Another day in paradise

What a weekend, first day of Spring tomorrow but it made an early appearance this past week.  And what perfect running weather.   Saturday I took off about lunchtime and headed over to Terang and did two laps of the dry lake.  This has become one of my fave runs.  Different scenery on each side of the dry lake - which incidentally is the crater of an old volcano. 

This is the face of happy having done 8.7km.   Oh and no Bessie and the girls this run, the cows were in a different paddock, but there were some beautiful horses grazing as I ran past.

And the wattle was out, it was absolutely beautiful.  Wattle is such a happy flower I think, who can't be happy when they see all that glorious yellow.

All throughout this run there are farm gates, I think I've mentioned that before.  A lot of this is private property you run through, and kudos to the farmers for allowing it.   It's also a good chance for a bit of a breather when you have to stop and open and close and chain the gate each time!!

As part of the Mind Body Motion "multi-staged kilometre-athon" training, the past week we had to take a photo/s representing MSKA (for multi-staged km-athon).  I took the challenge very literally but the S truly alluded me.  Try as I might I could not find anything to represent an S, so in a moment of desperation, after my 8.7km run above, when I got home from Terang I grabbed Lucky and we went for a walk/run and I mapped out the shape of an S for that!  Whew, mission accomplished.  I feared that the local constabulary were going to be called when I was peering into people's yards during my run.

Here's my MSKA effort...

M = bike rack outside the supermarket.

S = my run/walk with Lucky, as a last resort.

K = okay so it's dodgy at that, but a road sign as you approach the highway, I can see a K, can't you?

A = a picnic table at the lake.

And I am very VERY pleased to announce that we in the G house have gotten through to the end of August and have remained completely clean in the No Junk Food August Challenge.   I have found it easier as the month went on and will continue with it.  Mike had some challenges but has remained completely clean also.  Although I believe he is planning to eat chips for breakfast tomorrow! ha.

So all about challenges at the moment, I'm now signed up to the 30 day wellness challenge being run by The Wellness Nurse on facebook.  The wellness nurse is a nurse from our Runners Group, but I'm all up for challenges and getting new and good habits in.  Although I've already failed at the first challenge because I don't have any lemons to start my day with lemon and warm water.  So I'll need to do it with warm water alone and make amends on future days.  

Tomorrow is September.  My favourite month of the year.  What's not to love, Spring AND a birthday month all rolled into one!

A beautiful almost Spring day

Such an exquisitely beautiful almost-but-not-quite-Spring day today.  Still a few days till Spring but today it was spectacular.  I decided to go out around lunchtime and run and this time decided to run way out of town to a road that is at the base of the mount.  It is a lane full of undulating ups and downs, plus there's a nasty sausage dog in one of the houses.  The sky was the most magnificent colour blue today so even the sausage dog didn't scare me.  Okay well you would be scared too if you heard the yap it made, but I was ready for it as the only other time I'd run up this lane the darn dog chased me (by the way that pic below is not the lane, that's on the way leading up to where I turned off).  So I made sure I mustered the reserves and when that yappy thing started down it's driveway towards the lane I sped on by.  Ha!  Take that sausage dog.

So anyway the reason I wanted to run way out of town today was due to the funeral I went to yesterday.  A dear old man, a farmer who lived on the mount, always had a nice word and a twinkle in his eye and called me "darlin'".  Actually he called everyone "darlin'" but he always made it sound like you were special.   So I wanted to run up there as I knew it was a hard slog and it was where he lived so it was with Eddie in mind that I ran today.  And how absolutely fitting as I was heading past his house that Loch Lomond by the Borderers came on my running track.  Timing is everything as this man was Scottish.

Don't you just want to bottle that blue sky, it was glorious.  So I was at the very far point of my run and had hit Ararat Road, which I don't like running along because there are big trucks that lumber past, so had to get over on the grass a number of times.  So here I was ready to turn and head back into town.  Glorious day.  A nice cruisey 7km run.   Felt good.

So apparently yesterday was National Dog Day and I kept seeing pics flooding facebook of people's dogs.  So I decided it should be International Dog Day and join in.  Although laugh's on us, as every day is dog day in the G House!  Pics below taken yesterday of the terror and his old sister.  Molly was giving me her "if I must" look!

And on the scrapping front I have to share this page I recently put together.  Saxon's dad took this really funny pic and it was too good to pass up, it needed to be immortalised in a scrapbook page.

