Friday 13th, luckily I don't suffer from triskadekaphobia so this was just another day for me - except it was another 5am rise! I don't actually mind getting up early, I'm definitely a morning person, I don't do late nights very well, probably haven't since I was a teenager and even in those days I didn't lie abed until lunchtime, so 0450 and I was awake and up out of bed to get ready for session no. 3!
It was another nice morning and it's quite a noticeable difference as the week has gone on, just how much lighter it is every morning. It's about 15mins from Monday in terms of when it gets light, and ok Monday morning was heavy rain and cloud whereas Wednesday and this morning were much brighter and frostier! Both mornings when I have been driving home, there has been ice on the Forth at Stirling...
We'd a great session this morning it was called Ladders - you do 1 rep then 2 reps then 3 reps up to 9 reps so that you've reached the top of the ladder, unlike a pyramid, you don't come back down again you move onto another exercise :-) Really tough strength and conditioning exercises too. We worked in pairs and I was working with the lovely Lauren and we should get an extra gold star because we did 51 reps of each exercise, but the 'T pushups' we assumed you had to twist to both sides as 1 rep, but turned out that that should have counted as 2, so we did 102 of them! Bet we pay for that tomorrow :-(
Most of Scotland has experienced some pretty heavy and sudden hail and rain showers over the past few days and the park we use for our sessions is no exception, the mossy grass is therefore slightly squidgier than normal so trying to keep a grip with your feet while doing planks and pressups adds that extra dimension to the exercise experience lol! The worms seemed to quite like the company too and were popping out to join in. They should have been out on Wednesday morning when we were doing inchworms...
I felt good after the workout, strong and invigorated, I even ran back to the car! However the early start is taking it's toll this evening as I'm really sleepy now... but as John is preparing for his marathon on Sunday and we have a potentially early rise tomorrow I can go to bed soon ;-)
Today is the first day that I've felt hungry at all, I forgot to take a banana or muffin to work with me for my snack so I didn't have anything from my breakfast at home til lunchtime and from about 1130 until I had my soup at 1245ish I was ravenous! However I'm pleased that I resisted the temptation of the choccy biscuits and things that were available at coffee time - that's the time of day I didn't drink a coffee!
Today's menu:
pre workout I had 1/3 of a small banana and half cup of decaf green tea
post workout I ate the rest of the banana and drank rest of tea(cold)
Breakfast: berries, pumpkin seeds and yoghurt, half of a wheat free apple&cinnamon cookie very kindly produced by Pamela after our workout :-)
Lunch: vegetable soup
Snack when I got home: 2 slices nutty bread
Dinner: Roasted sweet pepper soup with rocket leaves & goats cheese
Now I know I should have had more but I don't feel hungry so I haven't had anything else - we had planned to have steak and veggies, but John who's fuelling for his race on Sunday had been eating extra so he wasn't hungry either so the steaks and veggies will be tomorrow night's dinner.
Hopefully I will get up in the morning Bright and Breezy and ready for parkrun, but if I sleep longer then it will be the long lie which wins. Sunday morning will be another very early start as we have to be up in Fort William for John's race start and I will go for my longish run on the Caledonian Canal - which isn't nearly as scenic at that point as the Forth & Clyde but it's still an ok place to run so I am looking forward to it - Neptune's staircase is an interesting challenge, I would hope that I can climb it even better than I managed it last year!
I will then meet up with Susan & Courtney whose husband/dad George is running his first marathon and we'll be there to cheer the runners home.
I'll need to plan carefully tomorrow to make sure I take food with me etc but I'm sure I will manage :-) However you might not get a Sunday night update as we will be fairly late home and very tired...
Have a good weekend folks, let's hope the weather is on the up and may the marathon gods smile on the boys and all our friends who're racing at Lochaber or in Edinburgh at the Rock'n'Roll Half!
As well as our friend Sylvie (from Toronto) who is running the Paris marathon.
