Exercise!

Hurrah! Finally got back into it yesterday. Went straight to the gym from work - the gym at Leith Victoria, which I hadn't been to before. It's teeny, but had everything you need.

Did:

• 10 mins crosstrainer, level 5, keeping above 10kmph
• 15 mins upright bike, level 6, keeping above 80 rpm
• 3 x10 reps at 25 kg pull down
• 3 x 10 reps at 15 kg shoulder press
• 2 x 10 reps at 25 kg something called 'fly' which works your front top chest muscles, whatever they're called
• 2 x 10 reps at 25 kg whatever the last upper body weight machine was

Plus some stretches. The three treadmills were busy the whole time but it was a nice change to get on the crosstrainer. Didn't really push the crosstrainer or bike at all and will set them higher next time.

After that it was straight in to the pool for a few lengths and the aquafit. Aqua is usually just a stretch out but this week we had a different instructor, Bill, covering for our usual lovely French (?) girl Inge. She had promised us "a 'andsome man" and he was indeed quite fit, though depressingly probably about five years younger than us. He shook hands with us all, even though we were all wet!

Anyway, Bill put paid to any notion that aqua is a bit of a doss by explaining that on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is standing still and 10 is completely out of breath and panting we should be working at a 6. The warm up was at about the level I usually find the whole class, and I actually got quite warm and out of breath for most of the rest of it. We did lots of jogging and jumps to keep the heart rate up, interspersed with weights. Not sure if the fact that Bill was a bloke made me work harder - my strangely male-orientated competitiveness kicking in. But it definitely helped that he had good music which I could set a pace to.

Anyway, between that and the gym I'm pleasantly sore in my arms today. The ankle seems to have survived, after I went through a moment of agony trying to get it in a wellington boot on Sunday. I was watching Al's muddy duathlon (he didn't come last and won a Christmas pudding) and hadn't allowed for the fact that pointing my toes to get the boot on would aggravate the injury. But as long as I don't have to run in wellies I'll be fine.

Meant to add, a while back I was tagged by a running pal. The rules are:

• Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
• Share five facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• Tag five people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
• Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Well I haven't really got any online friends to tag other than those who have been done already, though maybe I will try and get some now. But I guess I can think of some facts. How about:

1. When I was little I used to want to be called Laura after Laura Ingalls Wilder.
2. I am incredibly short-sighted and have yet to meet anyone more so (now there's a challenge - if you can beat my prescription I'll tag you!).
3. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to swap lives with my friends and do their jobs for a day. I think I would like Morag's best.
4. I will eat anything as long as it's dead.
5. I am completely lost without my diary, as Ailsa knows because I once left it at her house and went crazy. I don't even know my own mobile number. It's 07...something.

Enjoy!