Supplies by Designer Digitals.

So end of the week tomorrow, I think a bit of shopping is in order, plus if I'm having a good hair day I might go get my driver's licence renewed and cross fingers I get a good photo this time!  Eeeek.

And PS to Chloe, the long Nikes  which I took out for a test run the other day were actually not too bad, the zipper wasn't a problem at all.  They came way way down, whereas my only other long tights are the 2XU ones and I show my ankle with those.  So maybe in the Nike world I would be considered a short stuff, who knows.  But all good, they are good cold weather tights for sure.

Four whole weeks !

Four weeks to do what I want.  Sooooo happy to be on holidays.   To wake up this morning when my body wanted to wake up, no alarm.  To just potter and do some scrapbooking and crochet.  I have a list, oh boy am I a list person, and I have a whole page of things I want to do.  Such satisfaction marking things off.  We'll see how much I get to.

One thing I know is that time waits for no one, and our gorgeous little grandson is already just over 2 months old.  I want to keep up with scrapbooking pages for his book and not get too far behind.  And I had all those wonderful photos from the night he was born, so put a double page spread together.  You can see how we were all besotted with him when he was only an hour and a half old !!   We thought when we arrived we would be in for a long wait, not so.   I get very emotional looking at these photos of my step-daughter, she looks so serene and beautiful and completely at peace.

Digital scrapbooking credits.

Can you even imagine how awesome it would be to have pics like this back from when you were a baby?  I think the youngest pic of me was a week or so old when I was brought home from hospital.  Nothing like brand new like these ones.

Forecast for fog tomorrow morning, yay!  Love to run in the fog, so an early morning run planned, we'll see how I go.  Will try out some new running tights I bought from Catch of the Day.  Some long Nike tights, I only have one pair of long tights and although we're at the tail end of winter, my legs are still getting so cold on morning runs.  These Nikes weren't exactly what I thought, I didn't see the zips down near the ankle in the photo, I'm thinking that's going to annoy me like nothing else, but shall wait to see tomorrow.  Me and my online shopping! 

12wbt brought us together

You'll know I keep going on about 12wbt and how it has changed the way I act and think and am, it's been life changing.  But one of the most unexpected by-products of the program has to have been about meeting like-minded people.  We have the wonderful Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt crew, people come and people go, but that core group, the ones that turn up to group activities and participate in our facebook group, they are the ones that inspire me each and every day.

We had a group activity today and 10 wonderful women got out there and worked it!  A couple of the girls ran 17km, one of our most inspiring women ran from Koroit to Warrnambool, a total of 19.5 km, we had Debbie and the dogs (well two dogs became three when she found a stray, too bad that one didn't realise it was going on a boot camp before heading to the vets for a microchip test), and Chloe did muscle exercise too when her run involved pushing a pram.  So whatever our goals, we divvied up and went and did it and all met back at the surfclub for brunch.

We accosted a passerby to take this pic, a couple of the girls had already run their kms and were going to head home to family life.  The rest of us were just starting.

And this was afterwards, when Kellie in the pink made it after her mammoth 19.5km run.  That's a long way to run for eggs for brecky huh?  And please excuse the mop top hair on me, looks like I'm trying out for a gig with the Beatles!      Needed to get this pic for another running group I'm in, the 12wbt Runners Connect.  We three here are in that group so had to share a pic for them.

I needed to do a 6km today as part of the MBM km-athon, it was a back-to-back run from yesterday, ouch!  Tired legs.  So I started out with Melissa and Alison, but soon enough I ended up following their tails, but that was okay, we're all at our own pace.  I ventured past Granny's Grave today and ran down to the Hopkins Bridge, I didn't even know the path went down to there, fancy that, all the times I've run along the foreshore.

Had to touch the bridge or it doesn't count!! ha.  There are some runs that you have to touch something, hopefully I'm not the only one like that.  Like the Breakwater Pier, I have to touch the wall at the end or it doesn't count.  I remember a fisherman on the end once looked at me strangely and I said ... "doesn't count if I don't touch it".  He just shook his head and kept on fishing.

Ahhhh back to the Surf Club for brunch.  Mmmmmm.  My favourite eat out breakfast is eggs benedict and I just knew I'd be getting that today.  Not that I eat out for breakfast much so it was special.  And so enjoyable to sit and chat to the girls.  As I mentioned, the best by-product of 12wbt has been to be part of this group, and become good friends with a wonderful lot of women, who I have often called my "health and fitness sisters".

