The Mock Turtle

Well done Pipola!

26 mile (42km) ride this morning. There were a few nice ups and at least one good down . My max speed was 46.7kmph

I've lost muscle during lockdown so we'll start booking a session in the gym. I could do stuff at home but I live and work here now, I'm not turning it into gym as well and I just don't have the room.

Chest to floor press ups is how I have always been taught, Marine style - and elbows in too, so your triceps and pecs take the strain rather than your shoulders.

I'm still not running. I'm doing my yoga practice fairly consistently and am starting to get more into my home workouts - I'd lent out my kettlebells but am getting those back, plus my heavier dumbbells. Going to focus on getting my heartrate up on non-yoga days whilst adding in some resistance training too.

Tomorrow I'm nipping up to Glencoe first thing, and walking Bidean nam Biam, a route I've done once before but years ago. It's a tough one with a dodgy descent, but so beautiful. I'll be on my own this time (which is my favourite way to go walking) but am leaving detailed info for R in case of death or injury!

A PT session (so nice to hit and kick stuff again!), followed by a spot of messing around with an actual squat rack and barbell both squats and deadlifts are about 15-20kg down from my usual working range, but I'll take that since it's the first time I've lifted anything over 40kg in about six months. Interestingly a few things have improved over lockdown - grip strength and cardio in particular.

Recovery run combined with a walk. My poor wee legs are not happy

I never ever want to do another HIIT again. Today’s W hasn’t even that bad, but I’ve totally hit the wall. It was cardio + resistance, and once again was competitive numbers of sit ups and press ups in a minute, twice each. I managed 21 then 20 sit ups, then 2T 19K press-ups and 5T 16K second time around.

Cardio + resistance totally kills me Pip.

I had a beautiful day in the mountains yesterday. I put a video clip up of the view:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CD-nihSlEvW/

Penny that is stunning!

That’s amazing! Wow. Did you have a wonderful day to yourself?

Today’s a rest day on the programme. I’ve got yoga later, but that’s pretty restful usually. My watch just tried to increase my calorie burn target but I’ve not accepted it. I will next week if I can hit every day this week.

I did! It was very peaceful. Tiring though and I wasn't expecting it to be quite so sunny; I ran out of water so I filled up from a mountain stream. I felt just like Ray Mears.

Wow!!!!

Stunning! I'd like to go back to walking in hills but am not good with maps and need a well signposted track/trail!

We walked this morning.

Can anyone recommend a video or very clearly illustrated guide to increasing flexibility? I've found loads of things (e.g. https://www.self.com/story/stretching-workouts-on-youtube) but they all seem a bit advanced On the other hand I'm not geriatric or unable to sit on the floor cross-legged and don't find the stretches done at my gym class challenging at all.

I don't want to hurt myself, but it'd be nice to improve my range of movement and hip flexors etc etc.

That's totally beautiful, Penny.

Would you be interested in yoga, Paris?

Probably... I don't really know what I want (being realistic, with being 41 and fairly lazy ) OTOH FB keeps advertising a program to be able to do the splits

This is a video focused on bends by a teacher who works at my gym: https://youtu.be/KHC2JTPH6pE

She's also got ones that are more advanced.

She's also got a splits one!

https://youtu.be/EIMgOQXVNvU

She's really lovely and explains things really well, I find.

Thanks, Ken, I'll give them a go (splits! )

I have bookmarked that to have a go at as I am geriatric and unable to sit on the floor cross-legged

Edit, not the splits though!!

I'm going to very slowly work up to attempting the splits training, it will not be my first port of call!

It's so interesting how different we are - you're so much fitter than me, Bramble!