trolley with the fridge on it or carrying the lounge.

Normally I would have avoided helping, but I figured it would be a good workout and I'd be saving TB some hard work on his weekend. There were four guys there, one who mainly packed the truck and three who carried. I figure I saved each of the three guys about five or six trips, given that they would have carried more stuff down at a time than me. While TB and the guys drove over to unload the stuff I headed home and collapsed!

I'm hoping TB has enough energy to cook dinner tonight!