Lazy

Oh yeah. I ain't going out in that icy wind, sorry. Definitely a fair weather runner, I'm afraid. So, just a quick plank before bed to keep the spirit of Janathon alive.

Plank

I'm sorry, Janathon. It's all I could handle today. I'll make up for it at karate tomorrow.

If Janathon has taught me anything, though, it's that I'm not fit enough, mentally or physically, to train daily with no rest periods. I will get there - I haven't done too badly to survive this far - but I don't get enough sleep or calories to fuel it at the moment.

In the meantime please enjoy this lovely interview with one of my swimming heroes, Hazel Killingbeck. :D

Rest

Youngest is having one of those "I'M REALLY REALLY THREE!!!" patches at the moment. The yelling started because she doesn't like the taste of the toothpaste we had to change to recently (gee, thanks for screwing my domestic harmony every morning, Aquafresh), and continued pretty much all day with a brief respite for preschool and Octonauts. Eldest is the in fragile pre-teen zone and has my quick temper to boot, so parts of the day were rather difficult.

By the time the two of them were tucked up in bed I was way too frazzled to deal with the adult version in the pool. I am really, really off public swim sessions at the moment...I've rapidly got used to swimming with a respectful and aware Masters group who get the hell out of each others' way when necessary. My local pool has improved lately, it must be said, but training alone held absolutely no appeal. My shoulders felt weird anyway and I'm feeling pretty fatigued - bear in mind I'm doing all this at a calorie deficit (3lbs down so far and  you can see where it's gone from!). So I took a long bath and did some pull-ups, and that was me for Tuesday night. I figure if you can get away with a single plank, pull-ups definitely qualify for Janathon.

Karate tomorrow; hoping I'll feel a bit more energetic by then.

Exercise Lies

It's a lie. I'm going to regret every one of those fourteen and a half minutes and one mile (plus a mile's walk to try to grind out the soreness from earlier in the week) tomorrow morning. And the planks too. But hell. Janathon comes but once a year, right? And I've got yoga in the morning to sort me out before Sensei kicks my butt again on Saturday...

...and it is kinda nice to know I can still run a mile without immediate death, even if snails go faster.

Kihon Kata

Back to karate on Wednesday night, and it was really good to be back in my gi. I'm starting to get nervous now as grading is coming up...similar collywobbles to a swim event, really, and I'm working hard to get past that and just be mindful about what I'm doing. There are parallels...sparring (kumite) carries the same worries as sprinting; this is the hardest thing to focus on and my form goes all over the place. I'm so glad to be a distance swimmer as sprinting is not a requirement when you're only competing against the length of the lake!

I've taught myself to think of swimming drills as a kind of kata, which has helped no end in both sports. I even count in Japanese whilst in the pool, which I find particularly hilarious for fist drills. Well, when you're drilling over and over for kilometres at a time you've got to get your laughs somewhere. For those of you who don't know anything about martial arts, katas are the pre-set routines we learn, one or more for each belt, which help us practice techniques like blocking, kicking, punching and balance without the stress of an opponent, and they all build on this kihon or fundamental kata. The slow, stately movements of Tai Chi or Qi Gong are probably what most Westerners are familiar with; it's similar but usually performed faster, and as I understand it pretty much all martial arts do them.

I'm struggling, I must admit. Practicing with Eldest daily is good fun but when neither of you know what you're doing properly, it's easy to make mistakes that stick with you. Having very little space to practice makes it a lot harder, too, our living room is the size of a postage stamp. I know my turns are not right - I often get muddled in the middle as to whether it should be a 180 or 270 turn - and last night a sempai (assistant teacher) pointed out that I, as an adult, can't get away with a simple block like the kids can. It has to be a full downward sweep, and I really hadn't registered that before. I am quite a visual learner and I realised I'd never actually stepped back and watched kihon kata being performed, I was always too busy trying to do it and watch at the same time, and I'd never figured out what that beautiful movement was all about. I was too frustrated at myself for it to sink in during class, but I've been digging about for videos and the one above is just perfect - slow enough for me to take in what's happening, I think. Eldest protested all the way home that learning by doing is the best way - and to some extent she's right - but my brain is used to seeing and fitting components together, giving them names and numbers and writing stuff down. So with a bit of luck, diagrams like this should help me get it sorted out in time.

Much gratitude to Lewisham Shotokan Karate Centre for making this image available!

In other news the warm-up was extra-hard and I completed my pull-ups, press-ups and part of the plank Lift programs. My arms gave out for the side planks, unfortunately, so I'll do those on Thursday.

Back To Basics

I've mentioned lift.do a few times recently - it's a habit-tracking site I've been using for a few months and I think it's really made a difference in terms of sticking to things I need to do or practice regularly. My list is a bit crazy at the moment because I've just added a bunch of new programs, but I'd really recommend it if you want to learn something new or make sure you do something repeatedly. I use it all day long and my day looks like this:

 - it's kind of neat to be able to achieve things without even getting out of bed, so I tick off "inbox zero", "100 vocab words in 100 days", "mental maths" and "take allergy meds am" first thing.

- once I've taken the kids to school I can tick off "eat breakfast", "eat fruit", "writing prompt" and "1min office yoga".

- After lunch I do languages on Duolingo with Youngest (she likes pressing the buttons and laughing at my accent), so that's "learn French", "learn German" and "learn Spanish" ticked off, and I try for "Unclutter" as well.

- At tea I "take vitamins" (mostly because I'm post-bug right now) and afterwards "flute practice" on some nights and "kata" every night with Eldest.

- Evenings are "watch at least one Coursera video", although I'm actually doing the Forensic Science course on FutureLearn right now, then "30 day Planks for beginners", "Push ups for beginners", "Master the Pull-up level 1" and "exercise", which can be either just active nights for those three or one of my swim/karate/yoga classes. I also need to make sure I've done my "physio exercises" and "tracked food on My Fitness Pal".

- And after all that, I've now got to "take allergy meds pm", "meditate" and "go to bed by midnight".

Busy days, and no doubt that's ridiculously regimented to some people, but I am thriving - I've never done so many things so consistently for so long. The strength building programs are particularly helpful and stop me being aimless.

So my exercise log for tonight, starting all three back at the beginning, is:

• Push-Up
  • 3 reps5
• Plank
  • 00:00:209
• Side Plank
  • 00:00:1513
• Pull-Up
  • 3 reps48
  • 4 reps60
  • 3 reps48
  • All assisted
• Negative Pull-Up
• 2 reps17
• 1 neg, 1 hold

For which I got 200 points on Fitocracy, and that's good enough for me tonight.