Hello,

This is my nephew, the most expressive baby in the world

And now it’s Friday!  Happy Friday y’all!  I hope everyone’s got lovely plans for the weekend?  I have amazing plans – tonight I have a friend from out of town here and we’re meeting up for supper which will be lovely, then tomorrow I have acupuncture at 09:00, then I’ll cycle over to the City and do some strength work before yoga.  My friend Susan’s coming to yoga which is super exciting ’cause she’s never done this class before and then we’re going to lunch to celebrate her joining the hippie ranks 😉 … then I’ve got a yoga workshop and then to counteract all the health and well-being I’m going to a prosecco-and-Eurovision house party.  Woo!  On Sunday I’ve got to drag my undoubtedly-hungover carcass out of bed to meet up with another friend for brunch and a walk which is going to be luuuurvely, specially if the weather holds out.  So I’m super-looking forward to the weekend!

In the meantime though, as per my post on Wednesday, I’m a little depressed about this injury and yesterday was the worst.  I did a nice elliptical workout in the morning which was all good – the elliptical might be a bit boring, but it’s fantastic for keeping up my cardio while I’m off running, and I get to watch a lot of news.  I feel so well informed right now.  Anyway, so that set was fine (24 x 2 minutes hard/30 seconds rest = 60 minutes altogether) and I pottered back in the afternoon for a strength set.  I’m focusing on brute strength at the moment so that I can build up a good base, then ease off in a couple of months and focus on endurance, so my set was 5 sets of 3 front squats at 80% 1 rep max and 5 sets of 3 back squats at 80% 1 rep max.  I started off with the front squats and actually they went completely fine, all was good …. and then I hit the back squats.  As soon as I’d done two pain shot through my knee (undoubtedly because my foot is too stiff for my knee to be in proper alignment).  I mobilised everything, warmed everything, stretched everything and tried again … with exactly the same result.  I swear I have never been so depressed, it just seemed like it was getting worse … like as well as not running or jumping, now I can’t lift weights either?!  I dragged myself off to do a circuit but unfortunately the one that I’d been set also had a lot of glute work in it, so I had to leave it half way.  And then I cried.  Actually I cried when I started off the circuit and it hurt so much … and just kept right on crying all through the circuit (I go to the gym in the mid-afternoon, no-one is around, it’s fine.   No-one called the men in white suits).

HOWEVER I’m feeling so much more positive today – I went out for supper with my lovely friend Steph last night and we had such a nice time, and then I went home and had a lovely bath with magnesium flakes in it and then stretched and foam rolled for a good half-hour of proper focused stretches.  This morning I brought my foam roller into work with me (my boss is just so lucky to have me) and I’ve spent every hour rolling about on the floor and wriggling into stretches and it’s feeling so much better.  PLUUUUUSSSS … this morning I avoided the cross-trainer because I do like it a lot but a change is already good right?  Anyway, so instead I set myself this fun lil circuit:

50-10 for time

• Step-ups 60cm (each side)
• Kettlebell swings
• Mountain climbers up against a wall (aka vertical mountain climbers)
• Deadball throwdown slams and bounces 
• In-and-out sit-ups

It’s really similar to one of my favorite WoDs, but that one has box jumps and heel-click squats which obviously I need to avoid for now, but it made me feel sooo normal again!  It was fantastic, it totally didn’t hurt at all and my foot and back haven’t flared a bit since I did it (I have stretched and foam-rolled it every two hours just in case).  I’m heading back to the gym again this afternoon to do a strength workout with my buddy Ailish who’s a PT, so she will be able to keep a sharp eye on me when it comes to form and hopefully that’ll avoid any more pains today … and in any event it’ll make it fun!

Have a lovely weekend, I’ll report back on how my yoga workshop goes tomorrow.  I’m super-excited for it because I just love the instructor, he’s got the most amazing back story but I’ll share all that tomorrow.  For now, happy FriYAY and have a wicked weekend!

xx