Grinding Forwards

Blimey - how time flies.  As usual, I suddenly looked at this little blog and realised that a longer time that I'd meant to had passed since I last posted.  Stupid life.  Or actually, stupid lack of internet at home - it makes it harder to find time to write, since it's hard work doing posts from the ol' Pie-phone.

Um, yeah, life has been a little crazy the last 10 or so days.  I had a chest infection that knocked me flat on my back - I literally didn't get out of my pjyamas from Friday night til Sunday evening that weekend, and the only reason I did then was to stagger to the local cinema to watch The Artist, before staggering home and straight back to bed.

That in turn meant no exercise.  I didn't take any time off work, but the walking to and from the office was hard enough work to deter me from wanting to do anything more.  My chest felt tight still and my cough positively rattled.  Marvellous.  That in turn affected my eating.  After several weeks of being on it, and breaking back into the 12's I got distracted and mopey and let it slide a bit.  Pancake day passed with homemade pancakes and hot chocolate sauce (one of the few sauces I'm any good at making!).  Ice-cream soothed my throat.  Actually, lets be honest - ice-cream soothed my feelings.  It wasn't paticularly pretty - just off-kilter each and every day, and the scales showed it on Friday - 1 step forward and several back.

As always with life, just as you get one thing sorted, another area comes crashing down, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that having sorted out the house, and by extension my budget, the thing with Chris came grinding to a halt last week.  I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it - especially as he seems to have gone AWOL rather than actually break up with me (but I think we can all be adult and read that for what it is).  The clues have been there for the last couple of weeks as he seems to have got increasingly distant, so I guess it didn't come as a huge surprise, but whether it's due to him losing interest or freaking out, who knows.  What I do know is that I can't make him change his mind, so I have to deal with it as best I can.  We have a lot of mutual friends and I'll be seeing him at a wedding in April, so I have to take the best tack to make things easy on everybody - that seems to be just letting it go and not pushing the issue so that it's less awkward when we have to see each other.  I'm sad about it, as I obviously liked the guy, but I also have my pride, and know that I deserve more than that, so I'm not wallowing too much.  Positive attitude and all.

I had an action-packed weekend to take my mind off it instead.  On Saturday, I went surfing with some of the girls at Saunton, on a gloriously beautiful day.  The conditions were great, the company was fun and a great time was had.  Saturday night I went out with a load of the surf club guys and enjoyed a dance and letting my hair down.  I didn't actually think I'd drunk that much, but my head told me otherwise on Sunday!

Aaaaah - Sunday.  Day of the worst run I've ever done!  In my stubborness, I decided that having had 10 days off from training (and any activity at all) I'd just jump straight back into my training plan with the long run I missed the weekend before, which also happened to be the longest run of the training plan.  1hr 50mins of running.  In retrospect, that wasn't such a great idea, but I decided to do it anyway and that I'd just take it slow and walk as needed if it was hard.  I totally underestimated how hard it would be.

I remembered how well my 90min run went 2 weeks ago, and thought it would be fine.  I didn't factor in 10 days off from any running, a hangover, the wrong food, big hills, aching muscles from 2 hours surfing the day before and the remainder of a chest full of phlegm.  Brilliant.

I waited to run until about 1pm, and had a big bowl of porridge for breakfast at about 11.30.  It turns out that, for me at least, porridge is completely the wrong fuel to run on.  I don't get any energy from it.  This happened once before, when I did the duathlon last June, and I just felt like I was running on empty, but I hadn't twigged exactly what it was at the time.  Now I know.  So I set off feeling like the fuel tank was pretty empty.  My legs felt tired, with no bounce at all and I generally felt heavy, and the Lucozade didn't seem to do much to lift the gloom.  I ran up to the Downs and decided to go for it anyway, and set off down (and I mean doooooooooooooown) the long hill at the back which would take me out on my loop.  One big loop with no shortcut back.  My hips started to hurt after the first mile of pounding down the steep hill, but I kept going.  Down and down.  And then up.  I hadn't expected there to be an up, as I'd assumed from the map that it would be down and out, and back and up.  Not so much.

The road seemed to go on forever, and I started to panic that I'd missed my turn somewhere.  I was supposed to be heading back to the Portway to run back into town by the river, but couldn't even see it.  I thought I'd found it, but obviously picked the wrong cross road, as instead of reaching a road junction, I had to run up slippery steps to come back on to it at a viaduct.  I was now an hour out on my run, and as far away as I'd get from home and at the bottom of the hill to boot, and my energy totally failed.  Just tottering along for short sections seemed too much.  My feet were starting to hurt and if I'd seen a taxi, I'd have hailed it.  I just didn't see how I was going to make it home.  In my mind, I'd thought that reaching the Portway would mean I was "nearly done".  But it just kept unrolling, and I remembered then from plotting it on the map, that it's actually 2 or 3 miles before you even get back to the Suspension Bridge.  And then you can start back up the hill.  Bad times.  Somehow I kept tottering along, on the basis that something is better than nothing.  Run a bit.  Slowly.  Walk a bit.  Force myself to run a bit more.  Other runners were passing me easily, but there was nothing to do but keep going.

