Funtastic Friday Question

In our Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt group. I pose a Funtastic Friday Question.  I've asked all manner of questions and some of the answers have been great, thought provoking, sometimes funny, and at times quite deep.

So thought I'd pose them here to get your responses.

So don't leave me hanging here people.  So here goes...

FUNTASTIC FRIDAY QUESTION: 
We are often guilty of hiding our light under a bushel. We all have talents, something we a good at, don't you dare say you are not good at anything!!!   You might be a born organiser, have a talent for tap dancing, be a champion netballer or hockey player , or a cordon bleu cook. So sing it out loud and proud. I want you to acknowledge your talents and share.  Go to it.

So for me - I can knit a kick ass sock, I am pretty good at digital scrapbooking, and used to play in an A Grade brass band and competed at National titles in various states in Australia.

I so want to hear about your talents, so blow your own trumpet.

Fifty before 50

Well I've made a start on my 'Fifty before 50' album.  This is the title page introducing the concept.  I'm actually starting to get nervous thinking, 50 things, that's almost one special fantastic thing a week.  Do I have it in me???  Anyway this is a start...

And I have mentioned previously I do digital scrapbooking.  If you click on the page I think you can see the detail a lot closer.

All goodies I've used to make this page (which is done via Photoshop for the uninitiated) are from Designer Digitals.

If you want to read the journalling and can't quite see it, this is what it says:

So today I’m 49. Woah, how did that happen? I don’t feel any different, perhaps a few creaks and groans in the joints, the wrinkles (or laugh lines I like to call them) appearing, and I’m in total denial about the grey hair. And yet here I am, the last year before turning 50. Whew! 

So I am aiming to turn this year into one I will never forget. The idea of doing fifty fabulous, frivilous, fantastic, favourite and fun things before 50 appeals to me. I want to celebrate the big and the small. I want to take time to do the things that make me smile quietly or laugh a big belly laugh. I want to experience new things. I want to embrace it all, each and every day, so that I can hit age 50 on the fly.

Here I come, ready or not !

Not sure if I've mentioned in the blog yet, but I am going overseas in November, just for three weeks, but majorly excited.  Is it wrong that I know exactly what running gear I will be taking, and yet I have no idea what else I'm going to pack????  Can woman live on running gear alone? ha!  

This trip to the USA has been a while in the making, the count down seems to have gone on forever, and now it is only five a bit I think weeks away.

It has been brought to my attention that there is an amazing store in the US called Roadrunner Sports.  And how lucky for me that there is free postage to US addresses, and my last stop in the US is staying with a friend to whom I can get a mail order delivered to and take home with me.  My shopping list is growing, I'm now starting to worry about excess baggage!  Woops.   But come on!  Check out the prices of the runners.  My latest pair of New Balance are $115 cheaper here, and even giving the exchange rate, it's a huge saving!  I'm thinking I will be picking up another pair for when these ones wear out.

Okay to bed with me!  No weigh in for me tomorrow, I'm on a sabbatical.  I feel positive about it too.

A lesson learnt today

I did a nice cruisey 8km run this morning, it was just lovely out there, cool, crisp, but you could see there was potential for the day.  I was busting mid-run and had to divert to the public conveniences in the park.  I learnt one really important thing, so take this on board people:

When you have sweaty legs, compression tights are a wee bit hard to pull back up, once they're down!!!  

I thought I was going to be like that episode on Friends where Ross was stuck in the loo with the leather pants!!  But you will be pleased after a bit of smoothing, tugging and contortioning in the cubicle I got them up!

You just got to love the shapes that you take on in shadows huh?  Looooove the look of my legs here!


Now whilst the running is going great, I'm finding I'm snacking way too much.  And then panicking when I see the scales start to rise.  What a mind game the whole thing is.  I read a wonderful blog by MyriddianShrinks - Big Personality without the Big Bum and I just know she is into something.  She is backing away from the scales for a certain period and not weighing herself.  I think this is brilliant.  If the numbers stop playing games inside my head, I can concentrate on the other things - exercise and food - and then the numbers will fall into place.  Right?

So I have decided not to weigh until 16 October.  Now this could be completely disastrous.  Or it could be completely incredible.  We'll wait and see.  Maybe my body is happy being where it is at the moment and I'm doing this volcanic richter scale rumbling up/down/up/down/up/down all within 1-2 kg.  Maybe it needs to be here for a while before taking off again.  I just see the 70's as a bit of a unreachable carrot at the moment, so I'll try anything.

