Day Twelve: Moving Right Along

Lots of things are heading in the right direction today. I think I can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel at work, got a few tasks out of the way, I should have new shiny wheels this week (for my skates), my foot is slowly getting better, really looking forward to Bitchin' Bingo on Wednesday... and still pretty ecstatic about knowing I am going to have Hockey Stops in my skate tool box within a few more dedicated hours. Then we can add in their cousin "Power Slide" and more work on my rubbish Honey Shuffles.

Challenges in regards to Sleep:
Now, don't get me wrong, I do like to spend time asleep. I just found napping easier than sleeping, and got into a bit of a habit of power napping all over the place (best power nap time = two minutes) So I'd get a patchy three or four hours sleep between roughly 3am and 7am on worknights and I'd catch up on Saturday night / Sunday till 1.30pm, when I would get up to go skating. Saturday is actually the quietest night of the week for me so this normally worked out okay - I was functional, plus my body knew it could sleep on Sundays so it gave me everything before collapsing on Saturday evening. I never bothered going to sleep any earlier than 2am. I made up for it whenever I had those spare two to fifteen minutes at home when I would just hit the pillows for a power nap. I was doing that for four months and really, I wasn't feeling too bad considering. Everyone kept saying I would either go insane or die suddenly which I found much more unpleasant than my self inflicted mild sleep deprivation. I think I would fall asleep before either of those things. I had to admit though that if I wanted the best from my body - I was going to have to keep it fuelled up and a consistent sleep cycle is a huge contributing factor.


Fitness: So. After being told how I wasn't pushing myself hard enough at the gym (despite making improvements) I pushed myself just a little bit harder today. My quads failed at fatigue, in the second to last stage on the bike they blew out basically. The last 1.5km was... well. I added an extra 90 seconds to my time and it was all in the last two steps. After two rest days (okay I went skating on Sunday, but really). Horribly demoralised as that was my first activity I then went and did some planks and other mild core work before then busting my upper body to bits. I didn't venture anywhere near lunges / squats due to my quads failing - but I shook everything out with some side stepping on the treadmills. Tomorrow is another rest day but I'm going to have a think about structuring my work outs to target different muscle groups on different days.

Aikido: No training today. Watched youtube clips again.

Derby: No skating today. Thought about my wheels. And getting my new boots mounted. Custom toe caps. Getting some screen printing. Should probably do these things.

Diet: Work breakfast / lunch, although it was chicken today instead of ham, blueberry snack punnet. Chocolate milk after the gym, and then we had Chinese takeaways for dinner because... it's Chinese New Year. I was actually expecting some authentic Chinese food, but takeaways is... close.

Sleep: Mmm stayed up a bit later last night than I really intended despite what I said. And I'm doing it again tonight. Sigh. I need to be stricter on myself, if I start slipping too much I fear it may be too easy to drop one thing, which may lead to others.


But yes! Chinese New Year, 2012, Year of the Dragon. Considering what I want from 2012, this is very suitable.