Owen - Eat your heart out!

My computer has been a little bitch recently and only works when it wants - thus the lack of an update - when I said I would.

I did the 1000 press ups!!!
It took me the best part of 12 hours including a couple of 90 minute breaks. I got to 600 in sets of 20 no problem at all, still not struggling at all with the last few of each set. This was short lived after 600 though, sometime within the next couple of sets I 'hit the wall'. My triceps started to struggle and seize up on the last few - like you would expect, but this came on quickly and instead of struggling on the last couple it was the last 5! By the last 2 of each set I was using every last ounce of strength in me to extend my arms.
I managed to get to 700 before I decided enough was enough and I took a break. I had some food and did loads of stretching on my arms to try and help the situation. When I went back to finish the 1000, the seizing had withdrawn for now but in its place was incredible tenderness in areas of my triceps. The huge amount of lactic acid in my arms had already taken affect after only 90 minutes. I battled on and the situation was getting worse and by 900 the seizing was back and my arms were VERY sore and I realized going on would do more harm than good. Me being me though, I carried on just to complete my goal thinking the consequences wouldn't be that great. With a collapse on the last press up of the penultimate set, I did it, but somehow the triumph was not 'all that' and I felt too sore to be bothered.

I had another two maths exams on Friday (4 down, 4 to go *sighs*) and these went really well aswel until I realized the second paper had 8 questions on it, I had been under the assumption there was only 7 (I did actually check the paper over and only saw 7) and so only had 10 minutes at the end to do a 25 minute question, resulting in me missing out on 10/75 marks.
*Shrugs*

I went to the gym almost straight from the exam only to do 30 minutes tops on the weights. My triceps were far too fucked to do any pushing and I had been feeling ill all day with a dodgy gut. So I did a few squats and seated rows but retired early to recover.

After sleeping a total of 12 hours I had recovered to some sort of acceptable state and after working for a few hours met Hollie and a couple of others in Leeds. The weather stayed nice for some time and I came up with quite a few new movements at different locations before playing a game of tig at the art gallery. There was loads of guys/noobs/'gayers that don't have a clue about parkour' there and it took ages before we got going and even when we did there was far too many playing to have a decent game. However as we are the dedicated traceurs we are, our fitness was much greater than the noobs/'gayers that don't have a clue about parkour' and we had a great game after most of them had run out of breath and quit.

Me, Hollie, Dec and Jamie then went to the scaffolding and did a little bit of technical stuff before doing some conditioning. Dec ran off on one of his runs and when he returned couldn't see us and went home - even though we was in exactly the same place *raises a brow* and Hollie left soon after, leaving me and Jamie. We managed 70 chin ups each (before I had to go - we was going for 100) and a few muscle ups. (Hollie also managed 50 pullups at home - cudos)

In between sets we did a few pistols and lots of work on a square rail (as opposed to a rounded one) traversing it in a squatted position and doing controlled 180s as we did so. We also did a few tic tac to precisions and precisions - one of which was around 9 foot with a bit of a drop and onto a wall only 3-4 inches wide. I stuck it beautifully, barely making a sound the first time and repeated my success another couple of times (I also did it again today and again stuck it with barely a sound) to prove it wasn't a fluke and that I have the experience to be able to land a jump like that more often than not... Jamie also stuck it on his second go.
I had to leave a little earlier than normal and my groin gave way a little towards the end but it was still a good jam.

As the forecast was good, we had to take advantage and me, Dec and Jamie met up in Leeds at 10:30 for another jam today. After 30 mins or so to get going me and Jamie started doing some good stuff - Dec didn't seem up for it for the whole day and didn't do anything much. *sighs* Jamie however was, with a little (well loads) encouragement and advice from me, was doing loads of things he would normally walk away from. He even came very close to doing he underbar at the scaffolding where you grab the free pole to swing through the others without touching them! Anyone who has ever looked at that knows how scary it is and to date there has only been one to do it and it wasn't Owen when he visited. *smiles*

We ended up taking a slightly different route down to the armories visiting spots along the river bank we don't usually give the time of day to. The last time we was there was more than a few months ago and because of our progression in ability there is actually quite a bit of different things to do including lots of technical things and loads of precisions and running precisions that I was finding particularly easy today even though it wasn't a good 'jumping day' and I wasn't jumping my best (feeling the effects of yesterday) which I can only put down to the strength work on my calfs that I have been doing in the gym.

That was the general theme of the day really - Precisions/Landings and technical movements. Throughout the day we was constantly coming up with new variations of ways to do a certain movement/'To get from A to B' and it seems to be a new stage of training for a few of us in Leeds, one that I'm sure we will experience from greatly, but also one which I am sure will pass when we gain more experience. I'm not saying we won’t keep coming up with new movements - NEVER! But we will eventually start seeing them so quickly and will not notice we are doing it, as it will become a natural instinct - something which we are starting to work towards at the present. We also found a really cool new spot over the other side of the river to where we was (basically a bit up river from Yum Yums) which again had some cool technical stuff and some amazing precisions along with some possible cat pass to precisions that are around 6 foot.

We then moved on to the new spot and again came up with some new things we had never spotted before. I love that spot, it has so much potential and we have only started to explore its possibilities! We then got an hour or so at the playhouse until it got dark. Our hands were far too sore to try much on the red rails there but we did get chance to try the arm jump Owen did in his 'Record of Achievement' sampler. I lined it up once and managed it on my second go, Jamie took many more attempts lining it up before he had the balls to commit to it but none the less he did it with ease in the end.

I don't mean to keep comparing myself and others to Owen, but with his ability, since he visited Leeds we have had several aims to progress enough to do some of the moves he did, that arm jump ^^ being one of them.

I just hope the weather is as good next weekend!

Peace Always