gutted

Missed my badminton yesterday lunchtime, due to an expected delivery.

Sods Law means that of course the delivery was LATE, so I could have made badminton after all :( Mind you, if I'd gone to play the delivery would have arrived when I was away ....

Weights and such-like last night. Load of skipping (400 to be precise) to warm up followed by a couple of sets of deadlifts, bent over rows, shoulder presses and upright rows, then some kettlebell windmills to finish off.

Hopefully spin at lunchtime today, but I'm not actually feeling that great so far today. I shall see how I am a bit later in the morning.

Ouch!

Played badminton (singles) for an hour yesterday lunchtime. Lost one, won one. Actually that should more accurately read: got blitzed in the first, raced into a huge lead in the second only to nearly throw it away but hung on in there for the win ....

My kind colleagues duly informed me afterwards that I looked like I'd be lying in the sun for a week, my face was so red!

Kung fu at night. We worked our stances a lot at the start - currently we're spending some time looking at the supplementary (or very low) stances. These are pretty brutal on middle-aged knees lol. We moved on to practice our footwork then our strikes and kicks, before partnering up to work on the fighting methodology. We finished off by looking at throws and fells.

Then it was chi kung class to finish off the night.

NB I slept *really* well last night!!

Result!

I have a regular Sunday morning bike training ride that I do. I basically hammer up and down the cycle paths near where I stay. It's pretty much all off road, so not too much 'thinking' to do. There is a gradient, gradual but nippy enough in places to get the legs and CV system working. It's just under 9 miles in total, and I usually take the Garmin with me to grab my stats.

Yesterday's result: 10 mins off best time so far!! W00t etc. And - no stops at all (except for traffic lights). Normally I stop at least twice for a drink. Yesterday I was determined to power through the whole thing. Knackered at the end, esp when I reviewed my stats and realised that both my top speed and average speed were up for the whole ride. I didn't get the sense that my 'power' was that great, esp towards the end (the nippiest gradient of all).

Also had nasty headwind that seemed to be in my face no matter what sodding direction I was going ..... At least I wasn't clarted with anything like as much mud as I usually am ....

No deid!

Ok, so I'm not dead after all!

I've felt like it sometimes - a lot has happened since I last posted here :=)

Quick summary: the focus of my training has changed quite a lot since my last entry. I finally bought a new bike. I had inherited a friend's road bike - it scared me half to death - so I decided to replace it with a Specialized Ariel hybrid, which I love very much. It is currently an extremely grubby bike but it is my pride and joy :-)

I'm still not a great cyclist - it's been a *long* time since I was last on a bike - but I'm getting there. Hills are still not my friends either, but I'm gradually learning the right gears to use to make things easier on my legs. I try to get at least one ride of 8 - 10 miles in over the weekend, more if I can manage it. As the nights get lighter I'll hopefully get out more. I fit in longer runs at the weekend when I can. I particularly enjoyed my run out to Craigie's Farm last week (15 miles-ish round trip) - esp the lovely, lovely cake.

I'm also back playing badminton. My wee club at work is up to 3 sessions a week now, and the membership is growing. I still can't hit the site of a barn sometimes, but I'm getting faster around the court again.

I'm currently on a cycle where I'm not lifting so much weight or so often. I go through wee turns like that sometimes. No doubt when I'm on lates next week I'll be back swinging those kettlebells!