Confession Time.....

I decided in the New Year to add cross training to my regime and have been doing some home developed circuits - generally bending, squatting, press upping around the gym in the house. This has been quite useful but I felt my efforts lacked structure and intensity.

So bearing this in mind I have to confess that I went online and found a DVD that would provide a more structured plan and help me with new exercises that would keep me stimulated. I get bored easily! So the DVD arrived at the weekend and I plugged it into the machine in the lounge providing more space for leaping around and as the lounge is at the back of the house the cunning part of the plan was no passers by would witness my incompetence!

The process started off with a fitness test. Well it was a fitness test of sorts. As you can imagine my legs are reasonably strong with the running and biking but my lack of swimming has never built a particularly strong upper body. When I tried the stuff for the upper body fitness test I was rubbish, really rubbish. Danielle wiped the floor with me. I would love to say that I was surprised but in reality the months of inactivity last year have paid a price and carrying so much weight with such puny arms made me realise just how much I need to do. The plan is to keep working on my core until the end of March or start of April by which time we will be basking in the glorious Scottish spring!

So yesterday I did the first session of the programme - man it was tough especially when I got onto the press up's and other core stuff on the floor. It only lasted about 40 minutes but I was a sweaty boy when I got it done. I'm hoping that a stronger core will keep my legs higher up in the water and help me swim more dynamically through the hole in the water my head and arms create if that makes any sense!

So last night having done the 40 minutes session in the morning I looked out at the snow and decided to run on the treadmill. Now I was back at home running and enjoying it. I completed 5 miles in just over 40 minutes including a couple of sub 8 minute miles which is quite quick for a fat lad like me!

I'm having a day off on Tuesday and plan to do my long run on Wednesday as usual - it would be great if the snow is gone and it warms up but that's probably asking too much.

I think January went pretty much to plan and I think I'm on track so despite the wake up calls, I believe that I will get there and be ready for the start of the race in August. Life is a journey and at the moment I'm loving the ride!