In my continuing efforts to make my exercise regime fit my life more, I decided to get up early this morning and get in a run. That way I’d get my workout in for the day and could blob out or do whatever I felt like after work, rather than coming home, and racing around to try to fit in a workout.

Now exercising on an empty stomach is a bad idea, so I made sure there was some food on the bench waiting for a bleary eyed me to stuff in my mouth before heading out. Banana on toast, yum yum.

People who know me will tell you that I’m not a morning person and they’re right. But strangely, with the right motivation I emerged from bed just after 5:30 am.

Once I got on the road I ran into an issue I hadn’t really considered: it’s still dark at 6 am here. My first couple of kms were a little slow as I was making sure I didn’t trip on anything or run into something. Once dawn actually hit, the path became more visible and I got back to my usual pace.

After the run, I gulped down some water to rehydrate, dashed off to the shower and got dressed for work. With a surprising amount of time left, I made myself breakfast (a poached egg on toast) then was off for a day at work.

Aside from some soreness in my toes (I still clench my toes inside my shoes) I felt really good at work, slightly more energy than normal perhaps. I’m not sure if this will be making a regular appearance in my fitness regime, but at least I know it’s there as an option if I want to use it. Especially during the longer sunlight hours of summer.

So after some consultation with my personal trainer, aka my brother, I’ve tweaked my workout regime slightly and I’m already pleased with the results.

I’ve swapped out the squats for squat jumps, apparently body weight squats are just too easy. Probably right too, never really felt much while doing them but got a really good burn in my quads while doing the squat jumps.

Today I managed to get through five complete circuits of the weight loss regime, followed by three circuits of my ab and back workout. That means today I’ve done:

• 50 press ups
• 50 squat jumps
• 50 dumbbell presses
• 86 crunches
• 36 crunch twists
• 36 front planks
• 36 bent over dumbbell rows
• 36 back extensions
• 300 star jumps

Afterwards my body felt fine although quite a few of my muscles were complaining and I was drenched in sweat. I’m usually a heavy sweater but this was unlike anything I’ve struck before including my half marathons.

Overall, I’m pleased with my effort and intend to keep this up. I’ve already gone in two holes on my belt and I’m finding my shorts can barely stay up any more. At this rate, I’ll be looking like Sitch in no time.

In my younger days I used to get cramp often and sometimes quite badly, and I suspect mostly because I didn’t understand what caused it. Often after refereeing a couple of games of rugby, I’d get cramp that evening just from sitting on the couch.

As I got older and wiser I learned cramp is largely caused by dehydration and properly hydrating before, during and after exercise is extremely important. There are other causes of cramp, including lack of essential salts like Sodium and Potassium, but for me controlling my hydration means controlling the cramp.

That was until last night. After a really good 10.5km run in which I felt really good, the kms just flew by and none of my joints complained at all, I was relaxing on the couch sipping from my water bottle. I’d already drunk one 750mL bottle of water and had almost finished my second when I remembered there was some washing to put on (gotta get in the GTL every day). I headed upstairs, or at least tried to because on the second step my right calf cramped hard and in the most painful way I’ve felt in years.

I tried to sit stoically and wait for it to pass, but my muffled cries of pain brought Jess over to investigate. No matter what I did, the muscle just wouldn’t release, I tried the old favourite of pointing my toes up as hard as I could, only to have the cramp shift from one place to another, then back again as I stopped stretching.

After a couple of minutes the muscle relaxed and I was able to move again. I headed straight for the kitchen where I downed a glass of salty water (yuck!) in an attempt to replace lost Sodium. I then remembered Jess had an old container of powered Powerade in the cupboard that she didn’t like, lemon and lime flavoured, or as she called it “urine flavour”.

The rest of my night was spent on the couch sipping Powerade (a drink I normally avoid) and stretching my calf every two minutes. It was rather sore when I went to bed, although Jess gave it a massage which helped tremendously and this morning I never would have known there was something wrong.

I think it might be time to switch back to my old post run drink Nuun, plenty of electrolytes and just 12 calories. Maybe that will knock the cramp on the head.

My last post talked about the workout regime I’ve started up in my garage. Back then I was doing just three circuits, today I finally managed to do four. As with most things in life, more is not always better, but with this regime, I’m aiming for five complete circuits.

