Day 260: I can do half pull ups… Saturday did not go according to plan… There was disorganisation, grumpiness, tears, a lemon meringue pie that went wrong (by the standards of other lemon meringue pies I have made). There was also some study for my Gym Instructor course and a trx/pull up based work out on my new toy…

I have a bargain pull up bar 🙂 It was in T K Maxx clearance section which is always good 🙂 I needed something to hang my TRX on , as in my last experiment I realised that my “interesting” Victorian doors don’t close properly and thus drop your TRX on you at inconvenient moments.

I have hung my TRX safely from the bar and now it is all happy and secure…

secure on this bar, that jams into the doorway and stays up using some form of anti-gravity magic…

So I did a trx work out instead of the run I planned, but, considering I had realised on day 259 that I should only do two days running in a row max, this was probably a good thing!

I went twice through a circuit that consisted of:
5 x rows
5 x chest press
5 (per leg) x slow mountain climbers
5 x pike plank with abduction
5 x jack knifes
5 x muscle ups
5 (per leg) x 1 legged squat
(I confess, I forgot my list…it is at home…I will check it later…)
I then did
2 x 10 squats
2 x 10 inverted chest flys
and as I had a pull up bar, I did 10 x (assisted) pull ups and 10 x (assisted) chin ups.
Assisted by a chair, the I put my legs on straight out so I couldn’t help myself pull up with my legs, but I didn’t have to lift my whole bodyweight…It is a start!
I did try one full pull up…it was more of a jump with a barely controlled descent…I think it will be a while until I am there…

Day 260 complete 🙂

Day 261 Pilates and running in the same Sunday… Sunday morning would not be complete without Pilates, I really enjoy it! I have said before that I didn’t expect to like it as much as I do…but as I said, Sunday would not be complete without it.

By far the hardest exercise is the v-sit, but I am pleased to say I am definitely getting better at it 🙂 I like the progression I am noticing with Pilates, there are definitely things I couldn’t do when we started that I am now finding, if not easy then doable 🙂 I also like that Sarah the instructor gives so many levels as options, there are always basic version s and ways to make it harder if I feel like a challenge. It pleases me that I always at least attempt the challenge 😀

After Pilatesing (again…yes…that is a verb…and i am allowed to make up words it is in my job description…ok it isn’t…but it should be…) I decided to go for a run.

I got myself along to the Billingshurst sports fields which I have walked around on other occasions, the one with the “trim trail” It was a lovely sunny morning and I was determined to take advantage of it 😀

I set off to complete day 3 week 2 of my 10k training with was 11 x (run 3 min walk 1 min) and a warm up and cool down walk… I was relatively optimistic and  looking forward to trying a new running place 🙂 Soon after I set off, I realised that this particular running place was a little more hilly than I noticed while I was walking it, and the hills were over a shorter distance, thus steeper than I am used to.

ok…by real world standards, this course was still not actually hilly…but there were noticeable slopes!

It was shortly after I realised there were slopes, that I realised that I really am rubbish at running up hill! despite the fact that the climb was only about 45m over about 600m which is not that much really…I still slowed right down and my legs decided they were going to hate me…

On the plus side, the downhills at the other end of the field were much nicer 😀

The other plus side was that none of my apps crapped out on me and I got the full gambit of data…

which in this case meant that I knew exactly how slowly I had been going and exactly how much less I had done than the previous run!

Ahh well…at least I am sure it was because of the “hills”.

I am also pretty pleased that I am undaunted by running (even intervals) for 53 mins these days…I am sure not so long ago I would have been somewhat put off by that 😀

The other plus side is that  now know I need to work on my leg strength to help with my hill running for the 10k in April! Squats, pistol squats and single leg deadlifts will be my new best friends!!

Day 261 complete 😀