Champagne & dented cars

Saturday did incorporate walking - probably around 45 mins - making our way from Waterloo to Chelsea for a wedding, walking to a venue off Sloane St for the reception, to the pub & then back to Waterloo. The other major exercise was lifting champagne glass. Lots. Repeatedly! Anyhow, congrats to P & A - hope you enjoy marriage at least as much as I seem to be doing - sad, but I can still gush about liking being married to Husband. Especially as martian death flu seemed to have abated by the time I got home on Friday!

15 mile bike ride in the forest yesterday from Fritham with Husband & C. The SNB (Husband's bike) fell off bike rack, bashing the car on the way down - car was dented, not a mark on the SNB. We think that the clamp wasn't done up properly & not locked - the mitigating factor was that we were putting the bikes on the car on torrential rain. Good ride though - very entertaining cycling up paths that had turned into streams & through fords that wouldn't have been there before. Cute pigs at the end, rootling in the forest for acorns.

Luck wasn't on our side on Sunday - we then went to the gym for Husband's induciton - but it was postponed due to double booking - Esporta, I like your club but your admin is not great! 20 mins of interval training and 20 on the X trainer.

Jog today - 36:59 to do exactly 5km. I was faster than last time - went past home on lap 3 at 34:30 compared to 35:00 last week. Forerunner was working well - fo a change! I had my ipod for company which made a difference to my boredom level. Nice blister on my instep - never mind.

Mozart's Balls

I've spent 2 hours wandering around Munich - bit of sightseeing (a little limited in the dark!) and bit of shopping. And I feel as if I've spent lots of time on my feet today - traipsing around electrical & other retailers in Munich & Salzburg. Feeling very pleased with myself at resisting buying yet more kit in a fab Intersports store.....
Anyhow, bought Husband some Mozart balls & was really looking forward to telling him about them - and seeing how long I can go before revealing that they are chocolate - but just called & he is too far gone with martian death flu (a cold to a woman) to even talk to me. Ah well. At least I have 24 hours to build up some sympathy for the poor soul (sympathy 4 man flu is not my strong suit).

Technology fails

Tuesday's walk & jog today with A - good apart from our technology!
My Forerunner failed miserably to find a satellite - and I failed miserably to remember the heart rate monitor strap. And A's HR monitor was playing up too. More techy issues when I got home - lost my camera charger which I need 4 tomorrow's business trip - A saved me though.

On a more positive techy note, collected my sexy new Ipod video - and it works! Planning a Christmas list of gadgets & gizmos to keep it company now - really want an arm strap case so I can jog with it. Perhaps the god of techy stuff does love me after all.....

Feeling pleagh

I don't think I do this very often (at least I hope I don't!) but I'm feeling decidedly pleagh. Might be going down with a cold, the squash I had for tea tonight is sitting in my stomach like its morphed back into a whole butternut squash & is going to remain there forever, I was rubbish at the gym tonight, my head hurts & I keep on sneezing.
Pleagh pleagh pleagh pleagh pleagh pleagh pleagh pleagh pleagh.

What a difference a bit of rain makes

Tiring Bike ride today - 19 miles from Cheesefoot Head using a route we've done twice before:
http://www.hants.gov.uk/pdf/cycling/Cheesefoot%20Head.pdf

But this is the first time in winter & just after some torrential rain - and that made a huge difference. Claggy mud made it tricky to get traction in places - and tricky to stay on the bike in others. Thinking about the myth that the Inuit have umteen words for snow, I reckon that mountain bikers should have many many words for mud! The route took longer than I expected despite virtually no breaks.

S & X joined me & Husband - really good to see them both after a couple of months. S & I were both playing with heart rate monitors. X was amazing - she has back problems which make going uphill painful - you could see on her face that she was in pain but she just carried on. However, I will ensure that the next rid we do with X involves fewer countour lines crammed together.

There was a strong smell of crab apples in places - so many over the track. Beautiful day.

Saturday - went to the gym to offset party attendance later on! X trainer, interval jogging on the treadmill & finished with the incline press.

