millies are a bitch to improve on. Good work Cal. You get a star from me * 
Those MPs are winners. Good for you! Down another pound, so just keep doin’ what you’re doin’.
well done on the rack pulls! lowering the pins and keeping decent form can be rough! and hells yeah for your millies, too!
Had a pretty good gymnastics class today - we were working up towards headstands and handstands and it went pretty well. I actually found the starter position for headstand (head and hands on floor, knees on arms) pretty easy. Getting vertical…not so much. But being upside down is just something you have to get used to as it’s pretty damned unnatural. Once something clicks - like my forward rolls - then I can do it, but being somewhat dyspraxic, getting it to click takes time. Thought I made progress today, anyway, and felt happy with that.
My PC is being a pain in the arse - doesn’t always boot up properly (it’ll load desktop and then sit in hourglass mode until I reset it) so I’m a little stressed about that. Not sure what’s wrong with it. I thought I’d solved the problem but then it did it again this morning. Grrr. I might have to get an IT guy to come look at it. Nothing stresses me out like computer problems. Seriously, a crash or problem will clear out my bowel better than a bag of prunes. I’m not even exagerrating. So anyway, if I suddenly disappear, it’s likely because of that.
Cal, nice work on your tripod (headstand). It seems to me your dyspraxic self is making good progress. Hope your PC treats you nicely, although a few more problems could be good for the diet.
Yesterday was pretty hellish. I booted up my PC and it got to desktop - all icons loaded and whatnot - but if I clicked on anything, it just sat there with its thumb up its ass, figuratively speaking. Tried again, and again. Just about to call for an IT guy when the power went out.
After a couple of expensive calls on my mobile to the power company, seems there was a problem at the substation, so I thought screw this, I’ll just go to the gym, do my yoga class and hopefully it’ll be fixed by the time I get back. So, off I went.
Short workout as I didn’t have that long before yoga but did the following:
Superset: Millies and squats
Bar x 10
25kg x 10
30kg x 9 (10 squats)
I should point out that I had to abandon squats last year after I ended up messing up my lower back, so I am starting back at pathetic weights just to see if my they make my sciatica worse or not. Also, my bum was still sore from gymnastics. We have to do a lot of bunny hops and stuff which always gives me lovely DOMS in the glutes and piriformis. Anyway…
Chins: 3, 2, 2, 2 (well, one and three quarters…tired)
DB rows:
2 x 8 x 26kg
Did one set of cable rows where I squeezed my scaps together for a few seconds. Only used 20kg and didn’t count reps. Just trying to fix posture.
Then practised my tripod things again. Did try to get the legs up but kept falling over. Least I know if I do fall over it’s not a big deal on mats.
Then did my yoga class and went home. Saw a bunch of workmen by the substation and they said power should come back but whether it would stay on they didn’t know. Once I got back home, it did come back for 10 minutes - enough to get me excited. Then it went out again. As I was taking my laundry down to the laundrette for a service wash, I told one of the sparkies the power was out again and he said it was a cable and they’d have to dig up the road.
At this point I must point out that my boiler, although it heats with gas, requires electricity to function, and it’s freezing here (as in literally - around zero degrees C) so I think fuck this shit, I’m off. My dad was out of hospital today after breaking his hip so I took a train (nearly £50! If you book it online it’s about £30, but no computer or electricity so…) and went to visit my folks in Poole. (Poole is next to Bournemouth, down in SW England.
About two and a half hours from me). Didn’t tell them I was really there because I had no power, and they were happy to see me. They are both having a lot of trouble moving around but have care workers stopping in to check on them.
Just got back - power is back on (I did get a text from the power company saying they’d fixed it as I was on the train down) and computer also appears to have booted up OK, at least for now. I will probably need someone to check on it anyway, but at least I can post for the time being. Backed up my photos and docs on my portable HD anyway.
