Day 1 - Couch to 5km

Well, today is the first day of my new program, which not only incorporates turbulence training, but three days a week of the couch to 5km program.
I hate jogging with a passion - well, anything that is just slow and repetitive kind of bores me - so this will be quite a challenge. My only jogging is really on the beach, and then it's only used as a warmup to get me in the right state of preparedness for my sprints!

So, I headed out at 6am in the dark to trudge around my neighbourhood - you never really truly realise the hillyness of the area until you go out walking or running in it. Anyhow, suffice to say, my 60sec on/90sec off involved a lot of hills in the 'on' stage! Still, onwards and UPWARDS! Of course, the bit getting home is the worst stretch of upwards..
then I took the baby girl for her walk/bounce - oooh, look, there's a moth.

and Jemima at 5months

and

I finally got the photos off the phone!!

Well, finally, after a few unsuccessful attempts on our Mac (running OSX) and seemingly freezing the thing at each attempt... I managed to download all my images FINALLY off of my phone..all 50MB of them... onto my work laptop (a horrible PC)

But... anyhow..

here's Diamante, our diamond python from last weekend:

Day 1 of Fitcom Xpo!

Yesterday there was an all-day event called FitcomXpo and if you don't know about it you can find out more by going here: http://www.fitcomxpo.com/index.cfm?affID=carolinewm

Anyways, the event featured the best fitness info in a long time from all walks of life in the fitness industry.I'm talking Alwyn Cosgrove, Pat Rigsby, Pete Siegel who works with pro athletes on their mindset, and that was just 3 of the 39 presentations from yesterday...The best thing is...I still have 2 more days of this to go! Don't make the mistake of being left out!FitcomXpo...http://www.fitcomxpo.com/index.cfm?affID=carolinewm

Hocus Pocus, it's time to reFOCUS!

Aaah, yes, you can see why I'm not a poet.

With work being so darned busy and not a moment's breathing space lately, it's been really hard to maintain a focus on the things that are important to me... ie, my personal goals.

Where everyone else seems to lose weight when they get stressed, I tend to get a little 'stress' belly. This little puffy pouch that sits in front. Mmmm. nice. not.

So, in the interests of my sanity and body, I am going to refocus. Get back on track and kick my butt back into gear to ensure everything that passes my lips is what I had intended for that day. No hidden extras. Workouts will step up a notch (glute allowing) and nothing will get in my way.

I am planning out my next four weeks of exercise & diet - I might incorporate the Turbulence Training workouts into my routines now. I had the whole thing printed out, but loaned to my sister...who isn't speaking to me right now because I am so selfish with my 'spare' time.. What spare time, I ask? But I digress.

Watch this space!

The crisp mornings of Autumn

Wow, the last couple of mornings have been cool and crisp... a distinct feel of autumn in the air - and those beautiful clear warm days that accompany it. Lovely :-)

This morning as I lurched out of bed at 5.45 - I noticed my left glute was incredibly sore again...so god only knows what I have done to it - probably just returning to sitting all day at work again after a nice long weekend when it almost felt right again. Damn.

Still, I figured nothing a nice warmup jog & sprint session down the beach wouldn't fix.
Wrong.
But, I headed down, the moon was nice and bright, the tide was out (lush, firm sand!), so I had moonlight to see by, and firm sand (ie no 'Caroline traps' dug into the sand) to walk, jog and sprint on. All felt well in the glute & breathing departments... until I got home.
When I got out of the car again the muscle just felt so seized up.
Warm shower, massage and two nurofen later... all feels sort of okay.

aaah, easter...

How nice was it to have an extra long weekend? still, they seem to flash by as quickly as two days!!!

I didn't overindulge over the weekend, so was pleased with myself for at least avoiding too many treats.

Managed to ride the pony and get him started back in jumping again. I even sat our 19mth old 'niece' astride him in front of me... her little face lit up! Quite amazing considering he's 16.3hh of horse...no small thing! that's about 5 foot 8 at the wither height!

We found our snake again too - she was out and about in the garden yesterday afternoon as we were entertaining family at our place - we caught sight of her at 3pm wobbling on our new fence posts (they're a bit narrow for her well fed girth), then she went up our new roof (we didn't think she was still with us after the new roof went on) then slithered into the gutter and up the ridgecapping into the roof! So at least we know the diamond python (diamante) is still with us after all these years. We first found evidence of her in 1994 in our roof.... her discarded skin.

Then, this morning, went into the bathroom for my shower and there was a big damn gecko on the floor... have I moved into a reptile habitat? It would appear so.

I .... can't......brea..th..e..........

Ha! so my fitness isn't quite what it used to be... so what do I, in my infinite wisdom decide this morning to do? Aaah, ye olde hill runs.... I won't even pretend to call them hill sprints.

Now, I do have to admit that the hill I decided on this morning is a killer it's got a really high gradient... so I jogged up that a couple of times... before downgrading my expectations!
Then around the corner (I live quite high up), is a slightly longer, lower gradient hill... I then ran that a few times too. No... I never made the sprint, but... one must start somewhere - and that second hill was a good place. I might go back there next week and try and speed things up a little.

I then came home, took my girl for her walk, fed her (this morning was sardines & her hills science diet for LARGE puppies!), then attempted to do abs.... whilst having sardiney licks, paws on the stomach..she even sat on my stomach at one point...

ooooooh the pain....

now, the beach can be a fantastic place to workout. In particular, it offers you all sorts of surface and resistance levels, so you can do a great varied workout.

However the tide is what dictates your workout...

This morning, the tide was in. So.. my only option, was soft soft dry sand to run on. Boy, I am nowhere near as fit as I was a year ago.
Add to that, doing this on the back of my leg workout yesterday made for a bit of hard work.

AND it was still dark by the time I finished my workout.

I love daylight saving, I love being able to ride at night without the aid of artificial lights.
But... at this time of year, I hate running on the beach, a lone solitary figure, in the dark... especially when some damn kids have left great big 'Caroline' traps in the sand.

Stop the bus...

I think I need to get off, have a bex and a quick lie down...

Oh dear. Life is far too busy, stressful and hectic at the moment. What happened to those carefree days of yonder? The ones where I breezed along, not a care in the world. How did I get so busy? Oh, apart from the bit where my manager went on maternity leave with no replacement...
but even my personal life just seems to be racing from one thing to another... desperate attempts at squeezing as much into my weekends and evenings as possible...

As Edina once said.... 'in with anger...out with love'.

At least I managed a kickass session on the beach this morning... thank god for exercise to restore one's sanity