Rain. Lots of Rain.

14 mile ride in the New Forest yesterday - started from one of my favourite places, Fritham. There was a point where I was sorely tempted to turn back to the car - cycling on an exposed road, into a head wind with hard, driving rain. But it did get better - some great light as the sun finally got a break from the clouds. Went with A&M - and MS made a rare appearance! Lost th boys coz they were tempted by a muddy bridleway. A & I got back to the cars just before 4 - to get a call from MS declaring himself lost. Hung around & at half 4, in rapidly disappearing light, they emerged. They resorted to using MS's GPS - mostly successful apart from it directing them into a bog. Thought about explaining that GPS works best in conjunction with papaer maps - and the ability to read paper maps - but figured it wouldn't go in either set of cloth ears! A's phrase of the day - on hearing that M was going to sort out his own navigation - "it's like the blind leading the blind"....

Walkin' in the Rain

Half an hour traipse from car dent removing place to the office in the pouring rain - very glad I'm not wearing jeans today as it means I should dry off OK!

Smug last night - went late night shopping last night- slim fitting type skirt from Hobbs (i.e. not forgiving!), size 16, fits! I proclaim myself size 16 from the waist down and Gap L for my top half. But I do now have to get back into post Christmas eating regime or all these lovely new clothes I've been buying won't fit!

Husband had wiggle vouchers for Christmas so I've just piggy backed a new jacket onto his order - very orange with lots of reflective bits so should be good for winter running and cycling...

New Year, New Look

Thought the Blog could do with a revamp!

Lovely Christmas pressies

Lots of goodies received to help me with my exercise regime: iPod armband case from baby sister, fab new pair of gym pants and a huge mountain biking tome from middle sister. Hi vis vest from In Laws to prevent further car door/fat bird interface incidents plus a lovely new base layer top for cycling. The most recently appreciated gift though was from my folks to Husband - very easy to set-up & change radio alarm clock! Husband seemed to like the heap of Decathlon biking stuff I got him - and was excited about getting a wiggle voucher.
Anyhow, if any of the generous donors are reading this blog, thanks very much indeed for our gifts!

Brilliant Views – shame about the speed

I’ve been looking forward to my Christmas jog for weeks – to the extent that I was terrified that the cold I’d developed on the 22nd was going to stop play. But as it was still a head cold by the 25th, I decided to go ahead.
Loved the route – from the house over to the cliff at Babbacombe, along the road to Ansteys Cove, along Torbay’s millionaire’s row to get to the beach hut for a fried breakfast. The waves were crashing on the beach. Lots of cormorants out fishing for their breakfast too!
Shame about my speed – I averaged a dawdling 8kph but I was keeping my heartrate low-ish in deference to not being well. Just pleased that I did it.
My cold caught up with me later though & I was in bed by 9pm… Still not 100% so will skip the gym today. Will prob go tomorrow though & do a gentle routine.

Not much else in the way of exercise – Husband had the cold too but it was on his chest & causing him much more discomfort. We introduced Husband’s parents to the joys of geocaching on Christmas Eve, finding 2 micro caches in Babbacombe. They seem very keen to find more, perhaps with the grandchildren on their next visit. At least it’s motivation to get more au fait with their GPS unit!

Walk from Home

I'm trying to pretend that my sore throat, headache & sense of being bunged up is not Husband's martian death flu - but I didn't feel up to running today. We were let home earley due to Christmas & it was a beautiful afternoon, so instead of jogging or gym, I went for a walk. It was a good opportunity to experiment with my new toy - etrex vista.

So I can say with confidence that I walked 9.75km and was moving for 90 mins. The route I took was through woods and fields close to home - got v.muddy partially beacuse of the paths & partially due to a very friendly greyhound!

Very pleased with the photo I took in the woods. The fog returned about 20 minutes after I took this.

Playing Catch Up

Weekend in Northumberland with family - very impressed that J&P went running both mornings, but we restricted ourselves to a couple of short walks - into the village & back on Saturday, then a wander with the children on Sunday - I enjoyed racing D's buggy against P!

Skating on Tuesday as a pre-pub thing. I thoroughly enjoyed it (again!) but I seemed to be the only one who did. Husband had a very odd technique - threw himself as fast as he could & then crashed into the safety barrier! Kind of human curling without a broom....

I did go to Body Combat on Wed: 3 tracks from new routine - including the Killer's "Somebody Told Me" - it was tough singing whilst learning new moves.... Then Juliana put in some oldies inlcuding YMCA - very happy!