Eventually, I reached the bridge, and revised my plan.  I felt so bad, that I thought it would be better to take the nearly vertical steps back up the gorge and then "run" back across the flat through Clifton Village to get home, than continuing to run along the gorge and come up a gentler hill further along.  Climbing steps actually felt like a break.  Somehow I kept it together until I got back to my local Sainsbury's where, at 1hr 45mins, I stopped.  I was done.

The funny thing with the run was this - at some points I actually thought to myself that this long-distance running thing is quite nice.  Peaceful and easy.  And just 10 mins later I'd be wondering how I'd keep going any further.  My mind seemed to fluctuate between the two states, and looking back I'm glad I just kept grinding the steps out to take me home.

In an odd way, I'm glad it was so evil, as I know that no other run of my training, and even the half itself, will probably be as bad as that one, and I still survived it.  I proved to myself that my mental strength was enough to keep me going when times were bad.  It wasn't a fast run, in fact it was one of my slowest, but it was another new longest distance for me, at just over 8 miles.  13 min miles.  On the day of the half-marathon, I won't have a hangover, and I won't have a chest infection and a 10 day break before.  There won't be hills, and I'll have eaten a better breakfast.  I won't have surfed the day before.  And there'll be a huge crowd of supporters and other runners to carry me along.

(I'm running for Alzheimer's Society in memory of my mum - you could, if you wanted to, add a £ or two of sponsorship here http://www.justgiving.com/Suzanne-Fontaine0 )

And so we enter this week.  My muscles are sure sore (and in fact, I conked out for 9 horus of solid sleep after the run on Sunday night), but I'm back on track.  My eating needs taking in hand again, and now my chest is clearing a bit I'm back to moving.  I did yoga yesterday, and I'm back to following the training plan, as I start to taper for the race in just under 2 weeks (eeeek!).  I'm here and still kicking and screaming my way through life.  Looking at it positively, it might be over with Chris, but in a small way I feel relieved that I don't have to feel guilty about how busy my weekends are for the next few months.  There will always be challenges, and I'll continue to meet them head on.

Sick Day

My run didn't happen today, and I have to admit, I'm feeling a little guilty about it. I took the executive decision though that I wasn't in a fit state to run. I did the sponsored swim last night and I didn't feel great. My breath was catching again on the walk home last night, and in the pool was chest felt like it had a band across it. I did my hour with everyone else, but I'll admit I struggled a bit, and I felt pretty drained afterwards. I slept in til about 11.30 this morning and still didn't feel great when I got up. My cough seems to have graduated from sharp and dry to properly chesty and I felt light-headed when I blew my nose. Added to that the rain was coming down fast and steady outside and I decided that nearly 2 hours running in it was probably not going to help me. Instead, it's nearly 5 in the afternoon and I'm still in my pyjamas and feeling pretty fed up. I've texted Chris to say I probably shouldn't be biking tomorrow either which means I may not get to see him this weekend now (and I don't want to infect him with whatever I've got) so all in all, I'm a grumpy girly. ATCHOOOO!!!! Bless me. - Posted from my iPhone

