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!
Category: Exercise
parkrun…and waiting patiently for my 50 shirt
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…
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
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.
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
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!