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...

Blogger is driving me crazy...

I can only post comments on about 2 blogs at the moment, grrrr.

Casie: Congrats on the marathon finish Casie - 4:50 is fantastic, you should be so proud of yourself. And the quick recovery is awesome too :)

Do the half in Melbourne... you might have to wait half an hour for me to finish, but it would be awesome. Or I guess I could wait and watch you finish the full marathon, either way!


Kylie: Thank God for our pact this morning, there was no way I was getting out of that toasty warm bed if it wasn't for the anticipation of a text message coming my way. It was nice to be up and at 'em early, even if it was fffffreeeeezing.

Mel: I haven't been able to post on your blog for a while. I hope this weekend was a brief abberation and you're feeling better soon. Your training has been sounding fantastic and I'm sure you'll kill the 70.3

Jess: I'm not ignoring your blog, but you've probably had enough of my opinions on the stuff with the tri-boys via iPhone. Still thinking of you though :)

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 :)

Sunday update

Another week comes and goes. I am currently ensconced on the couch watching bad TV and thinking about being productive. I seem to do a lot of that recently - must get my act into gear.

I don't have a lot to update this week to be honest. Life is sort of cruising along, with no major dramas and no major high points. I have been a little slack on the exercise front, and I am really, really struggling for running motivation. But having said that, yesterday I decided to conquer the Mt Lofty trail. I'm not sure I can say I conquered it, but I did complete it. It's a 3.8km trail and it's damn steep. I finished it in 46:05 on the way up... bossman did it in 41:40 last week, damn him. It gives me something to work towards though. I was actually very close to throwing up about the 3km mark, so I really backed off the pace at that point. I have lots of work to do on my cardio fitness to improve my time - my legs held up well, but the lungs were burning. The legs aren't holding up quite so well today mind you, and my butt is SORE. Suck it up princess. I also ran back down the trail after a quick recovery at the top - 24:50 on the way down. It was surprisingly difficult to run down the really steep sections... but still a whole lot easier than on the way up.

And now the agenda for the week ahead. I want to get to the gym for a couple of pump classes and a Body Attack - I've been enjoying getting back into those. I also want to get at least 2 runs in, I really want to be back in the routine. It's also not as cold as it has been over the last couple of weeks, so my excuses are starting to run out.

As far as non-exercise plans go, my aim is productivity. I've got some crappy annoying jobs on at work that I just need to get done and out of the way. I need to stop procrastinating at home, and get shit done. And that involves getting off this couch right now!

Still alive!

It has been a veritable eternity since I last blogged. A lot of "stuff" has happened since then, and I've got lots going on again now.

As you may have gathered, there ain't gonna be a race report for the HM. That is incredibly hypocritical, because I HATE it when other people don't put up a race report. But, you know what, a lot of time has passed, and I can't remember the intricate details of the race. What I do know is that I wasn't adequately prepared for the race. I ate badly in the lead up and was not hydrated come race day. I wasn't mentally prepared either. I will learn from the experience, and make sure the next one is much, much better.

On other topics, I've been on a 13 day cruise around the South Pacific. I love cruising, it's really the lifestyle for me. Tragically there is not a lot of employment opportunities for accountants in the cruise industry (well not at sea anyway)... so I'll just have to suck it up in the real world, and take the occasional cruise holiday when time and funds permit.

Work has been very up and down since I've been back. We're quite a lot more positive about the future now than we have been so far. We're doing well at building up a good client base going forward, which is fabulous. However, we are having some trouble with former business associates, and the hotels are still a minefield. But it feels like we're making progress and things might be finally looking up. I certainly hope so!

Fitness wise, I've really struggled to get back into running. I went for my first run since getting back from holidays yesterday - it was tough, but it also felt really good to be back out there again. It's FREEZING at the moment, and so dark in the mornings... but I need to stop using excuses and just do it. I've got new running shoes, new running shorts, new running pants. Now to get new motivation and we'll be all set. I haven't been completely slothful, despite the lack of running - I've been doing some Les Mills classes, which I haven't done in years. My first Body Pump class resulted in me being pretty much unable to walk for the better part of a week. But that aside, I'm really enjoying it.

That might do it for now. There's plenty more going on, but I'll save it up for future posts. I promise to be more diligent in posting more frequently :)

HM: The aftermath

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but I completed a half marathon on Sunday :P

Jokes aside, I am struggling to write a race report on this race. This might be partly to do with the fact that I am working 14 hours a day at the moment :( But it's also a lot to do with how I feel "after the fact".

The people I've been talking to about the race - my lovely blog peeps, friends, work people... well you're all a whole lot prouder of me than I am of myself. I don't get it - if this was someone else's blog and I was reading about them running 21.1km for the first time, I would be offering massive congrats. It shouldn't matter that the time was slow. It shouldn't matter that I walked maybe a kilometre along the way. I finished the course and I should be proud of the achievement. But I'm not.

Maybe with all the work crap going on, I'm just not giving myself time to sit and dwell on the achievement of it. Maybe it will hit me while I'm on holidays and finally having some down time. I hope so. But in the meantime, I feel... well, disappointed. I'm annoyed with myself that I didn't train harder in the lead up, and skipped too many scheduled runs, especially in the last few weeks. I'm also really pissed that I didn't get my act into gear and lose some weight, which would have made the run so much easier (and faster, no doubt). I really need to get my head straight, sort through these feelings, and move on. I'll come back faster and stronger... I'm just not there yet.

Brief update

HM status: COMPLETE!!!

Race report will follow this week, but let me just say, the blisters on my feet are out of this world, and I'm spending the day at work sans-shoes!