So Mike has gotten better after quite a number of days where he was down for the count.  And I have been so lucky not to get even a touch of it (touch wood).  I'm now on 4 weeks break from work, yay!   I can't afford to be sick, I have lots of fun to be had.

One weekend, two very different runs!

So I was to do two back to back runs this weekend as part of the training for the Mind Body Motion km-athon.  So Saturday and Sunday it was to be.  And couldn't have been two more different runs.

Saturday morning was foggy!  Must admit I love running in the fog (dangers of running on the side of the road aside).  The fact that you run only 10 metres at a time means that your mind doesn't playing up, you don't see that long road ahead or the hill you've got to climb.  You're just running 10 metres or so at a time.  Plus there's something so enveloping, a silence, only hearing yourself breath, echoing in the fog.  It's really nice.

But ... cold !!!!   I went out first thing and when I started my run it was 2 degrees Celsius and I came home to a balmy 3 degrees Celsius!  

This was the scene as I got to the corner of my street and headed up to the highway.  

Highway?  What highway???

Then over onto the stock route, the track was fairly solid, I just had to jump some muddy bits.

Bit of cross training while I was running!!  

It may only have been 3 degrees by the end of my run, but boy I was hot.

The jacket had long since been ditched and was flapping about having been tied around my waist.

Hot and wet, the fog does weird things to your hair.  Frizz central.

Then take today.  I hung around till nearly lunchtime, because Mike had been quite ill this weekend (more about that later).   So for something different I headed over to Terang to do a lap or two of the dry lake.

I always seem to run this route clockwise.  Is that a runner thing?  I don't know.

Anyway off I start.

The bush track at the start soon turns into gorgeous countryside.

Soon enough I realised the cows were in the paddock I had to run through.  

There are lots of gates that you open and close during this trek.

I said hello to "the girls" and slowly ran through, didn't want to spook them.

The dry lake is actually a crater and I guess the top here is the rim of the crater.

And it's sooooo fun running down after you get to the top.  

Oh dear, got to the bottom part of the rim and there's the next gate.

But there's a cow in front of it, quite happily scratching her head on the post there.

There's a nice cow, move please I say.

It kept scratching.

So I waved my arms in the air and okay so I'll admit it, I actually "moo'ed" at one stage.

Well what do you say to a cow when you want it to move?

I couldn't go in front of it as it was really muddy on the grass, I had the Mizunos to think about!!

And I didn't want to go behind it, in case it kicked me.

So I waited it's pleasure, 2 minutes of it's pleasure, before it decided to move.

And off I set again.

So I mentioned Mike had been sick.  I came home on Thursday after work to see him looking really poorly, I was yet to decide whether it was man sick or real sick, but as the evening went on, he got worse.  Friday morning he woke up being very sick, praying to the porcelain Gods no less, and couldn't eat.  Of course being a man didn't want to go to the doctors!  More symptoms that I won't go into here, lest I put you off your dinner.  But I actually worried being that his heat plays up at times and so stayed home to keep an eye on him.

So all in all he has finally started feeling a bit more human by Sunday afternoon.  I was put onto a miracle soup by a friend of mine and made it, which was the first thing he was able to keep down.  Cabbage and Garlic soup, sounds atrocious but actually really delicious (I made it with savoy cabbage as it's all they had at our supermarket).

He spent most of the weekend sleeping either in bed or on the couch.  Lucky close by his side.  Amazing that dogs just know don't they?  Lucky snuggled in with him on the couch, very comforting.

So it's been one of those weekends, not much done, a bit of running, a bit of housework and playing at being Nurse Carol.  Lets hope next week is a better week for him.

Mixing it up

There's a lot to be said for mixing it up.   Yes I'm doing the Advanced 10km program this round of 12wbt, and yes it was Toning and Abs day today.  But I ended up at the gym.  I just wanted to do some other stuff!  There.  What a rebel.   And there was to be no running for me today.  I just wanted to use the machines.

• I ended up doing just over 10 mins on the treadmill walking a very steep incline.  Felt that one.
• Moved onto 10 minutes on the rowing machine.
• Then over to the evil elliptical machine for another 10 mins, I really suck on this, I'm so unco-ordinated, I usually start off going backwards before I realise whoops!
• And finished off with 10 mins on the stationary bike.

