Apparently today was National Running Day.

I was supposed to do my first 20 minute run.

But…

After two brilliant nights sleep, Mini-Ginge decided to do a two-hourly wake up call from 1.30am until I gave up and we got up at half seven. Twelve hours later, after a very busy day, I fell asleep on the sofa. Running was definitely off the agenda.

Instead I started working on the component parts of my sun salutations and while it was tempting to practise lunges and downward-facing dog because I like them, I focused on plank. I still don’t like it.

Tuesday is yoga day in our house. In the morning, Mini-Ginge and I go to baby yoga, where we sing nursery rhymes and do some gentle stretches.

Mini-Ginge preparing for his yoga class

In the evening, it’s my turn. At the moment I’m doing the class that our teacher describes as Therapeutic Yoga (I used to do her Dynamic Yoga class, but that feels a million years ago now) which is still hard work because there’s more focus on precision.

Usually I skulk at the back corner of the class, but in our last session, our teacher shifted the entire back row to the middle of the room. This week I had no choice as the back two rows had chucked down their mats completely haphazardly so it was like crazy paving. This is where things get tricky. I have encountered un-neutered tom cats who are less territorial than the average yoga class. It’s a bit like being back at school where you pick your favourite desk and stay there forever. I think I actually nabbed someone else’s regular space, but there was retaliation so I think I got away with it. Next week I might even try another different spot.

Anyway, tonight’s class was perfect for me (I suspect that my teacher is a mind reader sometimes) as a lot of the postures were great for freeing up my back. We also did a lot of very tiny precise movements, things like lying on our backs and (theoretically) bringing our pelvis towards our heads. To do this, you need to engage your pelvic floor, lowering your groin to the floor, but without tightening your bum cheeks. It’s harder than it sounds.

Monday is Mini-Ginge’s swimming day. I say his swimming, he just lies there splashing his arms while I do all of the hard work. Anyway, even though lifting him up and down is good for my bingo wings, I felt a bit guilty using this as my Juneathon exercise as it’s not what I planned to do.

What I plan to do is daily yoga. Oh yes.

I am rubbish at doing exercises at home. I lack the motivation and then when I do actually do them, I feel as if I’m rushing and not doing them properly. It’s daft, Dan and Angela both posted their first ever Juneathon blog on twitter, which set me off looking through my old posts from 2009. On the one hand I can see how far I’ve come since then, on the other hand one bit stood out a mile. Back in 2009 I had enjoyed an epiphany about my yoga, I had bought books about it (my favourite way of doing anything) and was going to embark on my posture practise at home.

Needless to say I have never done this. I have however, waited five years for another yoga epiphany. This time I have bought an app, not a book. Well several apps, but I only like one of them. The others are a bit too shouty, require a subscription, or have adverts that are a bit incongruous to the whole meditative yoga lark.

So tonight I have warmed up, done some stretches for my sacroiliac joint (Mini-Ginge has had a bit of a growth spurt and is challenging my back a bit), a sequence of swan to cat to dog to cat to swan to get things going and then to the app for some sun salutations. I am rubbish at sun salutations. It comes down to the fact that I’m terrible at any kind of organised dancing, you will never see me doing the Macarena and I even spell things wrong doing the YMCA (my C comes out backwards). With sun salutations, I struggle to hold the sequence in my head and always seem to be one step behind. I am determined to crack this by the end of June.

Today I learned that:

• I still hate the transition from plank to the knees-chest-chin pose.
• I’m still more hopeless at plank.
• I’m leaping ahead. What I need to do is go through the individual postures and get the basics sorted.

If anyone has any tips for doing yoga at home, or knows of any good, non-shouty videos that might help me, all suggestions would be gratefully received.