Christmas Training

Christmas Eve
Got let out of the office at about 1pm. Not much else to do apart from a bit of food shopping so headed to the gym and went for a run outside. It wasn't much fun, given that I had spent much of the morning eating and drinking, so the food was still swilling around in my stomach. Decided to do the Lethbridge route to see what has happened to the bridge that goes across the motorway and found out that said bridge n'existe plus. Yes, they knocked the whole thing down.

This is a bit of a blow to my training plans for 2009 as it means I won't be able to do this route and will need to revise my versions of the Wroughton and Elcombe routes (assuming they haven't knocked the other bridge down as well).

Four miles on the treadmill followed fifty minutes outside and time to go home and put my feet up.

Christmas Day
It honestly was my intention to go out for a run before heading over to Melksham for a family Christmas but I was generally lazy and disorganised and slept in instead. Still, there are worse times to have a day off.

Enjoyed the day enormously, all the family met for lunch (so with my great nephew Taylor at the table there were four generations) and spent the afternoon with my sister before spending the evening with Dad. Had to stop myself laughing when he urged me not to mix beer with wine, God knows what he'd think if he saw my post-race "routine".

Boxing Day
Did manage to go out for a run today, albeit a very brief one. Just did a three mile route from Dad's house, about three miles - one I used to do many moons ago, when I just did a bit of running to keep fit for Karate. Funny, I remember it feeling incredibly hard then. Just goes to show.

Sadly Dad was ill today so had to call off the get-together at his house and I just headed back to Swindon and got on with the eating and drinking.

Saturday 27th December
Ran to the gym and did both classes, RPM and body pump. Bit disappointed with the former, it was an instructor I hadn't met before and he had some quite unusual ideas, such as using no resistance on the sprints. Didn't feel like I got anything out of it.

Definitely plan to run to the gym this week, will save a lot of petrol and burn off a few extra calories in the process.

Sunday 28th December
Ran to work and back so I could print off some articles. About 6-7 miles I guess. Hardly a normal Sunday long run, but hey, I'm on holiday.

Monday 29th December
Strange time for a class, but body pump was on at one today. Ran in and did it. Ran back.

Tuesday 30th December
RPM at 6pm today with James. Ran in as usual. Quality class, one hour long and made me sweat buckets. I don't know what it is about James, but he just motivates me to work a lot harder than any of the other RPM instructors (but Shaun from Eldene is also good).

But bloody hell was it cold running home.

Wednesday 31st December
Morning classes, body pump with Ali followed by RPM with James. Had to hurry back as was meeting my nephew, Paul, for a "liquid lunch" in Swindon - only the second time I'd met him believe it or not.

Didn't do anything exciting in the evening, just went to my neighbour Anthony's house for wine and food. Only just managed to stay up to midnight as I was tired by then.