Day 17: 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25

Not too much trouble getting up for a run today, however I have noticed I am pushing the time I get up back a little each day. Its hard to get out when you know there will be frost on the cars and a bitter wind. This is why I prefer my evening runs, the sun has already warmed everything up and, while still cold ,its not your thumbs hurt for the first 2km cold! But I still did it, with a meh time compared to my evening runs, but still.

Maybe one day I will include a more interesting picture about me running

The audiobook is really good for distracting myself from trying to calculate exactly how long it will be until i can stop. It is also a little creepy. It's a book about the zombocolypse and running early in the morning when few people are about is a little off putting. Well, at least I know I could run away if I did see some zombies...or would I be too tired because I have already ran a lot???? Maybe I need to give this running thing a little more thought.

No classes at school today so I could just catch up on some work, sort out some computer stuff and read the book that I was recommended by a friend about strength training. It's good, very informative, but very heavy on the technical stuff, such a giving lists of exactly all the muscles involved in an action and such. However, it is very informative, detailed and it has pictures! Those are the best kinds of books, ones with pictures.

This is either how to do an exercise or how to stand up as creepily as possible

This is the deadlift, it's what I tried to learn to do today, I say tried because it's not so easy and the book itself says that even regular lifters hate doing this so much they will try to find excuses not to do it that session. It is, however, the lift where you can pick up the most weight, so that is cool. Some people lifting 100's of kilos. Me??? Oh yeah, I'm like totally up there, managed a huge 50kg deadlift!...... Shhhhh, I'm still learning. 

Anyway, something much more exciting happened to me today, something that I have been looking forward to and happens very rarely, this:

Sometimes it's the small things

Yup, thats right, I have all the weights in descending order on my squat. woop woop! I dunno why but I find this really satisfying. What you see here is 10kg, 5kg, 2.5kg and 1.25kg all that on each end plus a 20kg bar adds up to 57.5kg. The next time I will see this is when I add the next biggest weight, 15kg. So I won't be seeing this again until I can squat 87.5kg. It is a long way off but I am already looking forward to it. All the more reason to train hard.

After my gym session I headed home to make dinner and do my dishes (That's right, my weekday nights are crazy!). My dinner was something I have been looking forward to. Meat in Japan can be very expensive, and there usually isn't much variety so I sometimes order from a website called the meat guy. It all arrives frozen so I had this big sirloin steak that I needed to eat before i go home because if my electricity gets cut off because i'm not here to pay it this winter break, I am not going to waste 400g of prime sirloin!

So this was my dinner:

No "witty" caption, just mmmmmmmmmmmm

Lot's of protein to help me grow the muscles needed for those damn deadlifts and get up to 87.5kg. I slightly overcooked it but it was still good and I'm sure it will do the job. I better let this digest, I have my early morning freezing run to look forward to, as the Japanese say がんばります (ganbarimasu) or "I will do my best"! Off to bed!