I'm back after my brief period of being AWOL over New Year. And I feel like I've put on about half a stone in that period. Actually, that's not far off - I feel bloated and ugh, but I'm back on plan, and I've been tracking for the last couple of days even whilst I've not been eating brilliantly, so I've not completely fallen by the wayside.
New Year in Scotland was amazing. We got hideously drunk on champagne on New Years Eve, and most of the rest of that night is a bit of a blur ... much like the pic below (which is in fact my friend Jon spinning hyperlights in the dark sometime in the small hours of New Years Eve - cool, huh?)
The hangovers on New Years Day were truly atrocious, so we decided to blast them away with some crunchy-snowed, frozen-bog-hopping, heather-strewn, blue-skied walking. It was gorgeous out, if a little treacherous under foot (proven by the fact that I went flying twice on the ice), but exactly what we needed, and we returned 3 hours later just as dusk was falling feeling a lot more human.
We had another walk on Saturday, down to the beach this time, and again it was lush to blow the cobwebs away. Interestingly, that walk is also a lot easier than I remember it being, as the bloody big hill on the way back seems to have shrunken considerably since the summer! The only minor problem we had, was that we were halfway across the direct route through the marsh before we realised it wasn't quite as frozen as it appeared!! There were a few rather tricky moments where we did some strategic hopping around, accompanied by some unexpected cracking noises and cheerful swearing as a foot disappeared into the mud, but it was all part of the fun and games.
Since I'd been eating whatever the hell I wanted over Xmas, I started tracking again straight away on Monday - can't say that Monday and Tuesday were good eating days though, due to long days at work, lack of food in the fridge and a lot of snow fouling everything up yesterday, but at least I was honest and tracked it all. Today is a snow-day, so I'm taking the opportunity to refresh the fridge and get back on track properly.
Exercise-wise I got to it on Monday night - since it was too cold and icy out to run, I went to the treadmill and trudged out a (very slow) 5k on the treadmill. No stopping at all. 40 mins of straight up running. Good stuff. Didn't get anything done last night other than walking to the pub for dinner when I finally got home from work and playing in the snow on the way back, but I'm going to go for a walk in the snow later today.
I'm also supposed to be going to the Tamworth Snow Dome for a ski-lesson tonight, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to get there with all the snow, which I'm gutted about. We're off skiing the weekend after this one, and I really wanted this session to re-find my ski legs (as I've been snowboarding the last couple of years and have had to change due to injury). I'm also gutted because if I miss it, that's £80 of cash down the drain!!!! Booooo!
On a final note - I had a good realisation yesterday - I was filling in my booking form for my ski-hire, and for the first time ever, I didn't feel embarrassed about filling in my weight, which was pretty cool. 79kgs? I can live with that!
8 comments:
jealous jealous jealous I want to go away to the snow. Although yesterday here was pretty good! I started snowboarding due to ski injuries, but the couple of times I have tried skiing again, years apart I could still do it!
I've always wanted to go to sotland for New Years, maybe next year.
Where'd you go walking it looks so pretty, nothing like a touch of bog hopping to wake you up!
Ali - it's right over on the West Coast on one of the Southern peninsulas overlooking the islands of Isla and Dura. Very remote, very rural, and very, very beautiful. It was great as we were at a friends cottage, which is pretty basic and rough 'n' ready, but lush with 11 of us piling round the wood-buring stove in the evenings.
Trio - hoping that works for me! It's 5 years since I was last on skis, and I think I'm going to feel very unco-oridinated with my feet on two separate things - damn, I'm going to miss snowboarding!! Especially if there's powder. Grrrrrr.
Seems I need to make more friends further north!
You'll love skiing again, it'll come back to you like riding a bike, anything has got to be better than hanging around over here!
Says me that can't ski to save herself, unless it's straight into a tree! ;o)
I love reading your posts. I am so jealous! You are doing everything I dream about doing....the walks, hikes, ski-ing....everything.
God, I sound like a stalker now!! LOL!!
No...seriously, you have done so fab in 2009...*proud look*...2010 is soooo 'your year'. xx
I found it really hard to learn to snowboard as I was so used to the independent leg action!
Although don't do what I did after over three years off, offer to race and then first run through a slalom course! It wasn't pretty and snowplough became my friend!
Where are you going?
We're in the Paradiski area, staying in Montchevin village and skiing from Le Plagne. I'm a bit the same, except it sounds like you're a way better skier than me! I loved my first week, and was storming round, then completely lost my nerve at the end of my second week after a bad experience - here's to recapturing my nerve! Got a one-on-one session at the Snow Dome on Friday to help me out, which I reckon will be a real boost, and going with a group of all mixed abilities so that should be really good.
I've skied out of Les Arcs, stayed a a YH nearby had to get a bus each day. Had a great time, you will love it. I was glad I was with skiiers as there are a fair few flat bits between the lifts that they dragged me along.
I skiied as a child, moguls, so I was good at that but never really got to go proper skiing so that might scare me!
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