Tuesday, Day 19 - Today was such an exciting one for the kids and a real pleasure for me and my husband too for getting them walking along with us fairly happily rather than dragging them behind and then giving up. We managed to get on a cable car, an incline hill train, and another normal train plus the kids walked for about 3 hours in between. Absolutely stunning views to accompany us the whole way and we finished in probably the best adventure playground in the world. My husband then fuelled the kids with excitement about trail running by getting them bouncing down a hill, and showing them how to take little steps to keep moving without slipping. Nutters the lot of them but it certainly got us down quickly and easily, and I even managed to shift my arse a little to join in - not often done! (Picture to prove it!)
After we got back I thought I’d do a pilates session to get into things and get stretched out as doing anything with my legs just wasn’t going to happen after the running and walking all day. With perfect timing, week 8 of my programme starts with a lovely stretch of the legs and hips so that’s what I did, spending 5-10 minutes getting everything open, stretched and more mobile. The rest of the session is glutes focus which was brilliant as often in running and walking the glutes can get sore from use but what they really need is a bit more activation and a reminder of how to switch on effectively rather than allowing them to relax and go long and weak. The exercises in this session are slightly more complicated than in the previous “glutes focus” session in Week 3 and end with a standing Warrior III pose helping to remind us how to keep the focus on functional moves.
After I’d finished that one, I thought I’d just carry on going and catch up with the ones I missed by doing pilates from week 9 as well. This beautiful flow that is a signature of Garuda with the whole session being in standing and emphasising the movement of the ribs to nourish the spine. It feels wonderful, almost like you haven’t really been breathing properly until you’ve done this and then everything opens up in 3D. The session finishes with a moving meditation using a gentle tree pose with a tai chi style arm movements and transitions - for me all done while looking up at the slopes below the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains giving me so much life energy.
Once you’ve done 2 pilates sessions why not just carry on going and do a strength session as well? By the time I got to this bit, the Ginger nut who had been playing up all bedtime because he was completely over tired due to the excitement of the day and the length of walking, just point blank refused to stay in his bed, so as you can see from the photos I told him to lie down on the blanket and not get in my way while I finished - very pleased with himself he is too, as you can see! I still managed to get the whole session in, it just involved a fair amount of negotiating at the same time followed immediately by soothing and lying with the boy until he calmed down enough to give in and go to sleep. Best warm down ever!!
Exercises in the strength session are:
1) Mini band side raise
2) Mini band kickbacks
3) Long band tied low - golf drive rotations
4) Lunge with single arm press
Exercise 3 - I have only played golf a couple of times but to me this feels like a golf drive: you start bent over (straight spine, core pulled in), knees slightly bent, holding the band taught in front of you with straight arms, and then stand, twisting round by driving the near side glute first to press into the rotation.