Exercise – Page 25 – Spirit of Dee

Shoe storage!

10 April 201810 April 2018 Dee Leave a comment

One of the shelving projects that Dad and I (mostly Dad) did over the weekend was for my shoes. Even though I got rid of a lot of shoes, I still need a good amount of storage for my remaining 59 62 pairs, especially as I’ve been on a bit of a shoe binge lately (though I think I’m satiated for now). Some of my pairs are ‘legacy shoes’ (i.e. old pairs I’ll never wear again but am keeping in storage boxes or on display for sentimental reasons), and there are a couple of pairs for gardening that I’m keeping in the cupboard off the kitchen, and my dancing shoes live in my gym bag, and my running shoes tend to stay in the Skubb hanger I bought for the hallway…but that still leaves a good 48 pairs that needed a place to live in the dressing room. Which they now have:

Shoe storage — Dad built the shelves, out of our old Billy bookcases, to fit around the wardrobes, chests of drawers and mirror that I have in the dressing room.

As you can see, there’s plenty space for more, which is probably a good thing knowing me.

It’s very nice having all my shoes to hand. Of course, since I put them all up, it’s been pouring with rain and I’ve not been out (save for a very wet run this morning) so I’ve been living in my slippers indoors. It will be good to get some use out of them once the weather clears up, though!

Catching up

9 April 20189 April 2018 Dee Leave a comment

It’s been a great week and a half seeing family, and I’m thrilled with all the new shelves we now have in the house courtesy of my dad (more pictures to come tomorrow!) but it’s meant I’ve not had much time to catch up on all my usual things like reading and TV and music, so I’ve spent most of today doing that kind of thing, which has been nice.

Back to running tomorrow morning, some more house stuff, and a bit more catching up. It’s shaping up to be another productive week!

Spring?

24 March 201824 March 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I did parkrun this morning, for the first time in a couple of months. Between the move and the weather, I’ve just not been feeling like running at all since late January, so it was nice to get back to it. Lovely day too, and it was perfect running conditions.

I’m hoping that we’ve seen the end of the bad winter weather now, though there are a lot of ominous rumours about a white Easter next weekend. I sincerely hope it’s not, as Geth and I are visiting the in-laws and the last thing we need is Christmas-style travel disruption.

With the clocks going forward tonight, it would be nice if it could just be spring weather from now on. Fingers crossed!

Dancing progress

12 February 201812 February 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I went to my sixth Strictly Dance class this evening. It took a few weeks, as expected, but I finally feel like I’m starting to get the hang of remembering the routines. It’s not quite as taxing as Zumba in a cardio sense, though, so I definitely need to get back to running this weekend!

parkrun volunteering

10 February 201810 February 2018 Dee Leave a comment

Two stints in a row volunteering at parkrun the last couple of weeks, due to the mix-up about the tattoo appointment. Looking forward to getting back to running it next week, even if I will probably be a bit slow due to a few weeks off!

parkrun…and waiting patiently for my 50 shirt

27 January 201827 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I went to parkrun again this morning. Another solid sub-35, happy with that! Volunteering next week though, because I’ll be getting work done on my tattoo on Friday so will still be a bit tender on Saturday.

I qualified for my first parkrun milestone shirt when I did my 50th parkrun in October, but the company that did the T-shirts had been having problems with shirt stock so there was a huge backlog with people waiting for them. However, parkrun has now taken shirt production in-house so hopefully I shouldn’t have to wait too long for my shirt when they release them. I should at least get it before I qualify for my 100 shirt some time in early 2019!

Another parkrun…

13 January 201813 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

I went to parkrun again this morning, and shaved two minutes off last week’s time, largely thanks to the pacers that Newcastle parkrun has every second Saturday of the month. Not bad following a winter slump.

Geth made a huge improvement this week too, following a couple of midweek training sessions. We spent the rest of the day being deservedly lazy in the house!

And back to dancing

8 January 20189 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

It wasn’t just running that took a back seat over the last couple of months – it was cardio exercise full stop. This was mainly due to a ridiculous period at work around October to November when I was pulling 12-hour days every day for six solid weeks. The joys of self-employment.

Exercise is always the thing that gets neglected by me in these situations, because all I want to do in the two hours I have left in the day after sleeping, eating and working is stare mindlessly at the internet. The other thing is that the work was interfering with my scheduled exercise – I could no longer go to my Tuesday night Zumba class – so once the ridiculous work period was over, I’d got out of the habit of Zumba and was making alternative commitments for Tuesday nights.

I’ve missed dancing though, so tonight I headed off to another class that my Zumba instructor runs, a ‘Strictly Dance’ class, which is a solo dance exercise class based on ballroom and Latin steps. I love Strictly so I really enjoyed it, probably even more than Zumba. I’m looking forward to getting to know the routines over the course of the next few weeks. Also, it’s earlier in the evening, so a nice bonus is that I can eat after the class rather than before and don’t have to stress about whether Geth will get home from work for tea early enough for me to avoid exercising immediately after eating. Win-win.

Bloch dance trainers — My awesome dance trainers, which I totally bought for the functionality and not the pretty colours.

I’m definitely feeling better all round for getting my cardio back on, though my calves do hate me at the moment.

Back to running

6 January 20186 January 2018 Dee Leave a comment

Geth and I dragged ourselves out of bed this morning to go to parkrun for the first time in seven weeks. Neither of us had run at all during the intervening period; taking this into consideration, I was pretty happy with my time, which was only four minutes slower than my PB. A few weeks back in training (not to mention non-Christmas eating) and hopefully I’ll be back where I was in the autumn and ready for the 10k races I’ve got lined up for the spring and summer!