Day 31: Ending with less of a bang and more of an "aaachoo! "

Yes, I've had a rather less than auspicious ending to Janathon this year, with a rare fail yesterday to even blog, tho I did do my usual 1 mile walk to /from work.  But the onset of a horrible head cold has meant the day spent mainly on the couch reading or sneezing (or more often than not, failing to sneeze). I've even had to give up a trip to the cinema as I figured folk wouldn't appreciate me adding my own tissue - related sound effects.

I will however be going out for dinner later as it is a close friend's birthday celebration and we're going to a very good Vietnamese restaurant and all the chilli etc. will  obviously be good for my cold along with some medicinal wine :). I will walk to and from the bus stop for my exercise

Well done to my fellow Janathon-ers, who I'm sure have managed way more exercising than I have this month. However, be sure that my training has only just begun... For June this year my goal is to be able to manage at least one proper pull up in time for Tough Mudder!

Stats!
Preemptive miles : 1-2miles
Times I've sneezed today : about 30
Tissues got thru: lots

Day 29: walking for wine counts!

So I was supposed to be doing circuits round 2 buuuut,  and as always,  I blame Ian,  I am having to claim walking as my exercise for today. However  it's not easy walking thanks to icy compacted snow. So I walked from the bus stop to our friends house then to the shop to get wine.

Not quite as strenuous as planned but managed to clock up around 3 miles all in.

Day 28: no longer a circuit newbie

Got a feeling of making progress today. I managed to get through a circuits class without feeling like the most unfit person there. Don't get me wrong,  it is still mainly full of proper gym-bunny types who can no doubt do proper chin ups and don't take a sneaky break at the exercises they don't like, but at least I wasn't at the bottom of the performance scale tonight.

No outside running on the horizon for the time being as the thermometer is still the wrong side of 'no chance, I'm not freezing my ass off in that!'

So its the last few days of Janathon, I  hope fellow -athoners are feeling they have mad a bit of progress over the last month. I have made some but its only the tip of the training iceberg for Tough Mudder-ing in June!


Stats!
distance: on x-trainer- 2kms
time: 1hour circuits
number of newbies making me feel better about myself: 2
Janathon days left: only 3!!!

Day 27: Plank PB!!

Another no run day I'm afraid. I did have a good walk home though - in fact I almost skipped. Was good to have a busy day and get a few things that needed moving along sorted so was in a better mood than yesterday.

I think I actually made better use of my time and did more strength exercises at home, proving that I don't need evil gym woman shouting at me to work hard. I even timed myself properly and did a WHOLE MINUTE plank after my mum slagged me off for not managing to do more than 30 seconds.

I also did some compound exercises, one-legged squats lifting the weights too - and believe me,  its not easy to do this, attempt to take a non-blurry photo of yourself and not fall down. It took a few trys!

Also did more abs stuff, more squats and upper body stuff with resistance bands. I got sweaty and everything, all in the comfort of a warm house!

stats!
time: 30 mins
Plank time: 1 MINUTE!!!
attempts at taking non-blurry photo: about 8

Day 26: Getting gym-class rage

Exercise is a great stress reliever. I always feel better after a bad day getting out and running off some steam. If its rubbish outside, the gym has to do but this evening it did nothing for my mood. I had wanted to do a double whammy and run today but I just couldn't be bothered numbing my bum in the on-going sub-zero temperatures up here, the walk to and from work was enough to put me off

Yes, I know I have moaned about Monday-night evil gym instructor before but tonight I was close to throwing one of my weights at her. If she uses the phrase, "if I see anyone coming up before me the more we are doing" when doing the squat track I may go insane. She says the same thing every week. The least she could do is find a new way of patronizing us, you know, mix it up a bit. So yeah, was stuffing a bit of gym class rage this evening.

On the upside I'm still managing to edge the weights up so progress is being made :)

Stats:
urges to throw weights at the instructor: quite a few
extra squats completed cause people aren't looking at the gym instruction: at least 10

Day 25: Not even trying

Its not like I didn't do anything today but it was close. Not sure if you can count dancing a bit at a metal club night in the early hours and walking to and from the bus stop as proper exercise. It would actually have been less if Ian hadn't insisted of repeatedly walking to the next bus stop instead of waiting for the bus from town. So we ended up walking 1.5 miles along Princes Street then another half mile from the bus stop to the house. And also note that all my walking this weekend was completed in my heavy new rock boots! And Ian walks really fast!

I made unrealistic plans in my head of actually going out for a run later on today but a combination of the on-coming rain and wind and the prospects of a cosy sofa meant this never happened.

Look on it as a rest weekend after a couple of tough gym classes and a few more scheduled in for next week. :)

Now, back to the sofa-lounging...

Stats!
distance: 2miles
time 23 mins

Day 24: Don't mess up the hair!!!

I know this will sound like an excuse but I didn't go running today due to my hair. Seriously! I'm not going to waste a £30 hair appointment by getting sweating and windswept :) My bob is starting to even out and don't worry, the colour will be changing again soon!

I did walk practically everywhere today  so I figured that amounted to a decent amount of exercise for a Saturday. Ian even put the GPS on to measure it properly :)

So 5 miles worth of walking done and my hair is still looking good enough for a night out tonight!

 Stats:
distance: 5miles
time: 1hour30mins
haircuts: 1