Excellent week

After a week of just putting my head down and trudging along the path I've come back out into the light.


I have, for the first time in a REALLY long time, managed to get through seven consecutive days where I've stayed on track with my food and it wasn't even a struggle. This gave me a massive boost of confidence. I then had two days of not quite so great tracking but as I went up to Brisbane on a flying visit for the majority of those two days, I'm actually quite OK with that.


My flying visit to Brisbane was at the request of my sister, who bought two tickets to Pink many, many months ago (as she is a massive fan). Unfortunately, her friends in Brisbane also had bought their own tickets, so she was left with a spare and really wanted to go with someone who would appreciate the show. She asked me, despite the fact that I am not a big Pink follower. But I do love music in general, especially live music, and the opportunity to spend a 'sister' day was too good to pass up. So off I flew to a lovely 26 degree Brisbane day on Thursday. It was fabulous! Sis and I hung out, shopped and had a great time; I had lunch with my grandma; and I must concede that the Pink show was good. I enjoyed myself, sang along with whatever bits of songs I knew, made up the words for the bits I didn't and most importantly, my sister absolutely loved the show and really enjoyed her experience. As an added bonus for me, seeing Pink strutting around on stage wearing next to nothing was fairly good motivation to stay on the path of good choices.


Flying back to Canberra on Friday morning to be greeted by my car fully encased in a block of ice at the airport was less enjoyable. And rude shock after the balmy Brisbane weather.


But overall, I had an excellent week and I'm looking forward to the next seven days being even better.

Fake it

'til you make it.

Taking it one step at a time

I'm breaking my six week challenge into smaller chunks.

It's about time I realised (or maybe just owned up to) that I have the attention span of a goldfish and am driven by immediate gratification. I will always choose the short term 'pay off' over a longer term gain. Six weeks is waaaay too long for me.

While this concept is not new to me, it was during this morning's run that I thought to myself I needed to change things. A 5km run for me is essentially 25 200m runs. Sure, I think about the 5km but to get me around the course I am having this sort of dialogue:

"OK, start running. Let's just get to the end of this row of trees."

"Good, now remember to keep your shoulders relaxed and let's make it to the bottom of the hill there."

"OK, hill, it's alright, you only have to make it to the top."

"Hill is done. Can't stop now so let's just get to the end of the bridge."

"It's all downhill now, easy! Focus on your breathing."

"And to the bottom of the next hill. I wonder how much longer it will take for them to finish fixing the path so I don't have to do this hill anymore?"

"Right, up this hill. It's an easy one and then there's only one more until the end."

"That wasn't that bad. Onto the flower beds."

And so on. I'm sure you have no interest in hearing the rest of my run because, trust me, it doesn't get any more interesting.

So, six weeks is now three lots of two weeks. And the first two weeks (which is nearly half way over already!!) I'm now taking one hour at a time. I'm hoping if I manage two really good weeks then the next two can be eased back a bit.

This is the two weeks:

Today has not quite gone to plan - I didn't do the 40 minutes on Tuesday (only did 34) so had wanted to do a 6km run this morning (which would take me to 40mins) but I got out of bed a little bit too late for that. If I get to work just 5 minutes too late, getting a shower is hell. But I pushed myself on the 5km and took off another minute (there were some happy dances once I'd got my breath back) and I'm happy with something over nothing. Breakfast was a success - oats - I love 'em! And now I'm on my daily coffee. Oh, and I've done one bottle of water - three more to go today.

I apologise in advance if this gets tedious for anyone who bothers to read - but as I've said before, it's all about me and getting what I want.

Now, I know I tend to bang on about it a fair bit, but I really do love winter in Canberra!



It is true that leaving the warm cocoon of my bed was an epic struggle. And it is also true that the cold air does terrible things to my asthma. And the cold and dry leaves my skin looking horrible and red and flakey.



But I don't care. I love scarves. I love coats. I love gloves. I love rosy cheeks. I love that everything looks clearer. I love trees changing colour. I love the contrast of bare branches against a clear sky at dawn. And I love that on my lovely cold frosty run this morning and I took another minute off my 5km-ish lake lap time.

Now I remember

Twelve boxes packed and it still looks like I've done nothing!

*cries*

I hate packing.

Running haiku

Ran with my running buddy K today. It always seems to go faster when you're chatting away to someone (even if you are gasping for air). Part of our usual path is closed at the moment so we had an added hill on the run. Yuck!!

I was inspired to write a haiku about this morning's run (don't worry, I won't give up my day job).

Two degrees this morn

Perfect running autumn day

Oh, I love it so!!

Random running ruminations

My past three weeks of relative inactivity showed themselves this morning. I was in struggletown for most of my run. But I finished the distance, albeit slowly.
It was cool this morning, but not really too bad. The Bureau of Meteorology are forecasting some zero degree days though for the rest of the week, so might have to find the old running gloves to complement my new headband – no cold ears for me today!
As you can see, I have decided to track my running – it’s really satisfying to see the time and distance add up (not that April is going to be that flash). I’m an instant gratification type girl. I don’t like waiting for my results. So by tracking my runs I’ve got something to hang onto until I get to my races. Not to mention it stops me from obsessing quite so much about my weight. Which has really been bugging me – I’ve been thinking about it so much but not getting anywhere (my own fault), which has led me into the negative thought cycle, which leads to destructive behaviour, and so on. But running makes me feel good, motivates me to eat better (so I run better) and I like doing it (even when I’m hating it). For some reason I forget that every now and then.
And before I sign off for today, one thing I saw this morning was three little bunnies nibbling away on the grass as I shuffled past them. I’m pretty sure rabbits are a feral pest that we don’t like (or is that just in farming areas?) but they were pretty cute.