Hello and Welcome!

I am, and always have been, a notoriously bad blogger. But I'm back to give it another try, one more time.

I seem to have rediscovered my "pep" in recent times, and I'm ready to try some new things, and get back into the things that matter to me... at this stage, this chiefly involves getting fit and losing weight (again!)




Sunday, January 16, 2011

Another busy weekend

Here we are again at Monday morning, and I'm pretty sure I'm as tired now as I was at the beginning of last week. I have seriously got to start getting me some good sleep or I'm gonna lose it. Weekends no longer hold that power of rest and rejuvenation that they once did, they're just as busy as the rest of the week, so I need to just get organised and have good sleep every night. Project for the week - get to bed 8 hours before I need to get up again!

So, the weekend. Yeah, busy. Friday at work was mental again (more demands from damn lawyers), but I managed to get out of here at 6.30, and headed to mum's place for dinner. She had a couple of little projects lined up for me for when I arrived - fix the computer, how does the scanner work, yada yada. Not too bad, I was home by about 10.30 (and would have been fine if I had actually gone to bed then, duh).

Saturday morning I procrastinated for a while, and eventually dragged by butt out of bed and onto the road for a run. I decided to try my 7.5km circuit in reverse, which was an extremely bad idea. Whilst it trends downwards in the early part and eases you into the run, it has a massive hill at about the 4.5km mark. I must map it out and see what the incline is. OK, just looked it up - an ascent of 46.4m in the space of 1.1km. Nasty. Anyway, I almost made it to the top, but at the point when I felt like I was going to chuck, I slowed to a walk for a couple of hundred metres, then resumed the run after that. I made it back to base in exactly 50 minutes, which made it dead on 9km/hour. Not massively fast, but I'm pretty happy with that considering the hill and the walking portion.

After a cool off (which included an ice pack on my feet and head, I was REALLY overheated), I headed for mum's place and took dad out for a swim. Not much swimming really gets done with him because I have to keep an eye on him all the time, but I managed to get about 400m in, nice and slow, my legs were protesting most of the way. Dad seemed to really enjoy himself though, so I'll have to take him again soon.

On Saturday afternoon I did a quick grocery shop, and spent the rest of the day cleaning the house and generally getting stuff organised. Saturday night I was out with some friends for dinner and a movie. Dinner was good, the movie was crap (Little Fockers... in case you're thinking of seeing it, the reviews are right, it sucks). I got home about midnight and had a major raid of the pantry (damn it), then toddled off to bed.

Sunday started at 6 for the markets, lots of lovely fresh fruit and veg to top up the supplies. I bought the best pineapple, it is to die for. Where is the Fraser Coast? I wonder if it's in the flood zone? Might not be any more pineapples from there for a while. After the markets Mum and I had our usual scrambled eggs for breakfast, then mum went home while I prepared dinner for the evening (pork and apple in the slow cooker - quite nice). Useless-brother came around to pick up some tin I had left over from my new verandah, and then I got stuck into the gardening, putting in some new plants and altering the watering system. I have also finally decided what I want to do with my remaining garden bed, and it involves digging a narrow trench in rock hard dirt to sink some edging bricks into. I got started on that, but it's bloody hard work. I reckon I got through about 1/8th of the digging, so that could be a long project.

Sunday afternoon was spent at the basketball, and we actually saw a rare win which was nice. I hate Sunday afternoon games though, it cuts into the weekend rather annoyingly. Anyway, after that Mum and Dad came over for dinner, and I kicked them out about 9 so I could go to bed!

I woke up at 5.30 this morning and did my usual do-I-don't-I with going for a run, and eventually decided on a nice short recovery run, just under 4km. My legs are still pretty tight, but I'm sure they'll be all the better for it. Tonight I've got my bootcamp session, so I'm hoping we don't do anything too hard on the legs. Famous last words I expect, the session will probably be full of squats and lunges knowing my luck.

