Tag: strength training

Life

‘Tis the Season

theleadlesspencil

So after my last post, all the way back at the beginning of December when I was feeling focused and energised and full of the joys of the festive season, I can report that I have since done almost diddly squat in the way of running. And the ‘almost’ is only in that sentence because of one piddly 3 miler that I did on Wednesday.

I managed, during that first week of December, a mighty fine 22 miles. Then Storm Barra brought more rain and winds and I’m only ever going to be a fair weather runner. So I battened down the proverbial hatches, laid the fire, and supped generously on the Baileys.

It wasn’t just the weather. I think that this is a thing that I do. Once I roll off the wagon at this time of year, regardless of how well it’s been going already, I subconsciously decide that I’m not getting back on again, until the beginning of January. I know it’s all psychological nonsense, but now that I have come to this decision, and because it’s only fifteen days until the New Year, I’m not going to beat myself up about it too much.

And yes, I know, it’s all about ‘little and often’ and ‘if you don’t use it you lose it’ but, for now, while I’m drinking the Christmas fizz and exploring my Hotel Chocolat advent calendar (thank you so much Karen!), I’ve thrown the schedule out of the window and having a bit of a break.

Middle section of a chocolate roulade with cream and jam.
Mary Berry’s recipe – a Christmas winner every time!

And frankly, with all these storms recently hitting our shores, both literally and virally, now seems a good time to keep the chocolate cake coming and stay in a semi-permanent state of inebriation. We may as well drink it all at home as the number of party invites is dwindling, unless you’re a Tory cabinet minister.

Oh who am I kidding? I’m just not wired that way, thankfully. I can lard it with the best of them for a couple of days and then I start feeling antsy. And to be honest, my tolerance for alcohol is pants. Anything more than a few glasses and I’m rolling around in pain the next day feeling utterly sorry for myself.

So instead of running, I did manage one little cycle ride with some of the Pensby Runners cycling off shoot (PROBs) last week. And this week I have rediscovered the gym.

As Wirral Council are now taking the subs from my account for my gym membership after nearly two years of closure, I need to get my money’s worth. I did visit a couple of times this week and used some of their weight machines but I think I need to gen up again on what to do, to make this strength training useful to me.

I do occasionally harp on about strength training for women, especially older women, to ward off the likelihood of osteoporosis after menopause. But I am a bit rubbish at walking the walk, myself, on a regular basis. So while there are limits on the number of people allowed into the gym and I’m not up close and personal to too many oversized sweaty grunts, I shall look at several YouTube videos on how to do deadlifts without putting your back out, and the like, and start pumping some small bits of iron. In between eating my orange matchmakers.

Running

Bouncing Back

theleadlesspencil

This may be a blip in the continuum, so I’m treating it very cautiously.

However…

Both on Monday and last night, during my first club run in about 18 months, I felt … stronger.

Could my week of squats, plus a random array of other, non-scientifically generated, strength training exercises, already start to be paying off?

I know! It’s crazy talk.

If such results could be got from less than seven days of 10 minute efforts, it would be front page news. So, probably not.

However…

My Monday run was in the evening when I’m not at my best. With looking after Alf all day, I’m usually ker-nackered and, more often than not, likely to recline on the sofa with a glass of wine. But to get my mileage back up after a few weeks of down time, I reasoned that my small, standard but hilly 3+ mile loop was attainable and would mean less panic by Thursday.

I realised, a mile in, that I hadn’t laboured breathlessly in that first few minutes, but I wasn’t crawling either. I felt quite ‘bouncy’ generally, and although it didn’t translate to a huge time reduction, it was quite spritely for me, and I wasn’t even trying.

Tuesday night, feeling a little anxious having not been club running for an age, I let virtually everyone shoot past me and settled in with the back group of injured or relaxed runners. I actually went on ahead and then circled back one or two times as I again felt ‘bouncy’. I circled back, partly because I like to chat sometimes with people and partly because I didn’t know the route. What I thought was going to be a 5+ miler turned into nearly 7 so I’m not quite sure if they knew the route either.

An old windmill, without sails.
An ex-windmill in Neston, now probably serving as posh lodgings.

Still it meant I could take today off from running and just do a cycle. Gary took me on a local, shorter but hillier than usual route, which was nice of him. But, good for me in the long run I suppose! The hot choc and cake in our break by the boat graveyard at Sheldrakes, certainly tasted good anyway, and the local robins took a few morsels to feed their fledgelings, which probably wasn’t the healthiest, but very cute.

A robin eating cake crumbs from the table
Abandoned boats on the shore

I will be continuing with these strength exercises and monitoring my progress. If nothing else, it will be good to have some more indoor moves up my sleeves if I’m back in Leicester next week. My dad is still in hospital but he has his diagnosis at least and begun treatment. So, fingers crossed, it’s the start of an upward curve for his health and he can get back home soon.

The sun is making a bid for freedom this weekend after getting a pummelling from May’s rough winds and some lashings of rain, so I shall see if I can keep bouncing, or at the very least, feel the warmth and the start of summer.

Running

Squatting at my Dad’s

theleadlesspencil

Well that was more like it. A comfortable, steady 7+ miles at the weekend and another slightly faster 4, done yesterday.

My breathing seems fully back to normal, although, before yesterday’s run, I was walking around like John Wayne. Who knew that doing a few squats and lunges for the first time in an age would be so impactful on my body?!

Silhouette of a woman doing a squat
I like to think my squats look this poised!
Image by kropekk_pl from Pixabay

To be fair, that probably happened the last time I tried them, and the time before that, but I seem to have filed those memories in a dusty box in the corner of the attic of my mind, as the ache has come as a complete surprise!

My aim this week, at my dad’s, was to do more indoor stuff, like regular yoga, and strength training exercises. As he needs someone close by most of the time at the moment. However, on the drive down last Friday, I heard from my big sis, that the hospital had decided to admit my dad, in order to carry out a few more tests without him getting so exhausted from the to-ing and fro-ing.

He’s still in and it’s Tuesday. They’re supposed to have a big MDT (Multidisciplinary Team) meeting at some point today but I heard, this morning, that they still needed to do another MRI on him. This is, at least, his third. Frustrating, living in this limbo land.

So I’m here, at his house, on my own, with a bit of extra time on my hands and therefore I’m getting out for a few miles each day. Alongside which, I’m trying to do these squats and lunges every day as I obviously need to.

I found this handy little app called ‘Interval Timer’, where you can set your exercise time and your rest time and the number of iterations you want. I’m doing, roughly, 5 minutes of 30 seconds ON and 15 seconds OFF. I will build this up to 10 once the aching subsides.

I have, in the past, during previous attempts of getting my strength on, written down the order of exercises, splicing ideas from various articles and videos and I may do that again, at some point this time.

However, for now I start with squats and then use the 15 seconds rest to figure out my next exercise. The only proviso is that they need to alternate between legs, arms and torso. So, that will either keep it exciting, or I’ll realise that I’m following the same pattern every day.

I know I should be doing this strength stuff more often being a woman of a certain age but, with the gyms being closed for ages I’ve been a bit sporadic. I know they’re now opening up but I think it’ll be a while before I’ll be comfortable entering them.

So in the meantime, for this current drive and impetus, I will just keep squatting at home, or at my dad’s.