Ok, so I wasn't trying my hardest, I must admit, so have no-one to blame but myself. In fact even after the lovely meal Flâneur cooked for Wastrel, SAM and me last week (stilton stuffed pork wrapped in Iberico Ham with little boiled potatoes and aspargus cooked in butter, followed by lots and lots of cheese, wine and port), I managed to be 1lb lighter the next day. How does that happen?? Delayed reaction, I know, but even so... I have been pretty rubbish on the exercise front, failing to get up and swim, failing to go to the gym after work, even failing to get up in time to walk to work most days...
That was until this week! Ha ha! I realise it's only Wednesday, but even so, this week is already going better than the last two-three put together I think!! Admittedly I've had a bit more energy this week and not been quite so dog tired, but I also made sure that I just did stuff anyway as it always makes me feel better in the long run. So on Monday I managed to walk to work and went to the gym after work. At the gym I managed to run a whole 15 minutes on the treadmill without dying (at 7.5km/h), walking for 2 minutes at the beginning at 4km and 4 minutes at the end for 4. I was most impressed with how quickly I managed to recover, not just my breathing, but my heart rate too. The gym had great equipment that has integrated heart rate monitoring bits (I realise lots of gyms probably have these, but it's still fairly new to me for them to either work or be anywhere near accurate). I get a bit obsessive at checking my heart rate, partly to pass the time, and by the end of the run it was way up in the 160s. But after a couple of minutes back down to walking it went back down to the 120s. I was pretty pleased with this. Then it was on to my usual routine on the cross trainer. (See previous posts, it never seems to change!). In total I exercised for about 53 minutes and burned off around 550 cals. Pretty cool.
Tuesday was a bit of a wash out as I managed to neither walk to, nor from work, but we shall gloss over that... Tonight, however, was a lovely sunny evening. The sort that cannot help but put a smile on your face and a skip in your step (got to love September sunshine). So I thought we should go for a run. When I got in Flâneur was in the process of running a bath, but I managed to persuade him to come out for a run with me anyway (he could always put more hot water in when he got back). I'm glad I did as I think it probably did us both some good! He's still not had any holiday this year (I'm sure that's not legal) and it's really getting to him, so anything I can do to distract him helps. Even if it is going for a run! I felt really great on the run tonight and think all the gym work is helping. I certainly felt much much better than last time we went and we managed to up our run/walk ratio to 3:1 for most of the run. Hurrah! At one point we even did 5 mins of running. This is a big deal for us, so I'm very chuffed! I did nearly want to die on the next stretch of running (which is up hill in a gentle but steady and killing way), but who cares, I had just run for 5 whole minutes!
Yes, I know I can do more than that in the gym, but it's entirely different having your pace regulated and running on an entirely flat surface that is the treadmill. Anyway, I am extremely pleased with myself (and with Flâneur, who came out despite not really wanting to) and now just waiting for these endorphins to stop flooding my brain with that post exercise euphoria so I can collapse on the sofa in peace!!
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