Making the time to exercise

Today I'm at a conference for work - it involved leaving the flat at around 7.15am, driving for an hour or so, then checking in to a conference with seminars and discussion groups for the whole day (with coffee breaks and lunch, with networking), right through to 6pm - at which point we'd have 75 minutes to get into our rooms, sort things out, and go back down for a drinks reception and dinner.

I knew I'd have little opportunity to eat 'well' - pastries/cakes at tea breaks, no real choice over lunch (it was pork chops or salmon which looked fried, plus potatoes which appeared to be buttered, and loads of veg - so not unhealthy per se, but not the best), and then an evening 3 (or 4?) course meal to come, plus drinks. So I wanted to see if I could fit in any exercise.

The last talk over-ran a little, so I got into my room as quickly as possible, stripped off my business suit, had some water, then started a hotel-room style circuit (as in, a circuit I could do without any equipment whatsoever, with the exception of a low chair).

As a warm-up, I did one lap of the circuit:

2 squats
2 lunges (1 each side)
2 burpees
2 sit-ups
2 press-ups (knees on floor)
2 crunches
2 reverse crunches
2 single-leg squats (1 each side) - done by sitting on the low chair, and standing up without one foot touching the floor during the whole down-up move
2 tricep dips - off the chair
2 step-ups (1 each side) - onto the chair.

After this first set, which took 3 minutes, I noticed in the mirror that my face was already flushed - lol, looks like a good wee circuit! Time to step it up. Round two was double the above, as in 4 squats, 4 lunges (2 each side), etc etc. A quick sip of water, and straight into Round three - yep, you've guessed it; 6 squats, 6 lunges (3 each side), and so on.... The burpees were by far the hardest part - the carpetted hotel room floor was really slippy, so I found it really tough going.

By the end of round three, I was breaking out into a sweat, and my face was getting my usual lobster-face glow going. Onto Round four (yeah, yeah, 8 squats, 8 lunges, and so on....). This took a while; after the sit-ups, for example, I just lay on the floor for a moment or two before turning over to start my press-ups, lol. Tricep dips were getting seriously wobbly. And by the end of round 4, I realised if I did another round I was going to need to get a shower before dinner, and I don't really have time. So I called it a day. 10 exercises in the circuit, 200 reps in total, in 20 minutes.

I had a quick wash, then quickly typed this up, and now I'm off to put my suit back on, and go get a small glass of wine... Gonna go suss out where the hotel gym is, for tomorrow morning. x x