Day 5 & 6 - Playground bullies

Gah!! I missed out on my blog post yesterday and felt a twinge of self-loathing but hey, I still hauled my butt out of bed on both mornings to do my exercises so that absolved the guilt pretty quickly. I'm pretty self-forgiving which explains why am in this unfit mess to begin with. Yesterday I decided to take my workout beyond the comfortable confines of my apartment building and headed off to the kids playground across the road loaded up with my various exercise props. I was really keen to try skipping on astro turf to see if it was any more forgiving on the knees. Unfortunately my efforts were thwarted by actual kids playing in the playground. Outrageous! I briefly considered chasing them off (this is my playground afterall) but in the end retreated. Not sure skipping ropes and kids mix. Hang on a second!! Of course they do. What I mean is that when I skip - the rope is a weapon such is my speed. Yeah right. What I actually mean is that I was scared the kids would wrestle me to the ground and rope jack me. So I took myself off to playground no. 2 down at Happy Valley racecourse (where I hear the astro turf is really awesome) only to be chased off again by more kinder. These ones looked really territorial so I didn't even bother hanging around. Weighing up my options I headed to the work out area at the other end of the inner playing fields at the racecourse. This place is PCP paradise - chin-up bars, benches and all sorts of apparatuses. It's a bit of a trek from my place for weekday mornings but genius for a crisp weekend morning. I should have thought of this before. Springing into a (slow) jog I made my way to the far end of the grounds feeling good but when the work out area came into view I couldn't believe my eyes. Inconceivable!! The whole place was roped off like a crime scene with the floor torn up like an excavation site.  Are you kidding me? I eyed the nearby carpark and decided it was as good a place as any especially after searching 40mins for a decent spot. This morning I gave playground no. 1 another try and it was deserted so I crept in and skipped to my heart's content on the glorious cushioned ground. It was like plump spring grass and I felt like breaking into song.

The diet has faced some setbacks. You see, my mum is in town and she's formidable when it comes to eating habits. When I was a kid she would threaten to take away my pocket money if I didn't eat. She would rather I stay home from school than leave before finishing my breakfast. As soon as she opened her suitcase decadent foodstuffs immediately starting flying out of it and straight into my mouth. Not to mention she also brought with her two editions of my favourite food mag 'Delicious' which I subscribed to last year. I like to leaf through food magazines, indulge in a but of armchair travel dining and try out new recipes. I'm not sure if just looking through food magazines for the next three months will actually help or make things worse. Though I did actually spy some healthy food ideas which could be put to good use. I'll just have to keep my eye out for those and ignore the articles on 101 cholesterol choking ways to enjoy pork belly.

This week's motivation to get through the diet and exercise will come from last night's experience. The HK Arts Festival is on at the moment and the New York City ballet is in town. I saw an incredible program of mainly Balanchine works and holy cow it was out of this world. I'm a big fan of Balanchine but have never seen the NYCB perform any of his works before. I wasn't disappointed. The athleticism, artistry and musicality of their dancers is incredible and they are FIT. The works were fast, lung busting and challenged the limits of any dancer's technical prowess but they were amazing. I'll stop there before this starts to sound a bit too black swan breakdown drama (as an aside I'm sorry to say Natalie's baby daddy didn't make the trip out. I guess he was busy at the Oscars...).

Ethereal perfection!! I'll be channeling this when I am trying to float through my 500 jumps tomorrow morning...

Enjoy your weekend everyone!