Slacking off

Yesterday we went away for our wedding anniversary to a spa hotel in Leeds, so in my infinite wisdom I decided to take the day off from exercise and have a run free Saturday. I really shouldn't have slacked off, because I have just felt totally guilty about it ever since. However, I suppose my long runs in the XL vest have been progressing nicely and maybe a week off before I push the time up to 2 hours may be a good thing. Here's hoping eh?

I had a nice sauna and a go in the steam room and to be fair I probably would have stayed in longer but Graeme got a bit bored. I think the heat bothered him more than it did me (whoever would have thought that eh?) so we didn't stay in the spa for too long.

When we got home today, I had a tuna sandwich and went straight up to do my deadlifts and secondary upper body exercises. I felt as weak as a kitten and found the session really tough. Switching from fitness gloves to weight lifting gloves made quite a big difference as the extra padding made it much more difficult to get a good grip. I'm not sure if this is something that will get better as they get more worn in, or maybe the gloves are not for me. I changed back to the fitness ones and put up with the pain as I gripped the bar. My hands were red raw by the end, but at least I got the session done.

The secondary exercises were quite tough too. I had to do a thing called prone row and there is a good technique and a technique that is basically cheating. I was to try and do at least 3 good ones and cheat for the last 2 on each set if I needed to, however I physically could not get so that my chest touched the bar and it was about 1 inch away (hence the cheating). I only managed one full rep up to the chest on the fifth set... so that makes me think I maybe just need to work on the technique. I kept my body nice and straight though which is another thing you have to do!

So, I'm feeling rather tired after doing all of that and then going into the sauna. I took a new thermometer in today to see what I am subjecting my body to. Turns out that after 16 minutes the temperature had gone to 50.3 C (or 122 F)... no wonder I find it bloody hard! I probably would have managed a little longer but my calves were burning as I'd forgotten to wear long bottoms.
The best thing ever though, was coming downstairs after about 2 hours and seeing Graeme in the kitchen with all of the washing and ironing all done and hung up. Bless his heart! We then watched The Biggest Loser while eating a curry and Nan bread. Oh dear!!! Last night our meal was really lovely but I chose wisely and had quite a healthy dish, and we only had one glass of champers instead of a bottle, and half a bottle of red wine, so we were quite conservative. I haven't missed the alcohol anyway so we have said we are definitely giving it up until after the marathon at Amsterdam.

Graeme bought some stuff at the shop today for Mu Thai which he is starting on Wednesday. He had to buy ankle supports which caused major concern for me... there is no way I would risk injuring my ankles doing something like that. However, Graeme said he thinks he will really enjoy that martial art so good on him. I told him today that I really can't see him running Bangalore as he seems to want to do anything but run during training. He just said, "Well, we'll see". I will enter it for him anyway... just in case!