Today, went geocaching in the New Forest as a work team thing - good fun and my team won. Geocaching is hunting for tupperware boxes hidden at locations you can find through www.geocaching.com - it maybe as simple as going to the co-ordinates posted for a geocache or there maybe puzzles to solve. Exercise wise, probably not bad - we drove between the points but each involved a walk of up to half a mile once parked.

Very foggy - which made it seem very atmospheric - our voices seemed to echo & there was an odd sense of isolation. Walking in the Forest definitely beats glaring at my laptop as an entertaining thing to do on a Thursday afternoon.

Struggle tonight

I can't decide whether it was my hangover, feeling sniffy or having driven over 300 miles today making me less than stunning in the gym tonight - or maybe it was just an off day. Still did everything - same treadmill routine as last time - but it was much more tiring. Ah well! At least I went...

My mammoth drive did enable me to buy some goodies from Decathlon - another pair of warm cycling tights and a couple of t-shirts. Also bought some dinky little lights for my bike & the SNB so that if we ever find ourselves in low light like on Sunday, we'll be a bit more prepared.

First sub 35 minute 5K

34:16 to do the 5K route from my house - compared to 36:20 last time - I can't believe it! I was so nervous about not doing as well as last time that I've been putting off jogging outside - it's nice to be wrong sometimes! It felt good going round - my legs seemed to be striding out a bit more than before. So chuffed!

Forerunner and iPod both behaved impeccably.

Raindrops kept falling on our heads

Apart from my puncture & dodgy brakes, Sunday's ride was fun - even though it was raining most of the way. Just over 15 easy miles in the New Forest, mostly off road.

Very grateful to M for sorting out my bike problems! And to the other M (as in C&M as opposed to Mr Kitty) for ensuring that A & I didn't lose the guys in the dark on the way back. Impressed that A came with us as I know she'd been unwell for a few days. Biggest thanks goes to Husband though for letting me get inside & into a hot shower whilst he sorted out the bikes afterwards!

I think the attached photo of A summarises the state of us all afterwards pretty well. Our kit is now coated in silty gravel - I was even sneezing grit!

Sk8er Girls

Went skating with G yesterday morning at the rink set up in Winchester Cathedral's close - and loved it! Spent the first 5 miniutes grimly clinging to the side but after that, I was OK. Nothing fancy, but managed:

• Not to fall over


• To avoid the small children, both prone on the ice & still standing

Atmosphere helped too - beautiful setting & a brass band were playing Christmas Classics like Sleighride & Lieutenant Kije.

G is really good - looks confident & cool on the ice. She can balance on 1 skate & showed me a mini jump. We're planning to do skating lessons in Jan.

Gym

Gym tonight after a couple of nights off. Same as Monday but used different weight machines - all good.

A change will do me good

I've been feeling a bit achey today - at the gym last night, I tried new approach to weights (3 sets of 10 reps, aiming to fail the 3rd set) and my arms & back are feeling a bit tired as a result. On the treadmill, I did my first 10 mins at the same rate as last time (2 min intervals, slow at 8kph, fast at 10kph) but bumped up the speeds for the second 10 mins ( 8.5 & 10.5), finishing up at 11 for the final 2 mins - so an average of over 9kph. Very pleased I did this - I'm more convinced that 5k in 30mins could be possible by next summer - but it's made my legs ache today.

No walk/jog with A as she has a migraine - poor thing. However, tried something new tonight - a Cardio Kickboxing class with my colleague V at a gym near Southampton. Didn't enjoy it as much as Body Combat - shouty instructor & very uninspiring choreography. But a change is good!

Sunday was different too - no bike ride as it was too windy so we had a lie in & pootled over to the gym for a swim instead. Disturbed to realise that there were many un & under supervised young kids in the pool and no lifeguard. Esporta couldn't even find a leisure assistant to put the lane ropes across for the session - but still found time to spend with potential new suckers - sorry members - touring the club. Prioritising drumming up new business over safety of children - hmmmmm.

Husband had his gym induction on Sunday evening - he seemed to enjoy it. Due to his rubbish ankles, it's exercise bike, rowing machine & freee weights for him.

39 seconds off my time

36:20 to do the 5k route from home - 39 seconds faster than on Monday! I mustn't expect to improve this much everytime though - one of the nice things about starting from a low level of fitness seems to be that big improvements are possible initially.

Forerunner worked beautifully & I have been assured that the calorie count glitch is work-in-progress. iPod however decded to crash half way around - it's behaving now following restoring factory settings. Forerunner does highlight that my heart rate remains constant when jogging - even on a hilly route. I seem to compensate with increased speed on the downhill bits & work equally hard (but slower) to get up hills.

Incident with bloke getting out of his car & knocking me with the door has highlighted that although my black kit does have reflective bits, perhaps I should add a high vis reflective vest to my Christmas list!