Extreme Knitting Redhead: A new and very different challenge

Thursday, January 10, 2019

A new and very different challenge

My foot is taking forever to get better despite Mary's ministrations so my sensible head has to stay on for a while longer. The name of my woes is Plantar Fasciitis and it is notoriously hard to shift - that information cheered me up no end given what I want to do in my fund-raising challenge this year!

No point fretting though so I'm doing whatever I can to get it healed asap - more visits to Mary, calf stretches, icing the area 3 times a day then applying an anti-inflammatory gel, taking vitamin supplements with extra magnesium to aid healing, wearing cushioned orthotics in my shoes, no running and stretching out the fascias under the arch of my foot by rolling a ball around on it - I have a high instep so the recommended golf ball is too small so Mary kindly lent me this tennis ball:

Mary has been a Massage therapist at Wimbledon each year for as long as I've known her and she's treated all the famous female players. I wonder whose hands have touched this ball?

So what's a girl to do in the interim to keep up her fitness levels? Start a tough fitness challenge, that's what! It's the Six Pack Revolution and is going to take me right out of my comfort zone for 90 days. This is not a quick-fix type of plan and during the 90 days everything I eat and drink will be chosen carefully from the menus provided plus there are lots of tough exercises to be completed.

This has been a week of preparation. I joined a private Facebook Group with like-minded people of different fitness levels and ages and Coaches who will help us on our journey. It's both exciting and daunting at the same time but sharing the ups and downs with other people will be great. Today we had to take a photo of ourselves showing all our wobbly bits and share it with the Coaches - no, I'm not going to share it on here thank you very much! Then we have to submit a photo each week to see how we're progressing. There are some amazing transformations in the before and after photos from previous groups.

It starts in earnest on Monday but we were set a pre-challenge challenge during which we had to show what our fitness looks like now so there's a base to work from. We had to do 100 Battle Rope whips, 10 press-ups, 1k run, 10 press-ups then 100 Battle Rope Upper-cuts which you'll see me doing (not very confidently!) in the video below:

I'd never even heard of Battle Ropes before but they are an important tool in this challenge so I'm going to learn to love them when I start seeing results. This is going to be one heck of a journey and I can't wait!

One of our Coaches, Dawn, shared this motivational snippet which I love so I thought I'd share it here. It's about the power of positivity, self-belief, pushing yourself to achieve things you never even dreamt you could achieve etc:

In knitting news, I can't finish my sweater just yet as I've run out of one of the yarns I'm using and so, as the weather has suddenly got colder, I've made myself a new hat and fingerless gloves using stash yarn. The hat is made using Linen Stitch which makes a lovely snuggly fabric. There's a simple tutorial here. The mitts are just ribbed.

The only issue with Linen Stitch is that it leaves an imprint on your forehead if you haven't got a fringe!

Tomorrow sees the start of Kate's latest knitting club and I can't wait.

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.