Friday!

Well, rainy season is well and truly here!  There's no denying it.  I thought rainy season started a week and a bit ago, but I was wrong.  Shun told me that it started on Friday and he was right!  2.45 Friday morning and the rain is waking me up.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's look at Thursday.

Thursday was simple enough: get up, eat, cycle to the Budokan... only the Budokan was closed!  After some swearing I decided to go for a wander and cycled around.  It was a hot, hot day.  Not as hot as Wednesday was, but far more muggy.  Even at night it was 26 degrees C!

Anyway, came across a little boxing gym and am seriously considering joining.  $100 a month, which isn't too bad, and I can train every day except Sunday.  So, certainly worth thinking about, but I need to get this laptop issue resolved first, so that'll be the decider, whether the laptop eats money or not.  Acer aren't mega helpful, but we'll see.  I stripped loads of data from this thing and it seems to be running a bit better now.  Fingers crossed...

Came back from wander, helped James with tree house, then did a little circuit:

Short hill sprints (30 metre, incline of 60 degrees) - 5 of those in 3.05.83

Then sand bag burpee shoulder press
10 - warm up
Rest
10 in 49 sec
Rest
10 in 38 sec

Shower, food and then off to Karate.

I'm grading on May 29th, so that'll be interesting. I need to know 3 kata and I finally managed to get the hang of Naihanchi (Ni Han Shi) and am seeing the intricacies of the damn thing.  Someone said that all Karate begins with that Kata, and I can see why, it's brutal and no nonsense.  I also got taught the beginnings of my third kata, which is called Pinan which is very different to Naihanchi.  We shall see how I progress.

In other karate news, my kicks are getting higher and my knuckles are getting used to the maki-wara.

Today got up early with James and went to park.

Mile run
2 x resisted sprints @80m

30 press ups (shoulder!!!)
50 sit ups
50 leg raises (off a ledge, so felt that!)
20 burpess (shoulder!!!)

James and Shun did some chin ups, but I left that alone to leave my shoulder some slack.
Stretched, jogged back to car.

Now, because I'd been meaning to go to the Budokan yesterday, I had to go today.  I was tired and stiff but it was in my head to go and after breakfast I went.  Ten minutes into the journey, the rain started to come down and, 5 hours later, it's still pouring down!

At the Budokan I did this:

Mobility warm up
Deadlift - 70k x 5, 80k x 5, 100k x 5, 120k x 3, 140k x 3, 160k x 1, 170k x 1, 180k x 1
(Beat that Pete!!!!)

Bicep - 20 k bar x 30 (21's protocol), 40k x 15, 50k x 9
Tricep behind head extension - 20k per arm x 5, 3 sets!

Previous to this I'd have needed a back support to hit 180k and I could probably have done a few more singles, and that's on top of training at 6.30!  I do intend to hit 200k by the time I get back.  Feeling so strong!

Weighed myself at the gym before training - 104.6k (after training I was 104.25!)

I've lost about 6k since coming to Japan, but my weight loss seems to have stabilised recently.  Although my belly is still shrinking!  The fat is going it seems and muscle is being gained; certainly, my legs are bigger, so are my forearms. I wonder what I'll look like in 2 months...

Cycling back the rain was worse than ever!  I actually ended up with wrinkly finger tips!  Warm rain though.  It's meant to last 2 weeks... we'll see...