My new flyer...

Hmmmm

so, my new nickname after our barefoot bowling is 'cazza the cannon' - why use technique when you have brute force at your disposal? Still... i was accurate!
lots of fun!

The start of 'silliness'

Well, tomorrow afternoon marks our afternoon/evening if silliness with our agencies. Barefoot bowls tournament in North Sydney! Ha, should be fun.... with a gourmet barbeque, so at least food will be fairly good! Possibly just the alcoholic extras that will have to be 'watched'.
It promises to be an afternoon of fun and frivolity, which is possibly just what we all need in these times of 'doom and gloom' amidst the financial crisis. With all the talk going on at the moment, it seems we are all just waiting until the new year to see how things are...and if we will start losing jobs. But...no point worrying about it for now. :-) What will be will be!

In the meantime, I'm planning my tomorrow morning workout session for the girls. It's called 'ab-solutely no butts about it'. .... all abs and butts, with some sprints and kettlebells added in for good measure.

A time for presents....

Someone at work asked me if I had finished all of my christmas shopping.
Ha! Have I even started..??? I guess I have in a way... I have some small 'things' stashed away in readiness.
I only just wrote all of my cards on the weekend (including those that need to go to England).

Why am I so slack when it comes to this time of year?? I guess this year, I've just had too much on my plate. I hope everyone else is better than me at getting organised!

__________

The weekend was one of a very bittersweet moment. A couple of weeks ago, a lady posted on our horse trials website offering a retirement home for a horse to be a companion horse.

I offered her my boy - there's been more downs than ups in our relationship in terms of my riding/continuing on with him - he constantly has muscle issues in his back which now we think is caused by the bones inside his foot slowly sinking - referring pain from constant workload back through his back. So I had decided to put him out in a retirement paddock.

This retirement paddock will offer him daily love - which is something I couldn't offer in a normal retirement situation. At least he will be well loved and cuddled on a daily basis, and I can still go and see him whenever I like.

It's been a while....

that I weighed myself - the last time the scales had registered 5kg of loss.... we're in the midst of renovating our bathroom.
All large charcoal grey tiles, white bath & sink etc and sexy deep russet red towels.
However... we're a way off yet. Our friend is doing the tiling...and we're up to 'waterproof' stage... almost ready for the tiles... woohoo.

But I digress.. .I grabbed out the scales - I haven't 'consciously' been thinking too hard about weight loss - basically I've been too busy. BUT I have been pretty darn good about my eating, and watching portions - even on 'cheat' times, and it appears to be paying off. Another 2 kg have dropped away.

I am determined to not let Christmas interrupt my great eating. I know there will be a few days of additional drinking and celebration - starting on next Wednesday when we have a 'lawn bowls' tournament with some of our agencies, then Thursday night is dinner with my sister and her partner, Friday night is our work team dinner, then I think we're fairly safe until 25&26th..
So all in all, I should be pretty good to keep up with a loss.

I suppose backing up with doing two full participatory sessions on Monday & Wednesday has probably helped along the way, amongst other things!

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The downside to outdoor training...

is rain!
Ooops. My group got fairly saturated during a downpour on the beach on Monday night.
Let's hope tonight is better!
Tonight we'll be on the park, so we do have an undercover area to race to should we need it!
Still - it didn't kill us... therefore it must have made us stronger

A sad death...

Was saddened to hear that Kerryn McCann, our local marathon mum passed away during the night after a battle with breast cancer.
I feel for her family - especially with such young children to lose their Mum so early. 41 is way too young.

Competitor etiquette...or lack thereof...

Hmm, once again my group fell pray to the imposing lack of courtesy shown by my competitors.
This time, they decided to walk straight through the area that I had marked out with cones.
Hopefully they'll learn to actually have some common courtesy and at least show some respect for others property.
However, I doubt it. It appears they are on an intimidation mission.
Perhaps they think they own the entire area?
My group just got more fired up and trained harder.
Somehow I don't think they realise how silly they look, and what impression it leaves in the eyes of their clients or potential clients.

A great workout this morning...

..even if I do say so myself!

Today we concentrated on 'strength' and 'intervals' - so each station was supplied with 5kg dumbbells, and we worked on first set of 8 reps, second set 9 reps, last set 10 reps. The circuit worked in a lower body/ upper body / lower body / upper body fashion, so we did the complete circuit with 8 reps of each exercise, then increased the next time around.
They had to sprint between stations.
After this circuit, we changed exercises, still sticking to the lower/upper routine, but just did one set of 12 reps this time around. Then we had to do a 'run' and 'recover'.
This consisted of:
Run around the outside of the cones, then ab workout -
1st time around was crunches with no weight, then second and third times around we had weights.
Then we switched to jogging 2/3 of the circuit, then sprinting 1/3 and jogging the last 1/3rd.
Planks, side planks, pre exhaust a set of tricep extensions then 20 tricep dips.
Then I decided to push them a little harder.
There's a hill at the end of our furthest soccer field - we jogged across both soccer fields, I let them get their breath, then we headed up the hill, with a slight sprint towards the end. they all managed it, some easier than others... so we walked back down and did it a second time...
I'm very impressed with how much their fitness has improved to be able to do this - with very little complaint.
Then I let them cool down and stretch.