Friday 31 December 2010

Ick!

But at least it wasn't ow.  We cycled in this morning, via the gym to pick up my bike lock, and took it really easy.  The roads were almost completely empty even through we set of at normal tubing to work time, rather than cycling to work time.  My thumb held up nicely with the trigger downshift on the chain ring so that was good.  Then when I went for my shower at work, the bit of nail pinged off, taking a bit of skin with it.  Not too bad actually, clean, very little blood and it's a bit tender as the skin under the nail is exposed, but overall OK.

Feeling good!  Small party later.  Bit of prep to do as soon as I get home.  Bye bye 2010!

Thursday 30 December 2010

Success!

I gymmed!  And only had to drop the squat and swing with dumbbell from the routine as that requires too much grip from the thumbs and could have resulted in either a dumbbell flying across the gym or the tip of my thumb opening up. Neither of which was an attractive prospect.

And this is what I did:-
  • Squats with 70kg (counter-weighted Olympic bar with 2x 20kg, 2x 5kg and 2x 2.5kg on it) - 3x10
  • Core pendulum swings (lying on the floor, legs up, swing legs/rotate hips) - 3x10 each side SUPERSET A
  • Lunge with single arm swing opposite arm to knee (same side arm and leg working) 8kg dumbbell - 3x10 each side SUPERSET A
  • Clean and press 35kg barbell - 1x3 then fail
  • Clean and press 32.5kg (Olympic bar with 2x 5kg and 2x 1.25kg on it) - 2x10
  • Reverse lunge with row (cable machine) 15kg - 3x10 SUPERSET B
  • Side plank with row (8kg) hold plank throughout each set - 3x2x10 SUPERSET B
  • Leg raise with press - 20kg ViPR - 3x15
*pleased*

Wednesday 29 December 2010

Looking OK

I didn't go to the minor injuries clinic today.  Mostly because I checked my thumb this morning and it still isn't green or black, or funny-smelling and it's hurting less and with these lovely finger bandages on, it's well protected from bangs and knocks.  So.  I shall attempt some gymmage tomorrow and see how that goes.

Tuesday 28 December 2010

What to do.

Warning: graphic description of minor wound below.


My thumb is really rather sore.  I'm dosing up on ibuprofen a few times a day and making sure it's not going black/green/purple once a day so far.  It hurts all down the inside of my thumb, up into the knuckles at the base of my index and middle fingers and up the inside of my index finger.  Pressure on the back of the nail, or near the tip on the soft side, is a big no-no.  So I'm pretty much keeping it straight and not using it for anything.  Which means that many day-to-day tasks are annoying and fiddly, but it also means I have no grip in my left hand.  Which means that cycling will be tricky, never mind the fact that changing down on the chain ring uses a thumb operated trigger that's as stiff as all hell even with a fully functional thumb.  And gripping anything in the gym... also a problem.  I can't grip a bar or a handle with any meaningful strength, even pulling up my tracksuit bottoms is difficult!

So, if it's still not great tomorrow, I should probably take it down to the minor injuries clinic near work to see if there's anything can be done to help it heal more quickly.  When I was picking the seed out of the flap of skin on the soft side of my thumb, I did notice that it looks like the knife blade sliced through the thumb nail at the back at a quite shallow angle, through the skin and flesh on the tip of my thumb to just below where the nail and skin part at the tip of my thumb for about 2/3rds the width of my thumb.  The flap of skin glued itself with blood, up onto the inside of my nail so I had to peel it off the inside of my nail (after picking out the chilli seed with a needle) and push it back down to join the flesh where it should be before dressing the wound.  It bled an awful lot once I'd taken the pressure off the flap, so I'm pretty sure that if there was no nail covering it, I'd be looking at a few stitches for sure, but due to the nail you can't really see the damage very well and the rest of the nail, along with some tightly wrapped zinc oxide tape, is holding most of it in place.

Thumbs.  Quite important to most stuff we humans do, it turns out.

I think I need some more tea and Christmas cake.

Monday 27 December 2010

*whimper*

I've been... Busy.

Lots of stuff happened related to being at work lots of hours a day for several weeks and some stuff I might talk long after it loses the power to make things interesting.  I managed to fit in a couple or three gyms in per week, but dropped off the cycling.  I've eaten for England, but not got heavier so I'm just waiting for it to hit me.  I've totally failed to see my trainer at all so have been evolving and mixing and matching new stuff into my gym routine to stop it stagnating toooo much.

Christmas has been pretty good.  Just the two of us.  My first ever Christmas meal I've cooked at home for us and the turkey just keeps giving.  My main present was a pair of stunning Global knives, a sharpening tool and a magnetic knife holder.  And this evening I christened the knives making turkey curry, chopping and slicing garlic, onions, carrots, peppers, chillies, roast turkey...  Literally christened one of the knives whilst chopping the chilli peppers and sliced through my thumb nail nearish the top, into the top of my thumb at an angle and embedded a chilli seed into the cut before I'd even noticed the knife had cut.  Those knives are -sharp- and incredible.  And chilli seeds in cuts really rather smart, I can tell you.  And the very best thing you can do with a cut like that is press on it really hard until the bleeding stops, rather than picking about in the slice with a sterilised needle to get a chilli seed out.

We went to the gym earlier and I hauled out an old routine as my latest one is well over 2 months old and really too stale to be any good now.  So I looked back to a routine several iterations back and cranked up the weights somewhat:-

  • Squat and swing with 24kg (like a kettlebell swing) - 3x10
  • core pendulum swings (lying on the floor, legs up, swing legs/rotate hips) - 3x10 each side SUPERSET A
  • Lunge with single arm swing opposite arm to knee (same side arm and leg working) 8kg dumbbell - 3x10 each side SUPERSET A
  • clean and press 30kg barbell- 3x10
  • reverse lunge with row (cable machine) 15kg - 3x10 SUPERSET B
  • side plank with row (8kg) hold plank throughout - 3x10 SUPERSET B
  • leg raise with press - 20kg ViPR - 3x15 SUPERSET C
  • Pressups on ViPR - 3x5 SUPERSET C
But.  I really need a new routine.  Hopefully I'll be able to get the trainer at the local gym that I'd prefer.  Committing to a set time during the week just doesn't work for me any more.  So training sessions really need to be at the weekend and that means going to the gym near home.  Which, thankfully, is cheaper too.

Sunday 5 December 2010

pictures

Some of the foods we've been munching through this last 3 weeks...

Lamb neck fillets with apricots and apple, on a bed of couscous, peas and sweetcorn:

Roasted pheasant with roasted sweet potato, potato, red onions and parsnips:



Cavolo Nero and Bath cheese with wholemeal fusilli, tossed in olive oil:

Saturday 4 December 2010

So. Busy.

These last three weeks have been really quite busy. All I've been doing is sleep, commute, work, cook and eat. There really is so much going on at work that there's not much time for anything else. There was a race this weekend I'd been preparing for, but due to the road conditions to get there, it's been postponed now until another weekend.




The Abel & Cole deliveries have been helping to keep something interesting going on in the kitchen. Today's lunch was a gorgeous coleslaw made with shredded red cabbage and carrots with a couple of boiled eggs. Really tasty and so pretty as well.

As I've been on a down week exercise-wise, preparing for the race which now isn't, I need to hie me to the gym this weekend to make up for it a bit and at least guard against the danger of muscle loss. And we're going to see Harry Potter tomorrow so this is a lovely respite from the constant low-grade slog at the moment.

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