THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO......OUCH - DAY 20

I apologise in advance for the whingesome content of this post, but I am in pain.

Although it is not all bad. My recently purchased bread maker made it's debut loaf throughout the night and this morning we awoke to that most gorgeous of smells, freshly baked bread. This is my pleasure, simple I know, but that's me!

PLEASURE!

Pilates this morning was a nice break, I was unable to do one side of a side plank although I did manage the rest of the class so that was an hour of core strength work done.

The rest of the day was spent baking banana bread and generally getting the painkillers out!! Even being on the computer for any length of time takes it toll, hence the short blog post and very infrequent tweets these last 2 days. TJ was at a friends house so I had a very relaxing day.

Through the medium of Twitter I am able to keep up to date with all you wonderful Janathoners, to hear how well everyone is doing and I am optimistic that tomorrow I will be slightly less crooked. I am seeing my sports masseur for an early morning appointment to try and iron out some of the muscular spasm located around my neck. Fingers crossed.

I have 13 miles on the training programme for Sunday and I am really enjoying the training so far, so by the power of healing hands I hope to be back on track soon.

PAIN!

For now I bid you good night.

A VERY REAL PAIN IN THE NECK - DAY 19

Ahhhh, things were going so well this week, training was going just as the training plan had on the cards, adding a cheeky mud run in just for fun. Then I go and wake up this morning with a right royal pain in the neck. I spent a good half hour after the school run on the floor of my lounge, working through various pilates moves, hoping to alleviate the tightness in my neck and left shoulder.
Unfortunately I have had this neck pain before, where it is literally frozen and my head is tilted to one side and it is painful when I tilt it back & forth and try to look to the left. The last time was some 13 years ago and it was diagnosed as torticollis. I am hoping, rather naively, that I will wake up tomorrow morning with all functions working as normal, if not I do have a massage booked hastily this evening for Saturday morning, so fingers crossed.

I am hoping that this blip will not keep me from training and Janathon for any length of time, but I am guessing only time will tell.

PILATES...NOW PIZZA DAY 13 JANATHON

Friday's are my pilates day when my core gets a fantastic leap back into life, although I have to say since going off road more my core muscles are feeling it more!!

We have an hours session where my glutes and core are worked with quality over quantity being the aim of the session. I come away feeling strong from the inside out.

Tonight I am enhancing my core workout with an evening of pizza and alcohol, no I know not the best thing but a much needed catch up with "the ladies" is called for. We may well be having a viewing of Bridesmaids, which I have seen, but am happy to watch again as thought it was brilliant.

The only other thing to say about today is that I got the most lovely card and book from Mrs D for no other reason than she is delightful.
Don't you just love the book - my 7 year old read it after tea and said "that is a really good book mummy, there are lots of them in the series. I think we should get them all!" I think we may be hard pushed JT but what a lovely thought.

Thank you Mrs D!!

Wishing you all a wonderful Friday 13th!!!

WINTER TRANING

My winter training is looking somewhat different than last year, mainly due to the addition of 2 new elements: cycling and swimming.

This time last year, I was unable to swim front crawl for toffee, seriously!! I had NEVER mastered the breathing technique needed to successfully get myself from one end of the pool to another without a) taking in way too much pool water than is healthy b) breathing like I am taking my last breath.

Needless to say if I was to master this freestyle swimming malarkey I needed some help.
This help came in the form of my lovely niece who I hasten to add is an amazingly competent swimmer, swimming in county championships but most importantly a patient and very thorough teacher. She went through the basic techniques with me, breathing, position of body, arm stroke, etc over a period of 2 sessions. Before long I felt much more confident and was able to manage around 50m without stopping before a short break. Phew, I was getting there!! Thanks Amber x
As if by magic, around the same time as my first achievements in the pool, my local running and triathlon club, www.buderats.co.uk were sorting out their winter swimming training sessions again. BONUS! I put myself down as being interested in taking an 11 week course of swimming sessions through the club, starting in September this would give another discipline to work towards over the winter months.
All I can say is that I AM LOVING IT. We are certainly not being given an easy ride, we are ramping up to 2000m a session at the moment, but I feel I am getting stronger and ever so slightly faster as I go through the weeks
.
Last nights session looked a little something like this:
Warm up: 400m F/C ( 16 lengths)
Main session: 6 x 100m F/C with 20 secs rest between reps
200m kicking
7 x 50m F/C all done within a minute
Warm down: 200m pull and 200m drill
I come away feeling shattered - in a very good way!

This fits into my week perfectly:
Monday: Swim for 1 hour with RATS
Tuesday: Run for an hour with RATS
Wednesday: Turbo train on bike for an hour or an hour in the pool
Thursday: Technical / speedwork session with RATS (1 hour)
Friday: Early morning swim then Pilates (1 hour)
Saturday/Sunday: Long run or bike ride outside

Am loving the variety this gives me and am feeling stronger for it, winter training never looked so good.