And I felt amazing, strong in the legs, it was a good bit of rebellion.  A lovely stretch then home.  

Tonight's Dead Bug Challenge had reached 52 bugs.  Oh Lordy Lord, but I did it !  This is the longest I've ever done a monthly challenge with our Runners Group before carking it.   By the way, just so you know, this is the Dead Bugs exercise.  

Came home though to a sick hubby.  I was quite undecided though if it was real sick or man sick, then I saw that he'd bought one of every cold and flu tablet, vitamin C, etc etc jar packet or sachet.   No runny nose or cough or sore throat, just feels like he's been run over by a truck.  So yep, it's real sick.  He's hoping it's a 24 hour virus.  Who knows.

On the scrapping front, I tell you it's fun having a baby in the family to scrapbook!  The Challenge at Designer Digitals was to scrapbook a story about a person in your life you think of often.  And now that I'm a nanna I have thought about my own paternal nanna quite a bit lately, she died when I was very young so I have no real physical memory of her apart from photos.  So this was the page I created, and things I'd love to know.

Product credits:  Designer Digitals.

And for Victorians, have you heard that there is an Australian Running Convention coming to Melbourne.  I have tossed up whether to go to the 12wbt Spring Festival (the day before the Melbourne Marathon which I was heading up to) or the Australian Running Convention.  And you know, I'm thinking I'm going to get so much more from the Running Convention, so ticket has been purchased.  Yay.

I am over-challenged !!

Over-challenged???  Ha!  And I say that in a nice way.  I went for a run on Saturday morning and it was quite a painful run, I had a pain down deep in my belly, and it made me think of all the challenges I'm doing at the moment.  Yep, yell out a challenge and I'm your girl!  I think I may have bitten off one too many at the moment.

So in no particular order, these are the challenges I'm currently in the midst of:

Run 1000 km in a year (current total = 524.8 km)

No Junk Food for August Challenge (blitzing it !!)

Mind Body Motion Multi-Stage Km-athon (training to take part in October)

Commenced another round of 12WBT (heading into week 2)

Dead Bugs Challenge (ha! I don't think I'll enlighten you, keep you guessing!!)

And training for three upcoming Fun Runs I've entered

And on the craft front in the middle of the Chevron Crochet-a-long (with some friends)

So whilst on my run I was hurting, it was the dead bugs I'm thinking!!   Maybe my core is starting to tighten up and work.  So tell me, do you challenge yourself (not necessarily exercise related) like this?  I think I'm goal orientated so challenges work for me.  But maybe not so many at the one time perhaps??

Some pics from my Saturday run.  I told Mike I was going to head out to run around town.  And I meant AROUND town !!  I persevered and completed 7.2 km which took me around the circumference of our town.  Some of the roads are stock routes, some of the roads are bitumen, a bit of everything.

Saturday night we headed to Geelong and met up with Mike's dad and partner and went to the Buddy Holly Tribute Concert.   The tickets (and our company!!) was a gift to his dad for his birthday.  First stop the RSL for dinner - score!  I had grilled barramundi and salad and no chips.  Followed by a skinny latte.  Did well.

Then what a rollicking great time the show was.  The singer sounded just like the tracks I had heard Buddy Holly sing.  Thoroughly entertaining.  I seat danced like there was no tomorrow.  Mike's dad had the best time.  Great choice of birthday present.

We got home after midnight after the long drive back home to find that Harry Houdini (Lucky) had escaped from the back yard and was sitting up on the porch waiting for us, like a ticked off parent no less!  He had ditched the coat I had put on him, how I'll never know, found it in the backyard.  I also found where he had gotten out of the back yard which involved moving a very large log of wood.   So I goget Molly out to bring her inside, and she came out limping.  What the heck went on while we were gone??   

We are wondering whether Molly tried to follow Lucky out the gap in the fence and got herself stuck and wrenched herself getting free?  Did she have a hand in the escape and somehow help push the log through.  All I know now is she's limping.  No cuts, no sores, I think it's muscular.  She's allowing me to stroke her leg, there may be a bit of swelling (it's her front right leg so it's not her ACL), so I've been putting Rapidgel on it today which seems to be helping.  (Rapidgel is my secret ingredient for my poor old knees when I run, don't judge me, yes it's a Vet product!!)  We will keep an eye on her the next day or so and if it doesn't get better seek further advice.  She's still happy though, it's not troubling her apart from the awkward limpy walk, I was out planting a few plants this afternoon and she came out with me rolling around for a tummy rub on her back, so that was a very good (and relieved) sign to me.