Rest day on Friday as we went to G's for very tasty dinner - excellent veggie curry!

Hopes of YMCA

Body Combat on Wednesday went well. The Instructor was singing alot into her mike - kind of endearing & added to the not-too-serious atmosphere. At the end, she mentioned that she's going to resurrect some older tracks next week for a bit of variety - I got very excited when somebody suggested she dig out 2005's superb YMCA routine. Now I have to go next week!

Gym tonight - X trainer, interval training on the treadmill & the incline press for a bit of weight work. I ramped up the interval training a tad - by 0.5 kph for both fast & slow speeds - so now at 8 & 10 kph. It was tiring at the time - but it's now well past midnight & I can't sleep so I don't think I pushed myself too much!

Injury Prevention

Gym last night - I focussed on low impact (40 mins on the X trainer) & the leg press machine as I was concerned that I'd jogged on Sunday & was planning on walk/jogging tonight - 3 nights of torturing my knee wold have been cruel!

However, A called tonight's activity off as she isn't feeling well - I'm hoping her eyestrain doesn't develop into a full blown migraine - very glad I don't get 'em. I umm-ed & ah-ed about going to the gym but as I've got Body Combat booked for tomorrow, went shopping instead. I now have a gorgeous lbd (more of a long bd than a little!) for the Christmas party next month.

8 minutes faster!

Went to Brighton for the weekend to see the Scissor Sisters with Husband, M&A. No boogying exercise at the gig as Husband & I were sitting on the balcony – his legs aren’t up to being stood up & moshing all evening.

However, we did plenty of walking. I had a half hour bracing stroll on the seafront on Saturday morning (woke up feeling very bloated after drunkenly demolishing burger & chips on Friday night), followed by a day of wandering around Brighton. On Sunday, came back via Wealdstone open air museum – again, plenty of walking. V.cute Tamworth piglets - one of whom is pictured here courtesy of A remembering to bring her camera. Lots of eating too though...

Went for a jog last night – the .97 mile circuit from the house. Failed miserably to make good use of my Forerunner – forgot to put on the heart rate monitor & for some reason, GPS wise, it only picked up my first circuit. May have to resort to rtfm.... But the good news is that I did it in 35.5 minutes – a good 8 minutes faster than last time!

My weight - eeks!

Just weighed myself for the first time in about 3 years - to discover that I'm the weight that I thought I was in May.

Bad news is that it's going to take even longer than I thought to achieve "target" weight.

Good news is that I burn lots of calories in exercise - so I really did burn around 765 cals on Tues night's walk. And my real target has always been jeans rather than weight as I want to be less fat....

Anyhow, didn't go to gym tonight as was feeling very weary after what felt like a long day at work - feeble I know!

Catch up time....

Tuesday: Gym
Wednesday: Body Combat
Friday: Swimming - but curtailed by knee playing up.
Saturday: Gardening all day then a run from the house - just under 3 miles.
Sunday: 14 mile bike ride with Husband & C&M. We did the New Forest/Brockenhurst route that M&A introduced to us - perfect weather and I trialled my new skirt & tights combo! Not sure that I'm pushing myself enough atm - Husband's clothes were dripping in sweat afterwards (I noticed coz I loaded them into the washing machine) whereas mine were just minorly smelly.

Tonight, I met with A for our powerwalk/jog combo. Particularly good tonight as we had a sumi-e japanese art session later on - and she fed me! I trialled a new gadget Garmin's Forerunner 305 - a combined heart rate monitor & GPS thing that looks like a large sports watch. Still playing with the settings & getting used to it, but I think it's going to help me push myself more when exercising as opposed to comfortably bimbling along (my forte!).

Work's been active too - I spent 4 days in the warehouse heaving boxes around to stocktake. Been feeling very washed out in the evenings - can't decide if it's the box heaving or a mild bug. Or maybe I'm developing SAD problems!

Husband is complaining about me not buying clothes then him only finding out through reading my blog - I'm sure I can do something to rectify this lamentable state of affairs......

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.