I guess I better get into this work all over my desk... large sigh!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Work work work

Oh man, what a day it was yesterday. I got a deadline from the bank and the lawyers late on Tuesday afternoon (which the boss stupidly said we could do, and then promptly buggered off to Darwin, grr). I got to work at 7am and got stuck in - it was a massive project. I took about 15 minutes for lunch, but otherwise pretty much worked solidly until 6pm. I got changed and went to my outdoor fitness session, and then returned to the office. I made a quick omelette for dinner, and got back into the work. I eventually called it a night, or more specifically a morning, at 1am. I slept in a bit this morning and got to work at 8.45. I worked solidly til I finished, getting the reports out about 3pm - 3 hours after deadline, but pretty good under the circumstances I think. Here's hoping for a more peaceful day tomorrow. The boss is flying back from Darwin, so if I can avoid his calls in the morning, I'm home free until next week :)

So onto better topics, the group fitness classes - I really like them! I had sessions last night and tonight, and they're each completely different, other than the warm up jog and stretches. On Wednesday we did some relay runs with 4 people on each team. The losing team had to do a penalty, like 2o push ups or sit ups. Trainer Chris split us into teams, but probably didn't choose that well, he put the 3 fastest (me, the guy of the group and another chick) in one team, with one really slow girl. We blitzed the other team, so he started introducing a handicap, making our runs longer until the other team had enough of an advantage to win. It was good fun actually. The second part of the session sucked - ab work. I hate ab work. I know it's good for me, but I seriously hate it. Hovers and side hovers and leg raises. Blegh. Stage 3 was good though - run up and down two small flights of stairs, do 20 boxing cross jabs to Chris at the end, then run a circle around and back to the start. This was HARD, but really really good.

Tonight's session was a bit easier, but still fun. We started with relays again, but running up the stairs to the top of the grandstand and back instead of across the oval. Our team was way too strong again, but by the time Chris changed the rules and had 2 of our team doing an extra lap, it got pretty close and competitive (but we just won :0) Next up was the card game from hell - Chris had a page of exercises (like push ups, sit ups, leg raises, shuttle runs, burpies), with one exercise corresponding to each card. One person had to choose a card at random, and this dictated what exercise we would do. The next person had to choose 3 cards, and added together, this gave us the number of repetitions. Everyone seemed to pull out ten cards and aces (which are worth 11 apparently), so there were lots and lots of reps. We got push ups, walking lunges, then two lots of leg raises in a row, so my abs are really really feeling it now. The last game for tonight was rock paper scissors - loser has to run to the cone and back. A bit of a laugh, but the time passes so quickly, it's great. Trainer Chris is the first person I've ever met in fitness that has made me remotely tempted to have some personal training sessions. The way he sets stuff up and the exercises he gets us doing are innovative, and get my heart rate up really high, which I generally struggle to do (I maxed out at 181 yesterday, 176 today. I normally don't get above 170). My only complaint about the sessions at the moment is that there's too much recovery time, I'd like to push it a bit harder. Of course in a PT session we'd be able to do that, because he wouldn't have to cater for other people's fitness levels. I'm still not sure I can justify the cost though.

Foodwise, I've been pretty good the last couple of days. I ended up slightly over my calories yesterday, but given I was awake for 20 freaking hours, it wasn't too bad. Today I'm well under, and I don't have anything worth eating in the house! I wish I could bottle this kind of motivation for food and exercise, it comes in such short waves.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

zzz

A quick blog update and then off to bed with me, I'm stuffed today. I'll also need to be up bright and early tomorrow, I've got some work that has to get out first thing in the morning (damn it).

Last night I had my first Fresh Fitness session. I was very nervous going in, but the good news is I'm not the unfittest or the fattest there! It's quite a small group, only 10 of us (9 girls and 1 token guy). The trainer is really nice, a bit shy and hard to talk to, but then I'm like that too. It's a bit hard to tell from one session, but I think I'll enjoy my month of sessions in this group, just to mix it up for something different. We started out with a stretching session, then did some shuttle runs, and had to drop down to the ground and jump back up every time he blew the whistle, and then keep running. This was amazingly effective for getting the heart rate up. Next up was some sets of push ups, sit ups and squats. The third activity was walk/sprint intervals around the oval, and then a cool down. He has promised us more game type activities in future sessions, so I will be interested to see where it goes. At this stage there are 3 of us who show competitive instinct and are the front runners in the running activities. I think the guy will be too good for me, but I'll keep pacing myself with the other girl and use her as a motivation to push harder.

Today I cycled to and from work, and did a longer loop on the way home to make it up to a bit over 20km on the return journey. No flats for the second ride running, woo hoo! The bike feels so much better after the last tyre fix up, so I think it's been running rough for a while. Last week I burnt 677 calories on the way to work, this week 438! My cycling fitness has gone up a notch, particularly with the long ride on Saturday, but not that much in a week. It's good to have Matilda back in tip top shape.

The plan for the rest of the week... I won't get a chance to run tomorrow morning, as I'll need to be at work too early. I plan on running Thursday and Friday mornings though. I also have Fresh Fitness sessions Wednesday and Thursday nights. I haven't quite figured out a plan for the weekend yet, I'll play that by ear for now.