The Inadvertent Triathlon

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somehow, my weekend plans now resemble a triathlon in the making. Tonight I have been nudged into taking part in a sponsored swim for the RNLI, held by the surf club. The aim is for us to collectively try and swim 50 miles in an hour. Since I can't remember the last time I swam laps in the pool, this could prove somewhat interesting. Then tomorrow, I need to fit in my long training run for the week. I'm now on the hardest week of my training, before it starts to taper towards race day (already?), so the training schedule prescribes an hour and 50 min run tomorrow. The only word I can use to describe that is "terrifying". And then Sunday is looking like my one chance to catch up with Chris, and he's suggested a bike ride (for which I'll actually need to fix my bike first!). It's been a while since I was on my bike at all, and I suspect Chris is a lot fitter than me, so it might prove a challenge. In between all that, I have to find time to finish unpacking (which is still not done), face the heaving masses at Ikea to get some more storage boxes, oh, and try not to be ill. Yeah - ill. So far this week, one of my colleagues is off work with flu and one of my housemates has been off work most of the week with some kind of virus. I'm a little worried that I'm starting to go down with something similar which I JUST DON'T HAVE TIME FOR!!!!! I went for a run on Wednesday night, and it felt quite tough, which I put down to there being more hills than I've been used to for a while. Afterwards, the back of my throat felt tight and constricted, as it sometimes does after hard cardio, but it lasted all yesterday too. Walking up the hill on the way home from work, I was almost choking and coughing as my deeper breathing caught the back of my throat. By last night that had developed into a nice chesty little number and, this morning, I sounded like I'd hit second puberty as my voice dropped and broke. Body - I'm telling you now - I do not have time for this shit! Buck your ideas up, and do it pronto please! Good news now - I lost 1.8 lbs this week, which has taken me back under 13st. It looks like a generally more active life (I seem to be doing a lot more walking and general activity these days, even though there's less in the gym), and at least a little honesty with my eating and tracking (whilst definitely not being perfect) is enough to keep me stumbling in the right direction. To come next week (maybe): tales of surviving the run, more climbing, bikram yoga and talks with The Boy. Or not, if I chicken out of any or all of the above. - Posted from my iPhone

Settling In

It's been a week now in my new home, and we'll gloss over the number of boxes still to be unpacked.  Other than that, it seems to be going well, and is starting to feel like normal now.

It was a pretty jam-packed weekend, as it was my friend Bec's 30th.  That meant navigating lunch at Pieminster on Saturday, followed by the pub to watch the rugby and dinner at a very nice restaurant, as well as me having drinks out on Friday night and dinner at Wagamamas.  Ouch!

Surprisingly, I don't think I did too badly at all! I shared a bottle of wine with my friend on Friday evening, but didn't have anything else to drink.  Once at Wagamama's we had a couple of starters to share and I had a noodle main, but I ended up realising I was full about 2/3 of the way through my main and stopped.  Yes - actually stopped. 

On Saturday I had a plan of action - since I was awake at 9.30, I dragged myself out for a 30 min morning run per my training timetable.  I grabbed some cereal after (people - please remind me to eat before my run next time - I'm hideous before I've eaten), and then ran off to meet friends.  I was too worried about running late at that point to walk down to my friend's place, so took the car, but was then able to use that as a viable excuse not to drink all day or stay out too late.  We had lunch at the notorious Pieminster, which was flipping glorious, and I have to confess I had the whole works as it would be kind of rude not too - a Chicken of Aragon pie (chicken breast, bacon and tarragon), mash, minty mushy peas, grated cheese, crispy shallots and gravy (or "groovy" as they call it).  However, between the run and the next activity on the agenda - ice-skating - I felt like I had a bit of leeway.

The ice-skating was loads of fun, as I haven't been in years.  Of course I got over-cocky and went flying twice - where's the fun if you don't push yourself a bit, and the boots ripped my feet to shreds as they always do (damn me for not remember that you need at least three pairs of thick socks), but it was a great giggle.  Afterwards we found a nice pub to watch the rugby in, and I ignored the temptations of mulled cider in favour of Diet Coke - good job I love the stuff. 

I think my greatest victory was dinner though - the restaurant was described as "gourmet pizza, rotisserie and California grill", and was really rather nice (The Firehouse if you're ever in Bristol).  I've also been running low on funds this week due to it being the end of the month and a rather large bill being extracted from my bank account that shouldn't have been.  So I approached dinner with a rather ruthless attitude.  I wanted to keep cheap and relatively healthy.  The stuff from the grill looked lovely, but rather pricey, and I also find it difficult to estimate points on that kind of stuff, so I looked to the pizza menu.  I've eaten out in enough pizzerias to know where I am with those, and I picked a BBQ chicken one.  It was totally delicious, but by the time I was half-way through I knew I was full.  

So, Dear Reader, I stopped.  Yep.  Stopped.  Again.  And sent the plate up the table to the bunch of gannets at the other end to deal with.  Done, dusted and dealt with.  An all-round victory if you ask me.  I didn't bother drinking at all with dinner as it was just unneccesary expense and calories.

Sunday was a total day of sloth as I pretty much slept in til 1pm.  I got up for breakfast, read for an hour in bed, and went back to sleep - heaven!  The rest of the day was spent unpacking various boxes, moving bits of furniture and setting up the tv, including an intricate operation taping the tv aerial cord to the wall in the optimum position to actually receive a signal (the face of the socket is knackered and needs replacing).  Food-wise it wasn't optimum, but it wasn't terrible either.  I'm slowly learning that it's ok to eat unconventionally if that's what you want - I was craving toast and ended up eating it at every meal of the day - plain buttered toast for breakfast, humous, toast and olives for lunch and a poached egg with mushrooms on toast for tea.  Well, why not?

