We’ve been out today, celebrating my Mum’s birthday. We went to Fifteens at the fox, in Roby Mill. Pete and I used to go there a lot when we were younger with Joe Lee who we worked for back then. The place fell into disrepair over the last couple of years, but was bought and refurbished by a local businessman (pub chain owner). He’s done a good job, the place is lovely inside and the food was great solid pub nosh. Pete and I had the fish and chips, and it was splendid.

You’ll see from the photo that they’ve exposed some of the original brick behind the rendering. Pete and I were agreed that this was a mistake, but it seemed like we were in a minority.

Last year we started out with the intention of trying to get everyone in the family together for a meal once a month. i.e. Pete and Davina, myself and Jude, my parents and the children. That didn’t really last more than a few months because we all started getting busy as the spring and summer approached. But it’s always a real treat when we get together and so hopefully we’ll do it more this year.

I got back to find that Lorna had been out for a run and done four and a half miles in 50 minutes – comprehensively beating my run yesterday. While this was an excellent run (partly in the rain, too), my competitive side was troubled by this. I had resolved to just do some upper body weights training today given my sore legs, but this really made me reconsider. I had also blogged yesterday that I should do a three mile run today (which is on my training plan). So I felt obliged to properly consider going out for a run.

I looked through some local routes for a change from the normal. Jude showed me her incredibly complicated three mile zig zag through town, and I hemmed and herred for a bit. Long enough for it to get dark and for the wind to pick up. It could easily turn into a typhoon outside (only a teeny tiny exaggeration) so I relented and went upstairs to do some weights instead. As it was, I realised that I might need another day off the running as everything below the hips still ached after yesterday and Friday.

So I went through the second of the NROL “break-in” workouts. This involved :

• deadlift 2×15 – I did these with the dumbbells from yesterday. fun!
• step-up 2×15 each leg – more dumbbell action.
• lat pulldown 2×15 – resistance bands pulling down from the top of the door.
• 2 x 20 reverse crunches.

Also something that I think are called row pull downs? Basically pulling differently than the lat pull downs. This was on a youtube video showing how to do them with resistance bands. Well, I’d set everything up, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The pull down exercises were quite hard and the reverse crunches were harder. I could have increased the weights for the others – but I’m going to see how I feel tomorrow first, after the experience of Friday.

I expect that my lower half should be working again tomorrow, or at least be reasonably rested. So I’ll definitely be out for that three miler tomorrow.