And finally a scrapbook page I finished tonight, I wanted to document the moment we held the little one for the first time.

Product Credits Designer Digitals

I didn't melt, fancy that !

Planned a 5km run tonight, my second training session for the week for the MInd Body Motion km-athon and when I parked and got out of the car I figured I was in for a battering when I saw the waves. Eeeek.  

Off I set and just on 2km the heavens opened.  What to do?  I did a quick calculation and going back straight away just wasn't going to cut it, it was to be 5km or nothing.  So I kept going.  Go me!  Now you may realise that me and running in the rain do not mix.  But I JFDI!

I finished cold, wet through, achy but with the biggest smuggest self satisfied smile on my face.  I'm back people!!!  First weigh in for the round and 500gram loss.  And still no junk food on the No August Junk Food Challenge.  

So proud of Mike

 So he's jumped on board with the No Junk Food August too.  Surprised the heck out of me.  And he had to bagpipe at a funeral today.  And well with country funerals then comes the afternoon tea.  He walked in and tables were groaning with sausage rolls, white bread sandwiches, cakes and slices and every type of cream filled pastry.

And he stood there and just had a coffee.  Go Mike!!

Although he said it was probably one of the hardest things ever.

And I stayed strong today too.  First day in the current round of 12wbt, love to be able to multi skill as I was able to combine my interval running tonight with one of my three 5km runs I needed to do as part of the Mind Body Motion km-athon Challenge.  Oh Lordy I have challenges coming out of my head at the moment.

And now before I go, another beautiful photo of the little man, he only had eyes for his mum...

And good to see you're on board with the no Junk Food challenge Ingi !  Go you (are you on FB? There are a number of us doing it.)

Weekend again

Where is the year going to?  We are into August and I've signed up for another round of 12wbt starting tomorrow.    This is it I've decided, my last hurrah to get things under wrap.  Full steam ahead, a birthday is right in the middle of it and I feel very positive right now, might change tomorrow (tee hee) but for RIGHT NOW I'm feeling good.

I can't tell you enough about how 12wbt has changed my life.  Given me my life back if you will.  And sure there's been blips and speed humps on the way that have slowed me down, but as Mike often says, while I'm focussing on the every day, I have sometimes lost sight of the bigger picture and how far I've come.

And yes, Summer IS coming!  Please PLEASE Summer come, I'm so over this winter, it's been a shocker.  Click on the pic to take you to 12wbt if you're interested in reading more.  It has made a world of difference to me and my life and I cannot praise the program high enough.

Every now and then someone from the awesome 12wbt Runners Connect group post something funny and it's usually running related naturally, but even a non-runner has got to crack up with this You Tube video.  And what made me laugh even more the second time I watched it with Mike, he actually asked "is this for real???" and I just looked at him aghast, and then he countered with "Well you know those crazy Americans are up for anything!!" (apologies to my American friends reading this).   :-)    Enjoy!

The Jog Strap ... 

something that could come in handy for every man who runs!
http://youtu.be/WWPFsF0iWjE

Now just throwing this into the mix, this was pointed out to me on facebook today and I mentioned it to Mike and wonder of wonders he is going to take up this challenge too (oh, only after tonight when he finishes the bag of chips he started that is in the cupboard !!)   Anyone in?  Love challenges like this, gives me a reason when I'm about to weaken, oh yeah the challenge ... "no I can't have that biscuit, cake, chocolate bar, [insert goodie of choice here]".  So August is going to be interesting with Mike on board, it will either go swimmingly and we'll both consider it a challenge to see who will break first so the other will win;  or he will be like a bear with a sore head.  Stay tuned.

And finally I needed to fit my last 5km run for the week in (three runs of at least 5km duration) and it was -1 this morning when I woke up and then huddled back into bed.  As the morning went on, although chilly, all that arctic weather of the last couple of days seems to have blown itself away and the blue sky was enough to want to get out and run.  So I did circuits around my neighbourhood to hit 5km.  Thought you might have gotten sick of my running selfies, so here's a shoe selfie !!

Love my Mizunos!