Tag Archives: Pilates

Blogaday, Medical, Theology

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Back to work after a wet Sunday indoors.

After returning from the wedding we had a lot more chores to do and the day seemed to slip away quite quickly. I found a problem with my iTunes music store as well, so had so spend a little time doing this in the late hours of the evening.

The weather had not improved much by the morning, although I had managed to find my lightweight waterproof jacket to pop in my bag, which came in handy for the 10 minute walk from Bank station first thing. I’m sure this will come in handy over the next few months as the winter approaches 🙁

Pilates on a Monday with Mila, is turning into an extremely popular session. So much so that there was barely enough room to stand on your toes and roll down (vertebrae by vertebrae) let alone to stretch sideways, or lay down for the 100’s. It was actually a good session though. Perhaps because in the restricted space, Mila had to improvise the normal routine which gave it a bit of variety from normal. Moves are afoot to add in an extra session from 2:00-3:00 as a trial for the next month at the Virgin Active in Broadgate, although I seriously doubt this is going to be convenient for the majority and it will therefore not be used.

Hamstring

The afternoon went quickly as I normally fill my Monday’s with project status discussions and 1-2-1s with my team and today was no different, now we are back in September and out of the holiday absentee silly season.

Physio was the next order of the day, and after my visit to Mr Elliot last week, it was time to see Stuart for a checkup and test. Everything turned out to be pretty normal, although my left hamstring seems to be stronger, proportionally, than my left quad, which he thinks is what is causing the issue in my ‘butt’ area (my sit bone) He has given me some preventative exercises for this and given me the go ahead to increase mileage again as well as his blessing for the Marathon des Sables!

Then I found that LIz was waiting outside for me, as arranged. She was off to a special talk at church on Mary’s house in Turkey, and I have changed my swimming time to 40 minutes earlier – ordinarily more convenient to actually have a bit of an evening and not get home and have supper at 10:00pm – but today it meant I was taking the children with me to ‘babysit’ from the water’s edge (with me IN the pool that is!) Although sunset is around 7:00pm at the moment, they were keen to play outside in the playground as I was swimming, and so long as I continued to hear the shrieks of delight as they chased each other (ghost games!) I surmised that all was more or less well.

A good session and we were on our way home. To an empty house 😯

St Nicolas’ where Liz had gone is very high church and they were praying at the end, hail marys, etc. although they are not Catholic (I was a bit confused about that) and had apparently locked all the doors, so she was a captive until they had finished. Eventually she managed to find her way out though, and of course we assume the doors were closed to keep people out at that time of night, rather that keep the audience in.

What a day!

Blogaday, Training

Changing Lessons

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The sun seems to be here to stay, for a while at least. So outside activity is going to become the norm, except for gym classes of course and there was no swimming this week as that has finished for the summer recess.

Pilates continues as normal though, and although I’m still busy I managed to get out lunchtime for my session. After my cycle yesterday I felt I really needed it as my neck was a bit stiff, so I though a stretching and core workout would fit the bill perfectly.

However, our normal Monday lunchtime instructor was not around – Mila is apparently one of hundreds of dancers involved in the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, so I suspect she will be practising hard for her big day!

Too much dancing!

Instead, we had Natalie taking our class today, and although she was very good (we have had some awful stand-ins in the past) her approach was very different to what I know and with which I have become familiar. Ironically, she seemed much more ‘dancey’ than Mila and perhaps she spotted the terror on my face in the corner of the room as she subsequently reassured us after the first 5 minutes that she wasn’t going to be making it a dance session. At the end I felt like I had stretched out nicely, but I don’t think it was as stressful as normal for my core, as she was clearly gauging how familiar we all were with the ‘moves’.

Exercise done for the day it was back to work and more documents to tweak in my deputising role.

The journey home was a late and hot one and as it is looking likely to be here to stay for a while I’m contemplating shorts for my commute over the next few days, to make things a little more comfortable.

Blogaday, Training

Monday, Monday

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A usual Monday today, although the trains conspired to spice things up a bit.

Very cramped this morning on the commute, after a power outage further down the track and cancellation of a train, leaving Guildford platform three people deep trying to squeeze into the coach with two more stops to go!

The rest of the day was fairly mundane, with a break for Pilates at lunchtime.

Pilates on a Monday used to be the soul preserve of women escaping the office routine, until a couple of other guys and myself started two or three years ago, but interestingly the word of the core benefits must have got round as there were 7 or 8 chaps today, probably a third of the class. How times change!

