training club

This morning I awoke to sunshine yet again, and had a pity party about not running yet again. Then I reminded myself that there was plenty of Chinese to work on still… I did reading drills for two hours, which was good, apart from how much I always kick myself for not doing it more often and specially before exams. Still, let’s not take anything away from that achievement.

I considered going for a swim, but as I was flicking though my iPad apps saw Nike Training Club which I downloaded the other day. I had initially thought it was something like miCoach (by adidas) but in fact it is exactly like a personal trainer — better than my old PT, in fact, because it doesn’t make racist or homophobic comments.

I am worried about my knees, and there were a lot of lunges involved in the workout I did, but I think/hope that the lunges will strengthen my legs which will take pressure off them.

Me, full of grim determination prior to starting the 45-minute “Stress Slammer” workout:

Stress was sucessfully slammed. I was planning to show me post-workout, but I forgot in my eagerness to get in the shower — just picture bright red, soaked in sweat, having got rid of the t-shirt because I was over-heating. That was HARD WORK. I haven’t done any strength training for ages, definitely over a year. Yoga does help somewhat but I have been inactive for over 2 weeks so I really felt the burn!

I have dutifully stretched and massaged my knees with the medicated gel. I don’t know if I can think of running again before I leave; the half-marathon at Shuangxi is in exactly a month and only an idiot would believe they can go from injured to 21km in a month. Right?

I want to believe. Despite my tendency to overthink, some things I have successfully gone years and years without thinking about (been many years and I still have never calculated how old those jellybeans would have been if they hadn’t been aborted). Until now I have refused to ponder whether I should forget about running Shuangxi. Let’s keep it that way.

rambling

Thanks to my darling mama’s unexpected gift of a £25 voucher, I get to spend Christmas morning poring over Amazon’s (really disorganised) lists of books, trying to compile my own wishlist. In order to get maximum value for my pennies, I want the books to be long, and interesting, and preferably no more than £5 or so, so I can get at least 4 or 5 of them… reminds me of the good old days perusing La Redoute making lists of all the clothes I could buy with my Christmas vouchers. It makes me so happy, because I haven’t been book-shopping in so long, so thank you Mummy for such a thoughtful present! (and feel free to make recommendations!)

Yesterday was packed full of business: shopping for sports bras (fail — I will have to order some from Australia) and for vegetarian/vegan sources of protein (semi-success — I haven’t been able to find protein powder but I will be enjoying my horrendously expensive imported Greek yoghurt and various hippy grains). I also purchased halloumi, and made onion jam which I served up together (after frying the halloumi into a golden salty explosion of delicious) as my contribution to Catherine’s party last night.

Seeing as I was stuck by the stove caramelising onions for hours, I also made a batch of dhal, complete with cumin and goodness this time, which I have frozen in portions for the rest of the week. I am surprised at my own domesticity, but rest assured, my room still looks like a bomb hit it.

I’d been instructed to run a brisk 6km yesterday, and was pleased to see it took me exactly 32:00 — 2 months ago I ran 5km in the same time, and almost died afterwards. I have now signed up for both the Shuangxi half-marathon and the Wan Jin Shir half-marathon (they are within 2 weeks of each other), a decision which probably makes little sense, but I really wanted to run Shuangxi originally and by the time I found out they would accept my application after all, I had already signed up for WJS. So I will run the first one very, very slowly (they have a 3:30:00 finishing time, and I know I can walk 20km in 4 hours, so surely, surely, I can hope to run/walk Shuangxi in that time?).

Today I am running the Christmas Hash, which is a rare city run and will involve wearing a Santa hat. I have mixed feelings about this, but I always run the Hash so I will go. After the run I’m heading to Shida for a Hanukkah party. And then it’s back to school on Monday (I really should do some more homework this morning but ICK!).