Yay, and grr

First of all, yay. I won the give away on Jess' blog last week. And yesterday I rocked into work in the middle of the day after a couple of painful meetings with idiots, and what should await me but this:

How freakin' exciting is that! This little stash is going to hold me in good stead over the next 13 weeks of HM training. Jess also addressed the envelope to Megan (aka Whatalegend), which gave me and the new receptionist quite a little giggle too.

Secondly, another yay. Thank you Kylie for pointing me in the direction of Google Chrome for blogger. I have been cracking it at blogger using IE for a good while now, and Chrome seems to be working great.

And now, grr. I went out for my run this morning, which was 1km intervals with 30 second walks between km (well according to the program it's supposed to be 5 x 5 minutes running with 30 second recovery walk, but given it's pitch black and I can't see my Garmin, it's easier to just do 4 x 1km). I started out brilliantly and ran the fastest km I've done in some time... 5:47. It helps that it trends downhill and it was freezing so I was trying to warm up, but nevertheless, 5:47 it was. Anyway, I digress. I then did my 30 second walk, then hit what I thought was the lap button on the Garmin to start my next run interval... but it was the pause button. Damn it. I thought the km seemed to be going for a while, peered at the watch in the dark to see where I was up to, and found out I wasn't going anywhere at all. I had a 30 second walk, then pressed the right button for the next km (6:14 on a gentle incline, not too bad). Then for the last km, coming up the bigger hills... I pressed the damn pause button instead of lap AGAIN. I have no idea what time I did on km 2 and 4, which is bloody annoying. Km 2 felt good, km 4 felt hard - but then it was uphill, and I had gone out pretty hard.

Despite my technological deficiencies, I'm happy to have another run under the belt. Kylie, we might need to keep up this text messaging at 6am for my whole training calendar, I was really not keen on getting out of bed this morning, and you made all the difference!

On the non-running front, what else is going on? I went to the gym and did a step class for the first time in months on Tuesday. I love step. My calves are certainly feeling it now though (although interestingly they didn't bother me while I was running). I'm planning on doing pump tonight, although I might bail and go shopping for the kittens instead, they're coming home in 2 days :) Work is still rolling along. I have lots to do and very little motivation, which is not a good combination. But I'm working on it. And last but not least, tomorrow night I'm going to see Harry Potter 8. Can't freaking wait, I'm such a Harry Potter geek.

Until next time...

Back into it

I have been slack again, I know. I apologise. But I'm back now, so that counts for something right?

I've been busy, but not so busy that I couldn't update my blog if I'm completely honest. I've been more busy procrastinating than actually doing stuff really. I've always had a propensity to procrastinate, and sometimes it's more prevalent than others. I've been through a bad patch with it, hopefully I'm back to normal programming.

On the training front, like every other front, I have been procrastinating. I've had a gap in my running, with a few half-arsed efforts along the way, so I know it's going to hurt to get my fitness back. Plus it's freezing and pitch black in the mornings, so all of this has been combining to give me a whole range of excuses not to get out there. Well it's now 13 weeks until the Melbourne half marathon which I have arranged to run with the lovely Jess at http://www.tri-thatshowiroll.com/.

13 weeks is not a long time when you've let your fitness go to hell. With no time to waste, I made a pact with Kylie at http://kyliescuriosities.blogspot.com/ that we would both get up early and start our exercise plans this morning. I did it (and so did Kylie!), and I ran a nice brisk 4km at an average pace of 6:18. I started out fast and tailed off - for two reasons. One I just went out too fast, and two it's uphill on the way back! But that's a decent pace, and I'm happy with that as a starting point. I've got the same run programmed for Wednesday or Thursday morning, and a 40 minute run set for Saturday. I'll update you with my progress, I promise!

In other news, I'm trying out a new gym at the moment, and so far I quite like it. It's pretty big and has lots of classes, but none of the classes have been crowded at all thus far. The people seem nice and it's not full of posers and beautiful people (also a plus in my book). The downside is that I think it will be more expensive than I'm prepared to pay when my intro month is over, but we'll see what happens.

I am also preparing to welcome two new additions to my household. Caspar and Grace the British shorthair kittens will be joining me in a couple of weeks. It will be nice to have some company in the house, and a reason to leave the office, given I have a massive tendency to spend way too much time at work. I spent some time on the weekend clearing out some cupboard space and buying new cat related items - food and toys and the like. As this is as close to having children as I'm ever going to come, I guess this is my version of nesting. Can't wait for them to arrive though, I'm even taking a day off work to pick them up and get them settled in at home.

