A hopeful start

This morning I got up and felt nothing from yesterdays' step exercises... no aches or pains anywhere, but more importantly nothing bad on my foot. It made me wonder though, is this stepping quite an easy exercise that anyone would find relatively easy to do. I decided to test out my notion, and asked Graeme would he mind doing the stepping for 15 minutes and tell me how easy he finds it. "Oh, I see... lets see if the lazy fat fucker can manage it eh?", he jibed, which made me laugh my head off. He is so funny!

Anyway, after breakfast he got the step out and asked what he should do. I showed him the way to do it and how fast to go, which he just didn't get at all. He kept putting his feet up in the wrong sequence, pausing at the bottom before going again and he was doing it far too slowly. I showed him again and he eventually "sort of" got it. So, on went the timer for 15 minutes.

Every now and again he would stop and think about his footing and he was a bit too slow with his cadence, however, in circuit classes I was always one of the fastest at the stepping (even when I was shattered) so I put this down to the possibility I'm maybe a little better with coordination than he is.

He got to about 5 minutes and I noticed he was leaning forward which is a no-no as you are supposed to use your core and remain straighter. He corrected it and at 10 minutes when he was looking tired I asked how he was feeling. He said his stomach was really aching, which was such a surprise to me, as I had not noticed any detrimental effect in my core at all. Maybe the tough core session I've started doing is working already? At 15 minutes he said he was glad to be finished and said he thinks to do an hour would have been extremely hard.

This was good news for me... not because he's a "lazy fat fucker" as he so eloquently put it, it's the fact that after 8 weeks since my last long run, I realise I have managed to maintain some degree of cardiovascular fitness.

This afternoon I did my upper body weights and did a sort of "introductory" deadlift session. I only went up to 45KG, making sure my foot was OK (which it was) however I won't know the full extent until tomorrow. For some reason it is the next day when things seem to flare up more, so fingers crossed I pass another hurdle with deadlifting today, and I can get back to it. I really miss that exercise and the squats as I enjoy the sessions and psychologically feel it all goes to make me stronger ready for when I'm able to tackle an ultra.

And I had a lovely mothers day surprise. My son had bought me a tub of my favourite face cream and a lovely card. My mam told me he had asked her to go and help him find me a present yesterday and said he had saved £40 for it. My mam said that I would not be happy for him to spend that sort of money and he should get something a bit cheaper. She was right, I wouldn't have wanted him spending all that money on me... but what a lovely thought! :-)