God help anyone who is friends with me on runkeeper at the moment. I suspect that their timelines are being filled with my various activities, however small or apparently insignificant.

I noticed today that I’d logged 40 activities this month and we’re only half way through. I can’t see myself logging 80 over the month, but that’s a lot of “Steve just did a run”, “Steve walked”, etc. That’s 15 runs, 6 sessions at the gym and 19 walks. Because it’s janathon, I’ve logged warm-up runs in the gym, but that’s actually worked quite well. In the past I would jump on the treadmill, go through a bit of the motions and then get on and do the actual strength training. Whereas now I feel obliged to do the full 1 km – which seems crazy given that it only takes 5-6 minutes to complete. I must have been super-lazy before.

Work on a Thursday is usually compressed into the morning. If it isn’t done by 1pm then it doesn’t get done until Friday. This is because I get the children at 3:30, as usual, and then have Lindy Hop dancing in the evening from 7-9. So any gym or other activities tend to be squeezed in between 2 and 3pm. While Jude’s away things are quite tight and I arranged to go over to my parent’s for dinner on a Thursday with the children. It worked reasonably well.

I’d forgotten the chidren’s ipads when I picked them up from school, so I had to go home first to pick them up – plus have a shower, as I’d been to the gym between 2 and 3. Then straight over to Mum and Dad’s for some food and some time to get a walk in. Dad and I took Poppy out for a walk for half an hour, up to the top of Up Holland and then down the main road back around to their house. Tomorrow it’ll be back to the walk for walk’s sake.

Dinner and then Mum and I were off to the Lindy Hop. I can’t remember if I said last week that there are some bits that I find that easier to do than others. The six count is generally ok, I have more trouble with the eight count for some reason, even though that fits the music better. I’ve been struggling with the Lindy Circle, but today we did a “triple step” and it felt much better.

After going through the beginners course towards the end of last year, we bought my Mum some lessons for Christmas, as it seemed like something she’d enjoy. So I’m doing the beginners lessons again while also doing the more advanced stuff later. This is turning out to be quite useful. It means that I’ve done an hour of dancing where I’m reasonably competent before moving on to the much trickier stuff. Before, I was getting quite stressed about getting it right. Once I’m an hour in, I’m pretty relaxed about the whole thing and just up for trying to learn it.

There was a point where I seemed to be doing the pogo, headbanging and “dad dancing” all at once – when it should have been some sophisticated move, but I managed to iron most of those creases out.

The point where I really struggle is tying everything together in a social dance situation. I have the same difficulty with the guitar – I can work from a piece of music, but when I’m asked to play a solo or to improvise, then it all goes to pot. I think it’s because I’ve always been happy working towards a fixed formula, some music or more recently some choreographed dance lesson moves. Left to my own devices I crumble. The dance and the guitar lessons represent me trying things that are really very far out of my comfort zone and I’m enjoying it a lot. I can’t say that I’m very good at either of them at the moment, but I certainly feel better for it.

I think that the same is true for the running and the gym work. Although these are slightly more solitary than dancing and music, the same thing applies. When I first started running I had no idea what it would be like and if I could do it. I can run a bit, not fast, but I can keep moving and get around quite a distance when I put my mind to the training.

Similarly, the gym work was definitely something that I wouldn’t have done only a couple of years ago. When I started I had no idea what I was doing, felt very self-conscious and like a fish out of water. Over time I realise that it’s just another thing to learn and then practice, and I feel like I’m much better at it.

The dance and guitar improvisation is much the same thing, but it might take a bit more practice, and I’ve got to stop apologising every time I make a small mistake!

I did get _some_ work done. Some database stuff and a meeting about one of the projects I’m working on, so it was probably a very productive day – just all squeezed into the five hours between 9 and 2.

My warm up run at the gym was a 5:30 1km run. Slow to start as the machine got to speed and also I wasn’t really in the mood, then pushed the speed up to 12 and 13 km/h in the last minute to try and avoid hitting six minutes. That’s the janathon run ticked off.

Then there was 45 minutes working on the NROL Hypertrophy I B Week 3 sessions. Two sets of 20 reps – that’s hard, and while I was able to get the right weights for some of the exercises, I found it very hard trying to do 2×20 T-push ups with dumb bells and 2×20 pull ups on the Smith Machine. I think that I might need to move around the exercises so that I’m not doing bodyweight exercises at that part of the programme because some times it’s really easy because I can’t make myself heavier, and some times it’s super-difficult because there’s still quite a lot of weight.

Finally there was my 30 minutes, 2.5k walk around Up Holland. As I mentioned earlier, I’d normally be well over 3k in 30 minutes, but when you’re walking the dog, there are things that you really really have to stop for.

Oh, and Jude seems to be enjoying herself. She’s writing about her adventures over on her blog. Needless to say that we’re all missing her. The children have asked about her more today, and they don’t seem very delighted when I say that they have another two awesome weeks with me before she gets back. I may have to up my fatherly game at the weekend.