OK that's it for now. I'll be blog-stalking in your neighbourhood sometime soon :)

Freakin' out

My HM is in 4 days time. And I'm freakin' it. I am most certainly NOT having the best possible lead up to my maiden HM - but I'm going to do it, come hell or high water.

Now as you know, I missed the last long run of my training program, because I was having a mental meltdown. Well, that was plaguing me and I decided to do something stupid. The program called for a moderate-effort 8km on the weekend before the race. Because I was feeling underprepared and feeling like I know better than the program (which is written by marathon runners and coaches who clearly don't know what they're talking about eh?) - I decided to do a longer run. A much longer run. From home to work, 15km and trending uphill. I just put it into mapmy run, and it's a 65m climb over the 15km, including a constant uphill from 7.1km to 12.2km. No wonder I was buggered. I then road my bike home an hour or so later.

Was this run a good idea? On the whole I'm thinking not. It was good for my mental state of mind and my belief in my ability to finish the HM course. But possibly not so good for the body. I was having major pain in the arch of my left foot until yesterday, but fortunately that seems to have subsided. My legs pulled up very sore (and were made much much worse by the full day of gardening/landscaping with mofo heavy bricks that I did on Monday). I still have a very sore left hamstring, so I'm wondering if I slightly pulled the muscle whilst gardening, not sure. I also did the Saturday run in new attire... and let me just say... chaffing. I now have a massive bandaid stuck to the underside of my boob (sorry, but that's where it is!), and I am hoping that it will heal a little more before the weekend rolls around.

Just to top it all off, I'm like a rat on a wheel at work at the moment, no matter how many hours I work, stuff just keeps flying at me. It's often like that with a holiday on the horizon, but with all the crap that's gone down this year, it's worse than ever.

So, as I say, not ideal preparation. But no matter, it will be great to get this race under my belt. I'm already making tentative plans for my next race, so stay tuned for that :P

Head in the game

I have got a lot of "stuff" going on right now. Mostly not good stuff, but stuff which occupies my mind day and night, and is trying very hard to suck the lifeblood out of me. This all culminated on Friday with me having a minor meltdown at the end of the day at work. Fortunately nearly everyone had left for the day and didn't see the carnage, but one poor lady (who I know very well and work closely with thankfully) got the unpleasant task of trying to soothe me while I sobbed uncontrollably. Now I am NOT a cryer. Tears make me uncomfortable. But it all came flooding out on Friday, let me tell you.

On the weekend, I engaged in much therapy to heal my poor sorry self. There was a trip to Harbourtown with several clothing purchases. There was a trip to the kitchen shop to buy an awesome little machine called a Magi Mix (a kick-ass food processor for the non-bakers among you). There was a hair cut and a massage, and there was much baking done. Do I feel better for all this pampering? Hell yes I do. My mood has lightened and I'm feeling like I can cope with the crap that life is going to throw my way again. It was well worth the investment I think (just as well, because the investment was $1000 just in monetary terms...)

But on the flipside of all of this - I didn't do my last long run of my HM program. Saturday was supposed to be a 19km circuit before I start tapering down for the HM on 1st May. Physically I didn't feel like I could do it, and that might have been right, because I haven't been sleeping at all well, and my eating has been appalling. But moreso than physically, I was mentally burnt out and simply not up to facing it on Saturday.

I'm trying hard not to beat myself up about it, but I am a bit worried that I'm going to be too far underdone with my preparation for the race. The furthest I've done is 17.1km, so come race day I'm going to need to add another 4km onto that. Having said that, I know now more than ever that this is a mental game at this point. If I can physically do 17km, I can physically do 21km, it's not THAT big a difference. The difference is in my head, and that's what I need to work on over the next couple of weeks. I need to be feeling mentally tough and be confident in my ability to make the distance. At the end of the day, it's really not going to matter if I have to walk part of the race. In reality, who cares if I walk the whole freaking thing? I'm doing this for me, and all I can expect of myself is to do the best I can do on the big day.

Out of the habit

Wow, once you get out of the habit of blogging, it's a bit hard to get back into it. I've half started a blog about 5 times since I last posted, and given up before I got through with it. Time to turn over a new metaphorical leaf (in more areas than one...)

So, what's been going on? Work is all still up in the air, and it's driving me INSANE. Even if the outcome was bad, I could handle it if I actually knew what was going to happen. I could start making plans for the future. Unfortunately, it's all pretty much out of our hands at this stage, so we're just guessing at what will come next, when it will happen, and what we will do about it. We're expending loads of time and energy on making contingency plans for a variety of outcomes which may or may not come to fruition.