Smart of you to back up your stuff Cal. Hope that’s the last of the electricity issues you get for a while. I remeber chucking out a whole fridge filled with groceries when that happened to us a few years back. sux.
Oh and PS it is snowing hard. That’ll make getting to work fun tomorrow!
Glad you got your computer squared away and the electricity back. And just think, having no electricity got you over to visit the rents, and that’s really a nice thing. So it was a bit of a blessing I’d say.
And those 30kg squats and millies ain’t nothing to scoff at! Especially if you haven’t squatted in a while. Good work!
[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
At this point I must point out that my boiler, although it heats with gas, requires electricity to function, and it’s freezing here (as in literally - around zero degrees C) so I think fuck this shit, I’m off. [/quote]
Are you sure about this? Yes you need electricity to spark the pilot flame (probably already going) and to run the water pump to the radiators, but if you can keep that going (hint does not use much power and could run on a computer UPS for a while) heat should ensue.
My family was on firewood last cold snap as our radiator pipes disintegrated:-( Had to tear up the carpet before it froze: 
More importantly, you are fighting your squatophobia. Good on you!
Yeah I’m sure. This model of boiler does not run if it is disconnected from the electric. The pilot is on, still, but it won’t heat anything. Anyway, it’s fine. And I’m having it replaced in two weeks in any case.
Masch - computer is not really squared away - it just decided to work for me today. That doesn’t guarantee that it’ll work tomorrow or the day after. I will call an IT guy if it continues to be, as Americans say, “ornery”.
It is really great to see that you feel well enough to squat again. Keep warm in all that nasty weather.
Cal, That’s great that you’re squatting again. I hope you stay pain free.
Still got a lot of snow (for London) - yuck. No workouts yesterday or today (I don’t exercise on school days) but I am getting some exercise from teaching - when I warm the girls up I do star jumps, free squats and spotty dogs etc with the girls, plus I demo some of the exercises. I feel quite chuffed as I started teaching year 4 the partial headstand I learned on Sunday and most of them got quite far with it, and one little girl, who gets a lot of health problems but is a real trier, totally nailed it.
I had the dreaded netball club again after school and this time I made the girls do circuits, with the year 6 girls supervising each station. It worked really well! But I can’t do circuits every time (even though one girl - the same who got her headstand earlier - said she loved it and wanted to do it again next week).
It looks like letting you loose on the young’uns wasn’t such a bad idea after all. 
Sounds like your doing quite a good job teaching your girls! I loved reading about how the little girl with the health problems is excelling. You could be making a real difference in her self-esteem and how she views herself–ie physically capable. Nice work.
I taught a few more girls to do it today. Funnily enough, the hardest ones to teach were the oldest (year 6) girls. They’re still only 10-11 but I guess the older you are when you first try something, the harder it is. Still, if I can learn it at 43, having never done it before, I’m pretty sure they can do it. My proprioception is pretty shitty but I suppose I do have a lot more strength, which is rather handy for positions where you need to hold yourself in place.
Next week I have to go in on Tuesday (usually a non-work day for me) for parents evening…joy! And we have a school inspection on Wednesday as well. I hope to god I don’t have any of my lessons observed. I am still not great with disciplining the girls. Year 2 are particularly awful and I had them doing a very basic team game today (throwing beanbags into a hoop) and it was rather chaotic and several girls ended up in tears after getting a beanbag in the eye, or claims of unfairness and teaching. One girl even hit another and made her cry. I had to make her apologise and get them to shake hands but damn, it’s a bit of a nightmare at times! It’s a funny thing - some classes are great, but some are difficult. And of course, with the year 6 girls they are starting to get hormonal and there’s a fair bit of moodiness.
I’m off to a friend’s 40th this weekend. I hope the trains are running OK. We’re currently dealing with this (see photo)!
Cal, I can’t figure out what that picture is. Snow of sorts?
Better you than me on the kiddo-conflicts.
enjoy the party!
It’s a satellite picture of the UK in its current state.