No more running!!!
Mood:  bright
Back to the gym today and really enjoyed it. I did 45 minutes of upper body weights. Dave came and did weights with me (usually he just runs). He's an excellent personal trainer - amazing what a difference it makes with someone there to motivate (or rather, harrass!) you to do just one more rep.

Inspired by Skwigg and Tiffani I have decided to start my own pull-up quest. The quest at the moment is to do *just one* pull up. I really want to improve my upper body strength, which is pretty crap just now. Today I started the quest as follows:
1) I hung from the bars monkey-style for a few seconds. Now this might not sound like much but honestly, I am that pathetic. That was an achievement.
2) I had a go at an assisted pull up as advised by Krista in her excellent pull up guide. I wouldn't say it was a roaring success, but it certainly kept Dave amused watching me try and haul myself up. Why is it that you are compelled to pull all sorts of weird facial expressions when doing pull ups? Anyway, I've gone right off Dave, good personal trainer or not, as having watched my pathetic struggles with the assisted pull ups he then raised the bar and did full ones. Bastard :-)

After the weights I attempted the treadmill. I managed a whole 5 minutes before I lost the will to live. I've decided enough is enough. I've had it with running. I hate it, it's boring, and I'm rubbish at it. I've been running a couple of times a week just because I can't think of a better way to get my cardio in between TKD and Combat classes. But I've decided I'd be better off concentrating on the things I actually enjoy. With the punch bag installed in the back garden I would much rather get a good cardio workout on that a couple of times a week than go for a run. Also - happy news! - my gym is bringing back its Monday morning Combat class. Always used to go to this, but then they ditched it for Body Pump instead. Grrr. But apparently no-one has been going to Pump, so they're bringing back Combat - yay! If I do that, Combat on a Saturday and TKD on a Thursday that's 3 high intensity cardio workouts each week even before I include TKD on a Sunday and some punch bag fun in the garden. So I say - sucks to running! I'm ditching it! I feel free! Woo hoo!

It's really, really hot today. Dave has filled a paddling pool in the back garden for the dogs. Neo took one look at it and jumped straight in. Think we might have to book another session of dog swimming for later in the week :-)