On to other news. HM training is going roughly according to plan, which is good. I've had to switch a few days around from time to time as life gets in the way, but that's fine. I've completed week 3 of the 12 week program, and it's starting to feel a little tough. I'm worried that I won't be able to do it, but I'm just going to keep pushing myself as far as I can and see what I can achieve. If worst comes to worst I'll do a 10k at the Greenbelt on May 1st, and try for a HM later in the year. But at this stage I'm still aiming for HM at Greenbelt.

The main reason I'm doubting myself at the moment is that my long run on Saturday was really hard. It was only 8km, and I struggled big time. Of course it would have helped if I had dragged my butt out of bed and got started early as planned, before it got too freaking hot. But I didn't, and I suffered the consequences accordingly. It was 27 degrees and humid when I took off (I hate humid. Adelaide never used to do humid, but it's happening a lot these days. Bah.) It was 31 degrees and still humid when I rocked home 52 minutes later.

I have 4 thoughts in mind for improving my long run issues at this stage:

• I need to lose some weight. Seriously, I'm doing plenty of training, but I'm eating like a conveyer belt. STOP IT IDIOT.
• I need to get up early and get the best of the cool weather. As Jess pointed out to me once before, I can always go back to bed when I get home :)
• I need to find a way of getting some hydration somewhere along the way, especially if it's hot. I was gasping for water by half way on Saturday, and that's going to get worse as the distances increase. What do other people do, run along carrying a drink bottle? I hate doing that, but I might have to give it a go. Otherwise I might just die of dehydration, seeing as I sweat like a warthog at the best of times. (Alright, I might not die, but you get my drift).
• I need to find a way of pacing myself. I'm giving serious consideration to buying a Garmin (although it's hard to know if it's just because I *want one* or if I think I actually *need one*). But I do have trouble with pacing - my mid week short runs never feel any easier, but when I look at my Polar data, it's probably because I'm doing them progressively faster. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but one run per week is supposed to be at EZ pace, and I struggle with that. I'm also concerned that in a race situation, I'll pace with other people around me and go out too hard. 21km is a long way, I need to learn how to run that at my own, sustainable pace so I don't run out of stamina half way through. Hmm, still need to ponder that one.

Right, I have been procrastinating at work rather badly of late, and it's time to get some work done. With all the future planning crap going on, my day to day stuff has been suffering somewhat. I've finished Mahjong Trails on Facebook, so that should help the productivity somewhat :-) Here's to a productive day...

Still struggling along

Life is still struggling along, and I have continued to eat a lot of crap I shouldn't since my last confession. I was doing well for a whole day, until 7pm when I ate half the pantry. Not much worth eating in there now... so I went and bought crap to eat last night. Seriously, do I own a brain???

On to the positives though - I think I'm learning. I did buy (and eat) some stuff last night that was inadvisable at best, insane at worst. But I also stocked up on lots of other stuff that WILL be OK to eat, and hopefully I'll manage not to eat it all at once. I have this ongoing battle of being aware of my own eating frailties, while also being... well, a tight ass. If I don't have food (particularly snack food) pre packaged into individual serves, I am severely predisposed to eating the whole freaking lot. But pre packaged serves cost a lot more. Well, too bad budget - I'm buying the single serves. I can't be trusted to dish up my own serves at the moment.

So last night I bought small serve yoghurts (100g tubs). And muesli bars. And mini boxes of fruit/nut. And mini boxes of sultanas. I also bought some convenience food, which I have a major aversion to, but I'm looking for that moderation switch. I'm not going back to eating lean cuisines and whatever other crap frozen meals I used to inhale, that shit is toxic. But a box of pancake mix, some protein powder with artificial ingredients - this kind of stuff probably isn't going to kill me if used in moderation. It's all about trying something new, because clearly what I've been doing hasn't been the answer.

My second big realisation this week, which is something I have always known but just struggle to put into practice, is that I need a plan to work to. This will work with food too, and I should get myself sorted this weekend for that, but I'm actually referring to the exercise at this point. If I have a plan, or a schedule, or whatever, to work too, I'm pretty good at sticking to it. If I leave it to "whatever I feel like at the time", you can bet your ass I feel like sitting on the couch and eating crap. I had my evening bootcamps last month, and I went to them all (except when they were cancelled for excessive heat). That's over now, and I'm entering a phase of solo training, which could be a danger period. But I think I'm going to be OK, because I have my HM training schedule in place. I didn't feel like getting up and running this morning, but I did it because the schedule said I had to. I'll chalk that up as a win, and hope that it continues!

