Slackers Anonymous

The weekend passed gently. It was another of those busy-doing-nothing weekends. We went out for a very nice BBQ on Friday night, a superb dinner on Saturday night and a hill walk on Sunday morning. 

We met in the usual spot on Sunday, but an hour earlier to beat the heat, and discovered we should be heading to higher ground! Quite timely and ironic that we should be heading up a hill at the same time we were supposed to be abandoning the flats due to the impending tsunami after the massive earthquake in Chile. Texts and calls were made throughout the morning, and thankfully nothing serious happened on our shores. We took a new path up the hill, climbing over the lump and down to Huntsbury Domain, then taking the Gorge Track up, up, up, until we got to the cool viewing platform about halfway up to Mt Vernon. I love these walks, I get to see bits of the landscape I miss when I'm on my bike, and see heaps of wildlife (fantails galore on this day). The dog was even better managed, pulling less, and ignoring both of the long-dead sheep just off the path. My descent was easier than Tracey and the others had, seeing as how I stayed on the path, and they went uphill, then off-piste, then vertically up through scrub land for an additional half hour looking for the road again.

Monday morning rolls around and I request a quick ab session before work. I leash the dog and we do a 1km warm-up jog and return home to discover we're not doing a quick session, we're doing a full torture. Chaos, keeps it interesting! On the bench for pull-downs, then squatting dumbbell press things, then more pull-downs, then some kind of reverse backward lunging squat dumbbell press, then onto the floor for hamstrings the hard way, then crunchies on the swiss ball. My fitness test at the start of the challenge saw me to 20mumble crunchies in a minute. I do more than that each session now, which is good. but with my legs draped casually on the swiss ball, I had to do fifty. Yes, it took more than a minute, but I did them. Then some more hamstrings, then another 50 of the damn things. So, 100 crunchies this morning, I guess it's getting easier or just less hard. If I keep this up, I may well be able to do the 1,000 crunchies in an hour Tracey keeps talking about. Sounds painful, but potentially possible. 

During my gut stretching, I mentioned to Tracey I should do a post-ride session when I get home, time and circumstances permitting. Just a quick few minutes doing something nasty. Every little bit helps, and if I can do 2 sessions a day, I should be fit twice as fast yea? I'm not suffering from aches and pains after the routines, so have no issues stepping up the pain or frequency. It's only hard while you're doing it, it's easy once you stop!

Am I full of vim and vigour? I was on Friday on the way home, but was tired all weekend, possibly due to poor food choices and some liquid calories I should have avoided. Back on the straight and narrow this week, results here I come!