unironedman

At the last minute, Pilates was cancelled. It’s a small group of about a half dozen souls who try and meet up each Monday evening. Cathy is the instructor, and knows her stuff. We, on the other hand, are all blokes who run, but apparently couldn’t find our core with a coal shovel. Or any other analogy you care to pick. Put it another way, we all fold like poker players with a shitty hand after a round of planks. But overall I would certainly recommend Pilates if you run or are just trying to get into shape. It may not be the best cardio burn but it gives you the strength to keep going when you are supposed to, and that’s most of the battle really.

Anyway, every cloud, and all that. I rang Mark and we headed into the park. In the dark. There is possibly a poem there but it would be really rubbish, so I think I’ll pass.

Cathy, bless ‘er, did send us all a workout to do in case we were missing the old Russian Twists. I had done my gym session first thing in the morning (currently back to three a week), so I wasn’t missing them that much.

The above workout looks like a nice burn. If you are struggling to read the 3 minutes section, it says to do 10 pushups then rest, then 15 triceps dips (which are a killer for me), then rest, then repeat for 3 minutes.

The run was great. Fast too. Not sure why, but sometimes at the end of the day you just need to let loose a little. Once we were out of the woods and into open parkland, we turned off the torches and ran by starlight and the more obvious ambient glow from the nation’s capital, ten miles east. Bar a couple of hardy dog-walkers, we had the place to ourselves.

In other news, S and I managed to escape the clutches of Leixlip recently and got into the Big Smoke (Dublin) to see a gig. Rather partial to John Smith. Check him out if you like classy singing and tasty guitar playing.

And there’s not much else to report really. Glad to be back out running again, and doing my best to keep fit with the gym sessions. Swimming and biking have taken a back seat but hopefully that will change if we can get some new crew in the station. Still planning to do the half-marathon at the end of the year with Mark, and we just await the final decision on the condition of the towpath along the canal. It’s getting a serious upgrade to make it into a national greenway, so it will be better in the long run. Sorry, no pun intended.

Actually, that’s just reminded me. My uncle wrote a lovely book a good few years back. Check that out too. In it he details his training programme for his first marathon. It’s all done with great humour and wit, and he illustrated it himself, which is not surprising really, given that he lectured in art college most of his life. It’s called In the Long Run, so you can see why it popped into my head. And yes, that is my rather shameless review on Amazon. As my Dad would say, nothing wrong with nepotism as long as you’re the nep.