I've been struggling a bit with my appetite that last couple of days as my hormones do their routine monthly dance, but generally speaking I don't think I'm doing too badly.  Especially now I've worked out why I'm ravenous.  I'm still tracking though, and due to lots of walking, I reckon I have a bit of leeway.  I reckon I clocked up around 5 miles of walking yesterday between my work commute and meeting a friend for drinks last night, and I had an amazing yoga class yesterday lunch ....... God, I love my stretches!

No idea what the scales will do this week, but I'll just try and eat well(ish) and keep moving.  Even if I could just get another little tiny dip that would be fine.

(Also - mini-freakout - less than a month til Half-Marathon-Dooms-Day now ...... eeeeeeeeeeek!)

Day 10: Childhood Memory

One of the reasons that the photo challenge went on hiatus was that I really wanted to do this as my childhood memory and I had to wait until I could unpack it after moving. One of my strongest, and happiest, memories of childhood was putting up the Christmas tree each year with my mother. It was something we always did together, along with making the Christmas cakes, and there are several years' worth of photos in my albums of me excitedly admiring our handiwork. The best bit was always lighting the real candle we had on the tree each year. Happy times.


- Posted from my iPhone

Real Life

Hey kids,

Sorry for the radio silence - real life kicked in this week as I finally moved into my new flat!!!!  Yes - please join me in celebrating The End of My Pseudo-Homelessness :o)

So it's been a kind of crazy week, as I've been in work Monday, Wednesday and today, and then off at home running around and moving boxes like a crazy fiend Tuesday and yesterday.  Anyhoo - I am now in the flat and sort-of-settled, albeit living in a room that is mostly full of unpacked cardboard boxes right now.

Despite the craziness of the week, and a weekend away at home last weekend, I'm pleased to report that my Weightwatchers tracker had a few (a very few, but a few none-the-less) surplus activity points uneaten this week, which is rather pleasing.  Extra pleasing when you consider that other than my long run last Friday, this week has been a light training week (eeeeeek - how did I get to "light" week 8 of my 12 week's training already???), so actually I must have eaten relatively sensibly!

It's been a combination of less snacking / more purposeful planning of meals and eating, and more general activity in my life than just the gym.  Whilst home over the weekend, we strolled up the Worcestershire Beacon on Sunday in search of sledging (it turned out there was no snow, but a rather lovely cloud inversion to see instead), and on Tuesday I finished the second part of my beginner's climbing course and got signed off as an official member of the climbing centre (I can tie my own knots and everything like a big girl now!).  Add to that a good hour of solid running up and down two flights of stairs with big boxes yesterday and you have the size of the week.

The scales are still teasing me and are slow to move - a mere 0.2lb this week .... but I can't control that, and knowing I've stayed on track this week is good enough.  I'm in no rush, and it's in the right direction at least.

I'm off ice-skating tomorrow with my friends from Malvern, before off out for lunch and dinner out - but I survived last weekend and I'll survive this one too with wise choices.  I haven't been ice-skating in years so I'm super-excited about that, and will no doubt burn extra calories with all the laughing I'll do.  Sunday, I'm thinking about taking my beloved mountain bike out for a spin, since she's now back from storage.  I've got a flat to change first (and need to find the persistent bugger of a thorn that's causing it as I fixed it once already, but clearly didn't get whatever was causing it the first time), but I'm happy to have my bike back as I've missed having that option, and now have a nice route direct to the singletrack at Ashton Court straight over the suspension bridge - pretty!

Other than that, I have a heck of a lot of boxes to unpack still.  I can't wait to make my room look really like mine again, and we (the girls of the flat) have lots of plans to make our living room (and the rest of the flat) look all pretty and homely too.  And excellent news because my flatmate Sam is keen to get a veg box from the local farm to share each week ...... we're going to join the veg box revolution!!!  Excitement indeed!

I have lots of photos to share, but no internet connection at home at the moment, so they might have to wait til the end of the month.  I've also missed a few days of the photo challenge due to craziness, but plan to pick up where I left off and continue since I'm quite enjoying it!

Muchos love, amigos, and have a great weekend. xx

Day 9: Someone You Love

A little unconventional, I suppose, as I could have easily shown you a photo of my dad, or one of my best friends. But I didn't choose that - because you know I love them. I wanted to confess my love for someone else instead. Me. Damn right. I didn't for the longest time, but these days I do love myself and I love the life I live and the things I do. So here it is - me. Going out for a run.


- Posted from my iPhone