Running blind

WLR has collapsed on me! I can't enter any food & I feel weirdly bereft & unsupported!
Having said that, they did respond v.efficiently to my "please help" emails today - but as of this evening, still no diary....
Wen to the gym this evening - 30 mins X trainer & 20 interval on the treadmill. It was much harder work than last time - but I've been feeling very washed out the last couple of days. Hoping, really hoping, it's not a cold.

Theme for Sunday: Mud!

Started with a couple of hours at the allotment - digging & weeding. Husband seemed to spend most of the morning chatting to other allotmenteers. I managed to chat to M (well, insult him mostly - but he doesn't like it when I'm nice to him...) and work simultaneously - proof that women can multitask!
We went cycling in the afternoon- v.enjoyable 12 mile circuit from Preston Candover. Lots of opportunities to practise cycling in ruts - having to decide:

• Can I get the pedal down?
• If not, can I get it part way down & apply flat partial pedalling?

If no to both of these, resort to hobbyhorse riding technique! It all got very muddy and Husband's Shiny New Bike (hereafter SNB) was christened. It's definitely getting colder - I just had a long sleeved base layer on top which wasn't really enough.

Huge sloes this year - I guess the mild October, wet August & v.hot July suited them.

Summary of week's exercise

Swimming on Thursday - I was fine but Husband had to give up early due to cramp.
Gym last night - cross training & another pleasing interval session on the treadmill.
Today, I've done some gardening & lots of tidying which should count for something.....

Walk in the Park

Actually, we ran the park bit! Another good walk/run with A - I think we ran about 2/3 mile according to mapmyrun, over twice last week's distance.
No buffy aerobics class tomorrow as I have a dentist appointment.

Gym & a good link

30 mins cross trainer tonight followed by a very satisfying 20 mins of interval training on the treadmill. Finished up with some leg presses.

Found a brilliant link today - www.mapmyrun.com - find your area, plot your running route & it tells you how far it is. Much easier than messing about with an OS map or street atlas. It's also got other people's routes. It was good to see that the route that A & I have been following for a couple of weeks is 5.7km - further than either of us expected. Now, would I still like the site as much if the distance had been much less??

Husband picked up his new shiny bike today - v.sexy Specialized hardrock pro thing with disc brakes & go faster looks. I'll never catch him up now!

So need to get back on the straight & narrow

Thursday dissolved into an inappropriate amount of drinking for a schoolnight - one of the side effects was not having to worry about how many calories were in the seafood pasta I'd had earlier in the evening...... good to see J again but a killer hangover on Friday.

Went to Torquay this weekend to celebrate Husband's Dad's 70th birthday - lots of food (birthday cake, marzipan sweets made by 6 year old nephew, roast chesnuts & ice cream) & not masses of exercise apart from playing with nephews on the beach on Saturday & escaping for a faster walk on Saturday afternoon at a pace dictated by my ipod. Great views & very autumnal light. Highlight for me was showing 2 year old nephew sea anemones & getting him to tease one with his finger so its tentacles gently grabbed at him.

Shopping

Exercise this evening will be a walk down the hill to meet up with an ex colleague for a catch up. I'm hoping that the walk will compensate for pasta & wine.

I've ordered a new piece of bike kit that I'm hoping will help me look good this winter on the bike - it's a short wrap skirt from Minx. The idea is that I can wear it with my thermal cycling tights to ease my paranoia about my bum looking big (because it is!) in leggings & this un-lovely view being exacerbated by cycling off road on bumpy routes....

Also did some shopping to reduce exercise - a tank top so I only have to iron the sleeves & cuffs of my shirts! I'm roadtesting it today & very successful so far.....

Body Combat

It was good, as usual! I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of "flying" kicks - the instructor broke the move right down to components.

One weird side effect of getting a bit fitter is that my balance appears to be getting better. For example, I've always struggled not to fall over when doing quad stretches (balancing on 1 leg whilst grabbing your ankle to stretch the front of the thigh) but no problems recently.... maybe I'm getting more stable as wobbly fat goes away or maybe it's just easier to reach my ankle these days - who knows!

Walking & Nirvana covers

Went out with A for a walk with a little bit of jogging added in. Good chat, good exercise.

I was prompted to book my Body Combat class for tomorrow by a discussion in the office about dodgy Nirvana covers - we were trying to decide if the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain's cover version of "Smells like teen spirit" was more entertaining than the Richard Cheese one. So I have that to look forward to.

Puffballs & Chestnuts

Went cycling Sunday morning with Husband from our house - a slightly downsized version of a route we did back in August. Saw a fantastic amount of puffballs in a field close to home - we did contemplate asking the farmer if we could sample them but satisfied our hunter-gatherer instincts through grabbing some of the many chestnuts from the path instead. We're off to Husband's folks next week - they have an open fire & we have a pristine chesnut pan! Hopefully, nephews will enjoy them.

Went to Bournemouth to try on boots with G but I didn't purchase. Then we went to the gym. Husband swam whilst I did some cross training & jogging.

I have been doing stuff honest!

For some reason, I've not been feeling much like blogging this week - feeling a bit drained due to work & some other stuff - but not too drained to exercise which is much more important than writing about it!

Tuesday: Very pleasant walk with A - the dark streets of our Victorian railway town (the last one to be built apparently) made enjoyable by a good natter. We kept up a reasonable pace & kept going for an hour. We discussed possible goals - doing the Race for Life in less than 30 mmins is the current favourite.

Wednesday: Body Combat - yay! Current routine includes some wonderfully tacky music - I'm sure Kurt Cobain would rolling around in his grave if he heard the version of smells like teen spirit. And there was a skate punk bit!

Thursday: Swimming with Husband. My shoulders were a bit achey after BC on Wed, but I think it was good to move the muscles around.

And back to normal....

Gym twice last week - Tuesday & Friday. Tuesday was just a quick blast on the x trainer but added a 20 minute jog on Friday. I think my big goal may be to do race for life in sub 30 mins...

Bike ride on Sunday - 18.5 miles with Husband & A. Fab route - forest tracks then a bit of off-national-park bridle way, a ford, some mud then back on the forest tracks - the concrete bits that were used for planes in WW2.

Have agreed with A that we will aim to do something exercise-wise on Tuesday evenings - prob walking - it'll be great to be able to combine calorie burning & a good natter again!

And back on the Big D today - boo hiss - and had some birthday cake so I can't eat much this evening!

Paved with Good Intentions

I did mean to blog wholst on hols - honest!

Anyhow, a summary:

• 3 jeeps
• Desert
• 2 bike rides
• Hoodoos
• Umpteen mini hikes
• Humungous portions
• A natural water slide
• More Desert
• Chipmunks, mule deer, turkey vultures, wild turkeys & lots of flowers I'm yet to identify
• And Desert