Be good kids.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

HM plan & weekend round up



Greetings and salutations. A quick one today as I actually have quite a bit to do this afternoon!
Kylie has kindly rectified my current technology deficiency and explained how I can upload my HM training plan (thanks Kylie!) And so here it is.


Hopefully you can read that. If you can, any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I've been having fun on Buckeye Outdoor, starting to map out some runs for the appropriate distances, but I have just freaked myself out by discovering that the 12 week plan involves running over 300km. That's a lot of km. But I guess that's the idea.

As for the weekend roundup, I'm sort of feeling like I've come back to work this week to have a rest, the weekend was all go. Friday night I took home a pile of work and sat under my beautifully cool air conditioner and got into it. The air conditioning at work died on Thursday last week (and is still dead now, not happy Jan), so nice cool air was a blessing.

Saturday morning, I was up early for a big bike ride day with Kylie. I left home at 7.15 and met Kylie in town at 8am. We rode about 15km together around the city and parklands, nattering the whole way. We had some sustenance at the kiosk beside the Torrens, and surprisingly talked a bit more! We then went our separate ways to cycle home. All up I covered 45.6km for the morning, and had an awesome time.

Saturday afternoon involved all manner of dull house cleaning, cooking and garden type duties, followed by an evening at the basketball. It was a shocking game, sorry I bothered really.

On Sunday, I had my usual early start for the farmer's market. I did some more work around the house, and then had a visit from some people who bought some furniture I had sold on eBay - I'm so happy to have it out of the way (and the $100 wasn't bad either). I then went shopping with mum for a new washing machine for her at Harvey Norman, and some plants for me from Bunnings. The afternoon was spent cleaning out and reorganising the shed (which is now looking fabulous I might add), and planting some of my new stuff. Oh, and launching an attack on the shrubs out the front which have decided to take over my garden. Sunday night I went to mum's for roast pork... plus everything else under the sun that I raided from her cupboards and fridge. There is something about that house that just makes me want to gorge myself, I have got to break that habit dammit.

I've bought another online fitness voucher thing, and I have my first session booked in for tonight. As the day goes on I'm getting more and more nervous about it, I have to meet the trainer at 6.10 to go through some details, before the session starts at 6.30. It's an outdoors group training type thing, with a maximum of 15 people in attendance. What if everyone is a size 8 fit-freak? Bah. I'll be fine once I'm there, but I always hate these first sessions. Suck it up princess.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Back on the wagon

OK, so it's taken a while (a GOOD while), but I'm finally back into it. I can feel those cobwebs blowing out as we speak. Technically, I thought I was going to throw up those cobwebs as I ran up a nasty hill on my first run in weeks this morning... got to get rid of them somehow right!



So, where did I leave off on my last post? Oh, that's right, I was planning on going for a run on Tuesday night. Yep, that didn't happen. I went home and ate the rest of the brownie slice instead, oops. The good news is that the brownie slice is all gone, and so is the rest of the binge-inducing food from my house. I was looking around for a late night graze last night, and I couldn't find anything I wanted to eat, so I went to bed instead. Score.



Yesterday I had my first return to the work cycle commute. It was tough going - 670 calories burnt on the way to work, max heart rate 171 and I felt like I was chewing on my lungs going up a couple of hills. The way home was slightly easier, until I got another #$!% flat tyre... 3rd flat in as many rides, I'm getting seriously pissed about this now. I'm taking it to get fixed today, and I'll ask them to check the rims and see if they're damaged or anything while they're at it - the bike didn't feel smooth right from the start yesterday, sort of clunky, like the back wheel isn't completely round. That can't be good.



Today, I laid in bed with angel and devil on opposing shoulders, arguing about whether to get up and run or lay back and sloth. Surprisingly the get up and run angel won. I'm super happy to have that run under my belt now, a couple of hours after completion... but at the time, I was in a world of pain. Interestingly my legs held up well, I didn't feel any soreness at all while running (although I'm sure that will present itself later in the day). The struggle was simply cardiovascular fitness, and seriously burning lungs. Hopefully the fitness will pick back up very soon, with a bit of consistency.