Todays effort was pretty good, especially since both my surgically repaired joints were acting up after a day in the garden yesterday. Push ups with an achy shoulder and wrist in the same arm are more of a challenge than usual for me.

I’m also aiming to add some ab exercises to this regime every few days, hopefully I can firm up my flabby middle that way.

In related good news, I put on last summer’s shorts last weekend only to find they no longer fit me. Many people have this problem but not in the sense I did, they barely stay up! I also bought myself a new pair of jeans, two inches smaller than the other pairs I own.

Hope I can keep up this progress.

My lovely wife bought me a copy of Wii Fit Plus for my birthday this year and I think it’s fair to say I haven’t used it nearly enough. It’s great fun to play, but since it involves your whole body really does require you to be in the right mood, a mood different from regular gaming.

But since winter is coming to an end and spring is just around the corner, I’ve found my motivation to get stuck back into the whole exercise and eating right groove.

Yesterday I was all fired up to go for a run, but it was raining and after a stop at the health food shop on the way home, it was getting dark. I thought about what I could do and decided Wii Fit was the way to go, burn some calories, have a bit of a laugh and get back to Prince of Persia, my current gaming fix, tomorrow.

Foolishly, I let the Wii pick the exercises for me and it started me out with a couple of yoga poses. The first one, downward facing dog, wasn’t too bad, the ones I really struggle with are the ones where you stand on one leg due to poor proprioception.The next two yoga poses were a nightmare, the tree, where you stand on one leg with your other foot on your supporting thigh, and a single leg twist which is a knee raise like exercise but the leg you are raising never returns to the ground.

After feeling like a total klutz, I moved on to a couple of exercises I can do and enjoy: rhythm boxing and rhythm kung fu. Both are simple to master, require only a small sense of timing and build up a good sweat.

Super Hula Hoop popped up next, again good fun and good work out, before I finished off with a nice relaxing round of Ski Jump.

All in all, I think that Wii Fit actually gives a pretty good workout and I think I’m going to make an effort to play everyday this week. It’s fun, it’s easy and it’s in my living room, basically it’s the perfect workout.

Since I’m a geek, I have all sorts of gadgets, one of which is my iPhone. Apple’s slogan for the iPhone App Store is, “There’s an app for that!” and there most certainly is. Want to know how far you just ran, how fast you went and even the elevation changes in your run? Runkeeper can tell you.

The name is something of a misnomer, it can do running, walking and cycling. Runkeeper uses the iPhone’s built in GPS to track your activity, then overlays it with Google Maps to show you where you’ve been, how long it took you and other useful data.

This is me riding home from work on Wednesday, and it does include time stopped at lights, but it’s quite a neat application to track your fitness activities.

Unfortunately I won’t be using it for running when I start back up as it largely duplicates the functionality I already have with my Nike+ and my iPod nano. Plus the nano is just so much easier to carry on a run rather than a bulky and heavy iPhone.

Long time no update, I know.

So recently I decided it was time for me to get back out into regular exercise. I haven’t exactly been doing nothing, I’ve been refereeing at least once a week, twice when I was doing mid week girls rugby.

But since the weather has improved slightly in that it’s not raining, it’s still cold, and petrol has gone up in price steadily, I decided to start biking to work again. It’s only 4km and takes around 15 minutes door to door which is roughly how long it takes in the car anyway.

It’s often freezing, as in 0ºC or lower, when I leave for work, but I’m not worried as I have a high visibility wind proof jacket, warm gloves and a full face balaclava. That’s right, when I bike to work, nobody can see my face.

One thing that I’ve noticed a lot since I’ve started biking again, and I know that six trips is not exactly a large pool of data, is that the cyclists’ mantra of “share the road” seems to be something of a one way street. I have yet to see any bad behaviour from drivers but bad behaviour from cyclists is a daily occurrence.

Today I stopped at a red light, a CYCLE red light might I add, it’s got a red bike and everything. There were two other cyclists waiting there, but as soon as a third arrived, slowed down and ran the red light, the other two joined him, leaving me behind to foolishly obey the traffic laws.

But traffic infringements aside, I’m quite enjoying my rides and I’m getting an extra half hour exercise a day and keeping my car off the road. I like to think I’ve already knocked 60% off my fuel bill for the week and will be on the bike again tomorrow, bringing the savings to at least 80%. And that makes it a win/win/win for me, the environment and my bank balance.