Kylie

The pupils finished school on Thursday for their ½ term break, our last day was Friday. For the staff Friday was a teachers training day. Now we have had our fair share of Sh** e training day’s over the years, but Friday made up for all of them. Roy Leighton from Independent Thinking came in to school to deliver a day of thought provoking lectures regarding teaching and learning. He was very dynamic, and clearly an expert in his field, at times he was controversial, however he was exciting, enthusiastic and I found him motivational. “Learning for the Individual” was his focus, however much of what he said could be applied to all of us, teachers or not. As he said, those that think they have reached the goal, or are done with learning are clearly wrong. Learning is a life-long skill and to be better at it is surely an objective for everybody. I intend to summarise some of what I took from his visit in a later post. Whilst most of what he said was aimed at teachers a lot of what he said can be applied to many working and life situations. A quote he left us with was this one from the Buddha,

“to know and not to use is not yet to know”

This week I have been looking at my training and racing aims, and this quote is a timely reminder that there are many things I know that will help improve my training and performance, but yet I fail to apply them. I will be making a conscious effort to put more of what I know into practise.

On Monday I had a great training session with my mate Paul. Like me Paul has turned his garage into a gym so that he can be time effective with his training. Paul tries to juggle work, his own hobbies, Nikki (his wife), Nyah (his 18month old) and now Ciara (his 1 month old) also like me he’s outnumbered, and he’s getting good at juggling! We did a 15 minute run as a warm up, followed by 45 minutes of weights and body exercises, super setting to maintain the intensity. My weight sessions are usually as predictable as the England Football Team, Bench Press, Flys, Shoulder Press, yawn, yawn, Lateral Raise, yawn, Bicep Curls, a few crunches etc, etc, 3 sets of 10 or 12 reps, yawn, yawn, yawn!!! So with a multitude of whole body exercises in our minds we shook things up a little. Shoulder Press with upper body lateral rotations, Squats with the 15kg weight held above your head, Bent Over Barbell rows, where the weight is powered up and at the top of the movement the bar is released and the hand grip is quickly changed before lowering, Lifting a 15kg weight disc from your left foot up and across your body, finishing over your right shoulder, the Plank and Abdominal exercises on the mobility ball. After an hour we were both cooked, but pumped with adrenaline and keen to repeat in 7 days time, come on.
My training week has been a good one. Here it is in summary,

Monday: Bike work 1hr, Weights 1hr
Tuesday: Interval Run, 6 x 1 Lap Rugby Pitch on 90sec recovery
Wednesday: Bike work 1hr, (Referee U16 Rugby match 1hr)
Thursday: Bike work 1/2hr, Bike 3hrs (51 miles)
Friday: Bike work 1hr, Weights Upper Body 3/4hr
Saturday: Weights Upper Body and Legs 3/4 hr
Sunday: Run 1/2 hr, Core Stability 1/2 hr
Total: 11 ½

Sarah celebrated her birthday on Tuesday. By 7am she had opened her presents, and Ellie was keen to get on with the game of Pass the Parcel. I had come up with a nice little surprise present. My brother and his wife will look after Ellie and Evie for a weekend in November, so Sarah and I will jump on the train and head down to London watch a Show, have a meal and then head home. This will be a great opportunity do something different, will be fun. Sarah spent much of her Birthday surfing the web and reading show reviews, I think we will try to see Billy Elliott. I’ve been troubled by Birthday Cake this week. Everybody knows Mr Kippling’s French Fancies, any colour for me, although I do like the chocolate ones. Well you can now get a French Fancy 12” x 12” a pink one of course. Sarah had a little piece of cake and I spent the rest of the week working my way through the rest of it, lovely.

The week ended with a nice walk in the Woods and a picnic. We went to Skipwith Common, an area of Woodland and Heathland between Selby and York just off the A19. It is great to get out into the Countryside. There are no distractions from home, which means we are all more focussed on each other. Our picnic site was a Bird Watching Platform 5m up in a tree, which Ellie decided was our Wooden Castle. Picnic food for us is nearly always the same, Heinz Tomato Soup (is there a better tasting soup when you are outside?) and bacon sandwiches. Needless to say the combination of fresh air, exercise, a soft comfortable sofa and central heating knocked Evie and Sarah into the wonderful world of zzzzzzzz’s While 2 of the princesses slept, Ellie and I did some sticking. We make a Fairy Picture using the Fairy Cups (Acorn Cases) that we had collected, and then Ellie helped me make some meat balls for dinner.

It’s nice to be looking forward to a week of holiday, however if I am honest it doesn’t seem that long ago that I was returning from a long summer break. I have a few jobs around the house and garden to do, I want to fit in some training, and I want to spend some quality time with my girls.

This week’s quote was amusing. Some of you will know Sarah is a massive Kylie follower. A
mania I actively encourage, she gets a Kylie calendar every year (nice) and we have been to see her in concert 3 times (nice) so I put a Kylie DVD on for Ellie and Sarah (ok, and me) Ellie treated us to some cool dance moves, Sarah platted Ellie’s hair like Kylie’s and then Ellie said,

“When I grow up I want to be Kylie”

I’m not yet sure who I want to be when I grow up, I’ll think about it this week. Have a good one, enjoy yourselves.