Friday 4 January 2013

Easy now...

Let's not shock the body with enormous amounts of weightlifting after two weeks of resting from any gym-related activities!

Not that I ever do enormous amounts of weightlifting. The stronger bottom half of my body usually points a finger at the top half and laughs at how weak it is as it struggles to lift even 5 kg on the shoulder machine. Lemme help you with your maths: that's 2,5 kg per shoulder. Go ahead. Laugh away. Shame my shoulders into trying harder, because talking them into getting stronger hasn't helped so far.

One thing you can never accuse me of is lack of discipline (except when it comes to studying. Or cleaning. Or cooking. Yeah, alright, I'm a pretty undisciplined person, except when it comes to exercising). If I am going to succeed on the road to Lapland Ultra, I need to visit the gym more often. So I booked myself into an early morning core group session and dragged myself out of bed at 05.40. After two weeks of getting up at 07.00 at the earliest, I expected my body to react violently to this turn of events. Maybe I was going to throw up as soon as the alarm went off? Punch myself in the face? Fall asleep while eating a banana?

No use complaining when you got a job to do

I bet you're thinking that getting up so early is hardcore. Let me impress you even further by telling you how the night had been before the alarm went off. We live in a house made of wood. Our upstairs neighbours are generally quiet and, really, we can't complain. Except they're up and walking marathons in the middle of the night, and in a wooden house, that's an impossible sound to ignore. Imagine elephants doing their own interpretation of STOMP's numbers. At one in the morning. Every. Single. Night. When they start their nightly pilgrimage, I've usually already gotten a few hours' sleep, so once I am awake, I lie there awake for a little while trying to convince my body that, no, 3 hours of sleep is not enough, go back to sleep. Last night I had just succeeded in doing that, when an incredibly loud BANG! made me jump out of bed and reach for the phone to call for an ambulance, because I honestly believed I was having a heart attack. The more *ahem* gravitationally inclined one of the two felines calling the shots around this house had clumsily tried to jump onto one of the two folding IKEA guest beds that we have stored behind our bedroom door, and missed, making it tip over, yet somehow avoiding getting turned into cat marmalade in the process. Cats really do have nine lives.

It took me a while to get my heart rate back to normal but, after checking to make sure both cats were ok, I eventually went back to sleep, a fitful sleep filled with nightmares of death-by-IKEA-bed scenarios and floating bald cat heads. 3 hours later the alarm discreetly informed me that it was time to get up by letting off a loud, incessant MEEP MEEP MEEP.

Nothing to do but put on my running clothes, run to the gym and do the stupid core session. And, since I was already at the gym, I followed it up with a quick round at the gym machines. Yep, my shoulders are still struggling to lift 2,5 kg. Yep, it's still really boring to train at the gym. But good thing I didn't shock my body with any excess exercise or anything, right?

4 comments:

  1. Ojoj, vilken natt! Men konstigt nog fick din berättelse snarare mig att sakna vår katt som är död sedan ett par år - de är ju så mysiga! Jag är kass på stykreträning. Enda gången jag lyckats träna kontinuerligt var förra våren när jag köpte 12 PT-timmar. Men du gör helt rätt - ska man genomföra Lapland Ultra måste man ha stark kropp. Lycka till!

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    1. De är verkligen mysiga, även om de också är väldigt busiga. Men det är ju det som är förtjusningen :)
      Ja, en PT hade inte varit dumt att ha, svårt att veta hur man ska träna annars. Tack för lyckönskningarna!

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  2. Fy vilken natt!
    Jag vågar inte ens tänka på styrketräning nu. Känns inte som om jag har tappat så mycket, men det går rätt snabbt. Och löpningen blir väl som att börja om från noll, men snart så sätter jag igång igen.

    Det nya året måste bjuda på många löpsteg ;) Kramar!

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    1. Ja, man tappar styrka rätt snabbt. Jag har träningsvärk i magmusklerna idag, och det är ändå muskler som det sägs man använder även när man springer - jag borde inte ha tappat så mycket! Nästan inget träningsvärk i axlarna däremot...konstigt det.
      Jag vet inte om det blir som att börja om från noll med löpningen, jag blir alltid positivt överraskad när jag börjar träna efter ett uppehåll. Det går alltid mycket lättare än jag hade trott. Så det finns hopp. Kram!

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