This leads me nicely to my next topic. In a moment of insanity, I have decided to try to train for a half marathon this year. On the 1st of May in fact. I'm thinking I might be a bit short of time to get myself fit enough for this, but I'm going to try anyway and see what happens. I've downloaded a training program, and slightly modified it to suit me. I'd love to share it with you, but I can't figure out how to copy and paste my beautiful table into my blog, and I've just spat it after trying to do it about 5 different ways. If any of you lovely technologically advanced bloggers would like to share the secret with me, I'd be much obliged. Feeling seriously inadequate right now :(

Monday, January 3, 2011

Gardening Day 2

One more post to completely bore you with my gardening pursuits, then I'll get back to normal programming.

The irrigation system went in yesterday. I am so freaking excited I can't begin to tell you. I quite like gardening, pottering around, doing the weeding, planting stuff, trimming stuff. But I hate watering, with a passion. Nothing bores me more than standing still with a stupid hose. Those days are now gone, the whole garden can now be watered by setting the sprinklers. Rock on. I will have to setup one final area of irrigation system once I get the last garden bed up and running, but the rest of it is all done. I got so excited that I even went and bought some Alyssum at Bunnings right before they closed last night, and planted it this morning before work. Granted, I need a life (and granted, I should have been going for a run rather than planting seedlings), but it's made my day.

Back to work today (well, actually I was here 3 days last week too, but it feels more like work now because a few more staff members have also returned. We're still just under half staffed though, nice and quiet). I've brought lots of nice healthy food, and I'm planning on going for a run from work tonight, seeing as I didn't go this morning. Tomorrow I'm planning on riding. I know if I can just get my groove back, I can get my exercise, diet and weight loss plans well underway.

On the diet and new year resolution front - I had planned to just give up chocolate this year, but I think that ban is going to need to be widened. Anything remotely chocolate/cocoa flavoured seems to set me off on a binge, so I think it all needs to go. I made brownie slice late yesterday at mums (because my food processor isn't good enough to do it). It's a "healthy version" brownie slice, made only of dates, macadamia nuts and cocoa. It tastes awesome, and comes in at 130 calories a piece, which is pretty good if you can actually eat only one slice. Let me just say that I will not be making it again in a hurry, because I am very very full of brownie slice right now...

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Gardening day 1

Today has been spent predominantly in the garden, and tomorrow will be much the same. The place is really starting to take shape, which is really exciting. I spent half of today sweeping up 40 million gum leaves from the massive gum trees in the easement next to my place, which was not so exciting. Similarly, the massive horde of eight legged interlopers which I uncovered and squished, also not exciting. But that said, the back yard is looking good (apart from the square patch of dirt which still needs to be turned into a garden bed... but the paved areas are nice and clean, and the completed garden bed is all tidy. One step at a time).

Tomorrow I have recruited my mother to help me put in my sprinkler system. I'm happy to do the purchasing and the labour, but I have absolutely NFI how to design the system that I need, nor what to buy, nor how to put it together. So I'll be under instruction for most of tomorrow. It should be good though, mum and I always have a laugh when we get working together, and I'm very much looking forward to being able to just connect a tap and walking away to water my garden - hand held hose watering sucks.

I'm sure the above information has really set everyone's world on fire. Hey, I never said my life was massively exciting.

On the diet and exercise front - diet is all good, 2 days back on the wagon and coping well. I'm battling some headaches, but I think that's just a come down from the sugar high I've been riding the last few weeks. I should start to feel better in the next few days. Planned exercise hasn't made it back into the routine yet, but I was plenty active with the stupid broom today. I need to get back into running pronto though, I've got the resolution fun run next Sunday, which I had completely forgotten about. Somehow I sense 7km of pure pain ahead of me. Oh well, at least it will get me back out there!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy new year!

Greetings! As you may have noticed, I have been somewhat AWOL again for a little while. Always a reasonable sign that I've been misbehaving myself on the food and exercise front. Christmas was a disaster all round, and 2010 on the whole was an absolute bitch. However, it does not do to dwell on the negative. We have a new year and a new start ahead of us.

I have been reading some other blogs today, trying to steal some inspiration for my list of new year's resolutions. I think I'm gonna steal from Kylie and do a list of "11 for 2011". I haven't thought through this particularly well yet, so I hope I can come up with that many...

1. Lose 20kg
2. Train for and complete a half marathon
3. Participate in at least 5 fun runs
4. Blog regularly
5. Finish my garden
6. Finish the renos on my house
7. Give up chocolate
8. Consciously focus on adopting a positive, 'glass half full' attitude
9. Find a hobby that is not computer or TV related
10.Keep in regular contact with good friends
11.Do a bike maintenance course and learn to change my own damn tyres!

Grief, that was hard to get through. I'll update my progress on these monthly :-)