Watery Fun

I'm still alive!!  Wakeboarding did not in fact kill me - hoorah!

I've had a great weekend full of outdoors, fresh air, sunshine and a bit of rain.  And a lot of water.  The more time I spend outside doing fun stuff, the more I realise how much I enjoy it, even though I'm pretty rubbish at most of the things I do. 

I'm certainly no natural surfer, and definitely not an instinctive wakeboarder, but they were both fun anyway.  Well, apart from me nearly throwing a strop after I crashed straight off the dock for the 5th time in a row at the wakeboarding, and decided I couldn't do it.  Mind you, I also said that after the 3rd and 4th crashes, and just decided to try it one more time anyway.  Lucky I tried it for the 6th time too, as suddenly it clicked, and I was off flying round the lake.  They start you on a kneeboard, so you can learn to handle the cable and steering, and you can only progress to standing up once you've got that sorted - as it happened, I didn't get as far as trying standing up, because by the time I'd had my 5 crash attempts, plus 3 successful circuits, and then swimming back ashore after each one with the board, my arms were pretty tired, but it was a lot of fun anyway.

Surfing on Saturday was also in the fun but frustrating category.  We headed off quite early Saturday morning to Saunton, and hired soft boards when we got there.  A few of the guys from the surf club were already there and were just coming back from a very early morning session, and there were another 4 who arrived when we did, but were mucking around on long boards at the other end of the beach from us, so we all headed in the water or back home after a bit of chat in the car-park.  When I could catch the waves, I was standing up much easier, and that was great, but for some reason  I'd lost the knack of catching waves and loads of my take-off attempts just ended with the wave rolling right under me.  It was the same as the wakeboarding yesterday, getting frustrated and annoyed and then saying "just one more wave", and occasionally it would work, but more often not.  Saturday wasn't a coaching session, so there was no one around to ask, so I kept plugging away tweaking bits, but in the end I still hadn't figured it out.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

Other than that, I had 3 nights out (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) and spent Friday afternoon lounging round in the sun on a riverside restaurant terrace with my friend Clare (one of my newer friends from surf club).  One thing I really need to get a handle on is that I can't eat whatever I like just because I've been outside doing exercise.  I've noticed a bad habit of using the activity as an excuse to just chomp away with abandon afterwards.  In reality, even though I might be hungry afterwards, I know I won't have burnt as many calories as I'm stuffing in my mouth, so I need to watch that.  Also, buying "treat" food at the beach or even the wakeboarding centre is expensive!  They know they have a captive market and they milk that.  Clare and I were suggesting on Saturday, that we need to get in the habit of bringing a packed lunch from home for surfing trips.  I would use the word "picnic", but that implies "treat" food again, when really it just needs to be an adequate quantity of good healthy food.  Sandwiches, and maybe a flask of soup.  Bananas for energy.  Maybe one chocolate bar for instant energy, if needed. 

I just need to do a bit more forward-planning, or I'll be un-doing a lot of good work - the scales have already jumped back up again after the weekend, and my hard-won weigh in of a week and a half ago suddenly seems a long way and in danger of sliding away from me again.  I'm no higher than I was last Tuesday after the hen-party indulgence, but up from where I'd fought back to on Friday just gone. 

First things first - after 4 weeks away from the gym, it's time to make a reappearance there this week - Balance today to loosen tight muscles, then some spin and maybe circuits over the next couple of days.  Another short run or two this week.  Careful eating.  And lots of sleep and early nights, because I'm feeling tired.  Less alcohol.  More thought.  There's a balance here somewhere - I know it.