So far the HM training has been pretty mild (but we are only 3 days in of course!) Monday was 3.5km in the morning, and cross training (step class at the gym) at night. Tuesday was a cross training day - cycling to and from work, about 31km all up. Today is a 3.5km run, and then the night off. Tomorrow is supposed to be a 4km run in the morning (which I'll do), but the strength session at night won't be happening as I'm booked in for a massage - aah bliss. Friday is scheduled as a rest day, so I have to work out whether I add the strength session there, or just let it go for this week. I will report back in due course :-)

I am still alive... just

Howdy peeps, long time no blog.

EDITED TO DELETE WORK INFO

Anyway, I've been wandering in the wilderness with all this crap going on, and eating my way through the metaphorical jungle. I have got to cut that out, and today seems as good a day as any to get back on track. Today is also the first official day of half marathon training - it starts out nice and easy the first couple of weeks, but ramps up pretty significantly from there. I think my biggest challenge is going to be "long run Saturday" - I've gotten pretty accustomed to sleeping late and being generally sloth-like on Saturday mornings, but given it's still summer and often quite hot, I'm going to have to suck it up, get up early, and get the run done. At least the first couple of weeks the "long runs" aren't really that long (4.8km this week, increasing by 1.6km per week until we get to 19.2km, eek), so it will give me a chance to get back into a good routine.

I do feel slightly better for getting all this crap off my chest in blog form, even if it hasn't actually helped to make any progress. I should come here more often :p

Just before signing off - I have still been reading other blogs, if not commenting on them to let you know I'm there. I'll try to get back to doing that too. Thanks to those who checked up on me in my absence too, kind words much appreciated xx

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.

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 :(

Doing the Friday Dance

It's Friday, huzzah! My last Friday at work before holidays - I always love doing that countdown of the last Friday, Monday, Tuesday... before going away. I haven't organised a single thing for going away, nor is my work up to the stage it needs to be before I go, but I couldn't give two hoots right now. I'm going and I just don't care!

So it's been a kind of emotionally draining week at the grindstone, but things are looking up. We seem to have come to an uncomfortable truce in the work war zone, and I'll settle for that, given where things were at early in the week. Bastard isn't usually in on Fridays or Mondays, so all being well I'll only have to see him three more days before I go away, and then for a week or two when I get back. This seems a bit more manageable than it did from the chaos at the start of the week. Now if I can actually get some work done, all will be relatively well on the work front.

On the exercise front, it's been a big week. I'm feeling slightly dazed and dopey now, so I think this is the maximum effort for the time being. Or maybe I should try getting into bed earlier and stop fiddling with my iPhone once I'm there - that might help. Anyway, the Polar is showing a calorie burn of 3739 for the week so far. This is from 3 bootcamps, 1 boxing class, a cycle commute (including an extra loop on the way home), and a 6km run.

My run last night was hard, hard, hard. I shouldn't be surprised though - I was tired, my legs were a bit sore, and it was hot. Not middle-of-summer-in-Adelaide hot, but 29 and humid, which we haven't had much of yet. I'm extremely grateful that the weather forecast is for cool conditions on Sunday for my 10k. If it was hot and humid I really don't think I'd last the distance (I'm concerned about it even in the cool), I was completely spent at the end of 6k last night.

It was still 27 degrees when I got up at 5 for bootcamp this morning, but it looks like the cool change will be coming through shortly. There were so many damn flies this morning, it was disgusting. The stupid things kept trying to get in my ears and mouth while I was doing all manner of torturous activities in the bootcamp circuits (squats, lunges, push ups, sit ups, sprints, burpees, bear crawls, mountain climbers... few others I've managed to block from my memory).

I've only got 2 more bootcamps left now. I'll have to give some thought while I'm on holiday to what my training plan will look like when I get back into it in December. Back to more gym classes I guess. I downloaded a HM training program the other day, and I am giving serious consideration to attempting one next year. The Greenbelt HM is on 1st May, so I could start a 12 week HM training program in February and see if I can do it. There are other HMs in August and October as well, so if I find the training too hard going in the heat, I can always defer and try one of the later ones. I can't believe I'm talking about a HM in the same post as saying I don't think I can make my 10k on the weekend. What a contradiction. It's nice to have goals though :)

As far as weekend plans go, tomorrow is most definitely an exercise free day. I've got lots of "stuff" I need to do - bake a birthday cake for my Pa, cleaning washing and packing ready for holidays, and... crap, I had a long list of stuff I wanted to do and I've already forgotten it. I really need to write this stuff down. Saturday night we're going out for Pa's birthday (I'll be carb loading on pasta! Any excuse.) Sunday morning is the big run, then more housey stuff, then dinner at the parents. I probably won't see the puppies again before we go away, so I'll have to give them extra love and cuddles and walkies on Sunday.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone :0)