STA Badges

The elder boys had their final swimming lesson of the term this evening, and got their badges for consistency towards various efforts today and during the term. Joshua got badges for his ‘medley’ transitions, which he has done particularly well at this term. Liz said a final farewell to Jean, her friend, who she met at swimming some years ago and with whom she ‘connected’, and this was to be her last term with her son, Jack.

It was my final swim of the term as well, which turned out to be a relatively easy forty minutes of lengths. Now I must remember to swim during the summer, otherwise it will be back to square one in September – assuming we are still in Guildford at that time, which is looking likely, given the continuing state of our housing chain and the British housing market in general!

Good to see that Bradley Wiggins is extending his lead in the Tour de France as well; he won the stage today, a 40km time trial, and his Sky Procycling teammate, Christopher Froome was second. Sky are now the team to beat and it is shaping up into an interesting Tour 🙂 although with only 1:53 lead over last year’s winner, Cadel Evans, it is still anyone’s race.

Blogaday, Injury, Medical, Running

Pilates and Physio

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My legs were shot after yesterday’s run.

My quads had spent a couple of hours immediately after the run threatening to cramp up and I spent the rest of the day trying to keep mobile to ward off the sensation.

A 4:30am alarm call was therefore not a welcome sound so, of course, the first and subsequent alarms were all switched off in rapid succession. So much for dedication this morning!

Lunchtime was a different matter and because I have a busy week, may well be the only gym session I get in this week. So it was off the Pilates again for me, and although I still felt like a bit of a beginner, I was more settled than last week’s initial shock to the system.

After an afternoon of work, I had to get to the physio in Guildford. Col had been a star again and taken the boys swimming while Liz stopped at home and looked after the little ones.

My ‘ankle’ has been niggling for several weeks, so I had made an appointment with the physio for this evening to get it checked out and as it was not a major issue, insomuch as the ache moves about all the time I am running, is not a constant pain and seems to dissipate within 24 hours, I was hopeful it was no to be a time off kind of injury.

Stuart the physio, and a trainee, Pete, took me through a few tests but didn’t seem to think that there was much of a problem, possibly just posterior tibial tendonitis, a slight sprain, or bruising of the tibia (worst case). Luckily, I was not exhibiting any of the full symptoms one might experience with an extreme case of any of these diagnosis, so I was given some manipulation to loosen the ankle, some ‘lasering’ for some other reason and told not to increase my mileage for a bit. I could run as per normal though. Apparently!

By the time I got home it was quite late and Liz was quite tired so I stayed home and didn’t go swimming. A strangely bitty day.

Blogaday, Training

Back to Basics

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For some time now, I had been fretting over the pitiful state of my core muscles.

In the past, nearly two years ago that is, I was a regular at the Monday pilates lunchtime sessions, which I am sure helped with not only my flexibility, through the intrinsic stretching and warming up you do as part of a structured class, but also my core stability was significantly better.

The instructor makes it look easy....!

I have considered going back to the classes before now, and on reflection, I should have, but there always seems to have been other cross training to do, and to be frank, I have been concerned about laying on my left side on the hard surfaces of the gym for any length of time. What a woos, huh!

Fast forward to today though and I could procrastinate no more. With only three months or so to my August date with destiny, the time to start to see any improvement is now.

So, the day and time had not changed and the lady that takes the class, Mila, is always popular, and equally as strict. I sheepishly raised my hand when she asked if it was anyone’s first time and although she remembered me, I explained I’d been missing from her watchful gaze for nearly two years, without going into the reasons behind my absence, but she dismissed this with words like flooding back, riding a bike, your body will remember, etc. I was less convinced.

Everything was going fine until the leg raises; those words don’t really encapsulate the horror of the exercise for me. Suffice it to say, my previous recollection of performance was now running up the stairs to jump off the roof in embarrassment. I made a mental note to lie at the back next time.

I don’t remember working up quite such a sweat in the past either. Perhaps summer had arrived at last and in a cruel twist the air-conditioning had stopped working at the same time. Maybe.

Things improved a touch afthistle initial shock, but I was certainly glad that the session was over and I felt sure I was going to feel the after effects tomorrow.

The final indignity occurred after my swimming session in the evening. Clearly the combination of pilates and lengths of front-crawl with only one arm, legs only, breast-stroke arms, crawl legs, etc, was too much and as I left and bent down to put on my trainers, I got cramp in my abs for the first time in my life.

Clearly it is doing some good 😉