Day 82: Feeling good

Feeling good, but very, very, very tired. Slept well last night, however woke up exhausted still. Skipping in the light rain and almost autumn like temperatures was nice. Strange how the weather has cooled off so suddenly. Is summer over? Exercises extremely difficult, but that is par for the course at the moment and likely to ramp up even more in the next 8 days I suspect.

Day 81: New awakenings with budding awareness

In a bid towards a new approach to skipping, I have dispensed with my iPod both yesterday and today. It is amazing how 21 minutes actually whizzes past when you are concentrating on the sounds of the cicadas, the traffic in the background and in the foreground the whizzing sound of the rope. Skipping skills were actually a notable improvement. Lots of trips still, but less, and increased rotations. Also an increased sense of peace. I do still catch myself "thinking" too much, but then shift focus to the middle distance and make myself think of "nothing".

One interruption in this semi state of mindlessness however was one of our cats who ran across the road with a  sparrow in her mouth whilst I was skipping. This was the second sparrow she had landed today. My youngest daughter managed to save said sparrow and lovingly took it inside to minister to its hurt wing and see if it was OK. I just happened to be near the house when this operation was occurring and was able to stop. Once the rescue had been achieved I went off around the block to complete the skip. As I was returning home daughter No. 2 comes storming out of the house in a complete tizz......... her sister had let the bird go and she wasn't ready to release it yet. Off she stomps into the neighbourhood (as I find out later, to find the bird). She's only 9, so when she didn't come back after I had set up all my equipment for exercising, I ran around the neighbourhood for quite a while looking for her. Voila, extra cardio. Finally found her and all well, except no bird. Probably some other cat's dinner.

Exercises went smoothly, or so I thought. Apparently I was making a lot of noise counting. Nothing untoward though and no distractions other than very quick failure on all shoulder exercises.

I do keep thinking that although rationally I know we are revving up the number of movements and the number of sets, emotionally I still find it difficult to accept that I cannot always do them all. Surely I should be getting better at them, not worse. And surely I shouldn't be waking up every morning exhausted, even with lots of sleep. I can however see that there has been a marked positive difference in the week since we returned from Bali. Losing a little bit of weight daily, but hoping that is not muscle and it is fat melting off my body.