it was quite a weekend!

If any of you have ever tried to be calm and relaxed when transporting a cake you spent hours decorating in a car for 2 hours you will understand the stress I was going through on Saturday!

It goes a long way to explain why I chose to attempt to relax and suchlike on Saturday morning by doing Yoga! That and the fact that I was quite achy after Friday’s excitement!

I used my yoga app at home which negated the added stress of going to a new place and meeting new people which is something I need to do, but not on this day!

I was, of course, in my pyjamas!

I started with the sun salutation. Mainly because I have heard rumours that this is a good way to start off a yoga routine. I decided to branch out and attempt the intermediate version of this routine, it was hard. I may have overestimated my yoga ability and flexibility…which is weird, as I am very aware that I am not very good at yoga!

I followed this with a 20 min seated yoga routine which was billed as containing stretches and standard poses which increase flexibility. I needed stretching and increased flexibility so this sounded ideal. it was very good, and not in any way easy despite being carried out seated!

There were some poses that were fairly straight forward…but then there were others that defied all logic…like Archer pose…that is the one in the picture.

Somehow you have to hold on to your toes, and lift one leg up and back so you foot is near you ear while still holding on to your other toe!

It did say beginners could bend the floor leg…but that barely helped!

I suppose I can see the similarity with an archer, but, it is my understanding that archers come equipped with bows and arrows and never have to resort to firing their own leg. surely this would cause them to become unbalanced very soon…and out of ammo!

I know about archers…loook…here is a picture!

No contortions involved!

anyhow, I seem to have become sidetracked. I know this is very rare for me…

the yoga helped relax me and stretching was very welcome! I did feel better after the session! I also remembered (yet again) that yoga is harder than I think!

The rest of Saturday was spent attending my Dad’s wedding which was a very nice way to spend the day 🙂 the only tiny mar on the day was me missing a step completely and landing on my bent back toes causing bruises!

Sunday had less cake stress, which is always good 🙂

It  had some travelling back down the country and some falling asleep in an unproductive way, possibly due to the 2am bedtime…

It also had still bruised toes that hurt when I bent them, and consequently when I walked, this scuppered my plans to go on an afternoon run.

I therefore transmuted my plans into an afternoon tabata session which involved very little in the way of bouncing around on my toes, but was by no means easy!

I did the standard tabata timing of (20s work, 10s rest) x 8 and I did it for 6 different exercises:

Double handed Kettlebell swings:
11/11/11/11/11/11/11/11

Kettlebell Squat Presses:
7/7/7/7/7/7/7/7

Crunches:
12/11/12/12/12/12/14/14

Kettlebell Snatch
8/8/8/7/8/7/8/8

Squat Jumps / squats alternating:
14/9/11/9/13/8/11/11

Kettebell High pull:
9/10/10/10/9/9/9/9

I have just looked back to the last time I did tabata and 3 of the exercises are the same (KB swings, squat press, crunches) and in all of them I improved my reps in most of the intervals 😀 woohoo progress! I should do this more often and see if I can improve more!

All in all it was a pretty tiring weekend, but it was a good one 😀

Days 289 & 290 complete 🙂