Surf's Up, Baby!

Good news everybody!!! 

I am, in fact, not dead or lost in deepest, darkest Wales!

Yes, yes, I realise that you were concerned about my whereabouts (what? You weren't? Well, now I'm really hurt!), but I've just not been close to a computer for long enough to tap some words out and post them.

Anywho - I still exist, and here I am to prove it.  Survivor of a hectic weekend, and what is so far proving to be a hectic week; owner of the very beginning of a suntan, a few random bruises from (mis)adventures, and a long overdue "fuck you" from the scales, who have finally caught up to my antics and rewarded me richly.

So, first things first - my eating is pretty much suck-tastic at the moment ... or at least 80% of the time or thereabouts.  I'm the wrong side of the 80/20 rule right now, and need to haul myself back to it yet again.  Two good days eating under my belt and we'll see how it goes. 

I've been kind of bouncing along with "ok" during the week, but free-for-all-stupidity on the weekends recently.  Factor in a long Bank Holiday weekend, and it's no wonder the scales stuck their tongue out and said 12st 7.8lb yesterday.  5lbs up from my recent lows, and well deserved to boot.

It's the usual story however, or how one thing comes together when something else falls apart.  The eating might be gloriously epically anti-diet at the moment, but the exercise is on like Donkey Kong right now!!!  You may remember (if I even remembered to mention it myself) that I was going to commit to the last 4 weeks of the training plan for the Run Bristol 10k, that I'm doing May 15.  That was at the beginning of last week, and since then I've pulled 4 (bloody hard) runs out of the bag.  I would just like to take this moment to say interval training sucks ass.  Or I suck at interval training.  One or the other, any way. 

Man, oh man, is it testing me.  Suffice it to say that my "fast" is not really that fast, my "slow / walk / jog" appears glacial and is still an effort rather than the recovery periods it should be, and I've had several instances where I thought my lungs were going to auto-eject out my mouth.  Hey ho, only another 2 and a half weeks of it to go.

In some ways, I've actually surprised myself though - I never had me pegged down as the type who would voluntarily get up at 6.30am, an hour earlier than usual, and go and run 7km of intervals before breakfast (but post-banana).  Or getting up to run on my day off pre-breakfast either.  But there we go - it's happened.  I don't feel and faster or like I've got better endurance right now, but I'll keep going until race day in 2 and a bit weeks.  In between running, I'm still hitting Body Balance and circuits classes for strength, flexibility and toning, so I'm getting 5 good work outs a week right now.

This weekend saw me heading off to Wales for a couple of nights' camping with friends.  We struck out for South Pembrokeshire and St Davids, and as per usual I was hideously disorganised and scrambled to try and make it even close to the time I was meant to be there (I underestimated and assumed it would take 2 hours from Bristol, sat nav then said 3 and it ended up taking 4 - same old, same old really).  Despite a scare upon arrival that we'd left all the good weather in the East - hellooooooo chilly winds! - and making a parachute out of my tent before we successfully got it pitched, Saturday turned out to be a lovely chilled out afternoon with a picnic lunch, a stroll into the very picturesque St Davids for wandering, ice-cream and a couple of pub stops and then back to the camp site where one of our number was manfully making spaghetti bolognaise for 9 people on a campstove (impressive!).

Sunday was even better as the weather perked back up and we lobbed everything in the cars and set off for Whitesands Beach.  It was an excellent day, as we were there early enough to bag ourselves a chunky section of prime sand to call our own.  We hired a couple of surfboards, cracked out the bodyboards, donned wetsuits and got our chill on in the somewhat arctic-temperature Irish Sea.  And it was bloody ace.  I barely stood up during my time on the board, but I had fun and remembered how much of a giggle we'd had in Costa Rica last summer attempting to surf.  Plus, call me weird, but I have totally lost the wetsuit horror that used to dog me when I was bigger.  It's a wetsuit - a means to an end - and I don't get bothered what I look like in it anymore.  When not on (in / under) the water, I spent the rest of the day hanging out on the beach in board shorts and hoodie and reading / sleeping.  It.  Was.  Great.

I drove back to real life on Monday, and have just worked a 12 hour day in the office today though - so much for a quiet week between Bank Holiday weekends.

Aggravatingly, after being so smug last week about finally getting my credit card payments down to a point where I can afford to make a little extra payment each month, I received the news today that one of my credit card repayments has just gone up by £90 a month.  Gaaaaaaaaah!  I realise that this is their way of trying to be fiscally responsible and make me pay my debt off sooner, but it means that, yet again, I thought things are going to improve only to find my cashflow screwed up again.  It's going to be another lean month.  I'm now looking at other options to try and get the balance off that card and onto something for user friendly whilst I pay it back.  Time to talk to my bank again.

*Le Sigh*  It's never simple!