Hi there! Christmas is in full swing and I hope you are doing well. We have mild weather with rain here in the south of Ireland. If you’re in the US or Canada, I hope you’re safe indoors. I’ve been following with dread the weather news from your part of the world.
I had a very active week – here’s a summary.
Monday
When I got out of bed on Monday morning, I immediately felt that my knee tendons were unhappy. That was very annoying – had I done something stupid? Did we do too many squats and lunges on Saturday after the whiskey tasting? Couldn’t my knees handle walking 9,5 km after two weeks of no walking or running? Hard to say.
I had planned to do some running… despite forecasted strong winds. Because people, 10 degrees C (50F)! But I didn’t want to risk getting back to where my knee was in early October. Would I stay home instead, rest my legs and just do some strength work?
But then the sun came out, the winds didn’t seem too bad, and we had 11 degrees. How could I not go out for at least a walk? I decided to also try some easy running to see how the knees would handle it. I also decided that this was a good time to see how it works to run with a camera. Some of you asked for more photos of where I walk or run, and it’s ironic that I’m an amateur photographer with a fancy camera and even a photography blog but I’ve barely posted any photos at all here, so let’s change that. I absolutely hate using the phone camera but brought my Lumix camera that is lighter than my usual camera, with a cheap but decent lens. It worked quite well, at least at the level of running I do so far.
Running didn’t work very well though. I felt pain behind the knee and around the tendon that previously was a disaster zone, so I walked the rest of the way. But it was an absolutely gorgeous walk.
After I came home I was energised and did some lighter strength work too with push-ups, exercises for knees and hips with resistance band, one-leg glute bridges, leg raises on mat (major work on abs), plank, hip stretches and the rotator cuff mobility exercise.
Tuesday
I had a wonderful, heavy lifting session today. I was absolutely exhausted afterwards! This probably isn’t heavy for many of you, but I only started in March of this year and I’m happy about my progress and results so far. I was also happy to see that my knees were recovered from the Sunday adventure.
- Squats with barbell, 25 kgs
- Lunges with barbell, much fewer kgs (still struggle with keeping balance but it went quite well today)
- Flyes, 5 kgs
- Chest press with dumbbells, 7 kgs
- Dumbbell row, 10 kgs
- Good mornings, with barbell
- Reverse flyes, sitting down, with dumbbells 3 kgs
- Lateral raise, dumbbells 4 kgs
- I have a feeling I did something else too? 🙂
On Tuesday night there was a Christmas party with the Tuesday music session people. Lots of good food, good drinks, songs and tunes!
Wednesday
I was seriously sore after my lifting session, and realised I had done some sort of training for 5 days in a row, and that I really should think more about rest and recovery. Wednesday became a good rest day.
Thursday
This morning was the darkest I’ve seen at 8 am! I’m glad the days will begin to be longer now… even if it means like 1 second per day. My plan is to run on Thursdays and my knee pain seemed to be gone but I was super tired, and the weather forecast had said rain all day. But instead it was sunny, dry, and 8C (46F).
I went out and did about 5 km mixed running and walking. It went quite well this time, and I did a decent amount of running, same area as in the photo above but I continued a bit further than usual.
Friday
The Friday strength session was a lighter one but still tough on the chest, triceps and shoulders. Especially shoulders and triceps are my weakest areas that need a lot of work. This is some of what I did:
- Sumo squats with barbell
- A special exercise for hip mobility, where I step over a bar from different directions
- Chest press with barbell
- Dumbbell front raises (4 kgs)
- Tricep pulldowns with one dumbbell, 12,5 kgs
- A mobility exercise for wrists/lower arms, with resistance bands (this will help my guitar playing!)
- Pec deck with resistance bands, done with straight arms – quite powerful!
Saturday – Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is when Swedish people celebrate Christmas. This was a total rest day with good food, drinks, movies and too much sugar. 😁
Sunday – Christmas Day
Some time ago, I suggested that we’d create a new Christmas tradition, to go for a long walk on Christmas Day. My original thought was to take the car to some nice place further away to do something different than usual, but today’s weather forecast was quite miserable and we decided to go out and walk locally while the weather was still good.
After some odd Christmas Eve weather with thunderstorms (!) with heavy rain, this morning offered some nice sunshine and 10C – it almost felt like spring with birds singing and the water rippling in the creeks. We went down our usual lane, past the local school but then took a road we haven’t done before, and in total we ended up walking about 9 km again. It was a lovely route, passing hills, fields and farms. Some people waved to us and greeted us with a Merry Christmas from their windows and gardens!
I hope to get out for a run tomorrow, or at the very least we might take another long walk. My knee still is a bit up and down, but actually I haven’t noticed any problems after running, so we’ll see. In the meantime, I wish you all a happy, enjoyable, peaceful and safe Christmas!
I’m joining Kim and Deborah in the Weekly rundown link-up. Go and have a look what other bloggers have been doing fitness-wise, and get some inspiration!
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