So thank you Myriddian Shrinks.  I'm giving it a go.

The best birthday pressie !!

Someone asked me the other day if I got jewellery or flowers or something majorly romantic for my birthday.  Something that would make me swoon.  Something that would make me go giddy all over.

I got better, I got these sweet babies...

Yes Mike gave me a coveted pair of 2XU long running tights, hugely expensive for a slip of nylon, lycra, whatever the heck they're made of.  And OMG, I swear on Sunday when I went for my run, I ran like the clappers.  

I've only ever worn knee length One-Active Mish leggings before and they have been serviceable and fantastic throughout my changing weight.  But I tell you, there's nothing quite like putting these babies on and taking them out for a spin.  Warm and yet cool at the same time.  How can that be?  I could feel the breeze on my legs, and yet I wasn't cold, actually it was a magical Sunday morning when I went out for a spin in them.  I feel almost ... dare I say .... aerodynamic in them!  ha. 

I actually knew I was getting them because I had to work out my size (and sneakily popped into a sports store to try them on before ordering them from Wiggle.  Is that bad??  Yes yes I know it is but $40 saving wasn't to be sneezed at).  And actually we thought we'd ordered the black X on black, but the silver ones came out of the box.  No matter.

The fact that when Mike took one look at me when I came home (being that he was still in bed when I went out) he whistled and said "wow, you look like a professional runner in those".   That comment alone made me walk 6 foot tall.

Love love love.  I know also that there's nowhere to hide in them, but boy they suck you in, but not uncomfortably so.

I swapped my toning and hill sprints days around again and so it was hill sprints after work tonight.  Love that the map on my runkeeper looked like Mr. Squiggle had attacked it.  

And just for Leitchy who I know looooooves it when we do selfies, I did a contortionist selfie while I was running with the timer cam on my phone.  Follow that? ha.  Goodness my hair is looking very red in the sunshine!

Tomorrow is the 12 min time trial.  I missed last Wednesday as I had a cut across the bottom of my toe and it was very painful running, it would open each time I struck the ground.  So hopefully my strength training during the week has put me in good stead to smash it tomorrow.  My weight might be going up and down like a burp on the richter scale, but at least I have my running.  

We interrupt your scheduled programming ...

This past week has got a bit hectic.  I missed a couple of training sessions, eeeek!  I put in a few busy days at work.  Had a lovely run yesterday morning, it really felt good.  And culminated today in this ...

Excuse the blurry phone photo, I think the sight of my cake made my husband a bit giddy!!  Yes it is my birthday today and being that I was being taken out to a ritzy chi chi pooh pooh place for lunch, I had made a planned decision to eat, savour and enjoy.

So my meal this afternoon consisted of the most delicious vegetable tart ever! with sweet potato chips and a lovely salad with goats cheese and slivered almonds through it, so nice tasting the mellow creamy texture of the goats cheese and the crunch of the almonds amongst the greens of the salad.

I told Mike not to buy me a birthday cake this year.  Lets face it, it's just the two of us here and we would be eating cake all week otherwise.  I said that I was going to choose one of their delectable desserts and that would be my birthday cake that I would enjoy to the max, own it, and move on.

So I chose a scrumptious date and nut torte, which they warmed up and put berry coulis on the side, it was incredible.  But not before Mike (my gruff, he-man, no nonsense husband) dug into his top pocket and whipped out a candle he had brought with him and popped it on top, so I had something to blow out and make a wish.

Ahh, he is an old softie romantic after all, not that he'd ever admit it.

So there we have it, I have now officially entered into my last year of the 40's.  I have a plan (there's ALWAYS a plan people!!! stay with me on this one)  I have decided that this coming 12 months I am going to do 50 fabulous things before I turn 50.  That's roughly one "thing" a week.  I want to embrace life, celebrate it, celebrate me.  I want to know that I appreciate the little things as well as jump for joy for the big things.  It's the scrapbooker/story teller in me I guess.  And I will be documenting my 50 things.  So stay tuned.

And having eaten that AMAZING cake, I have a very big run planned tomorrow morning! ha.  As one of my friends mentioned this afternoon, now I've got to pay for it !!!!  

Catching up

Life is getting in the way at the moment, I am making far too many withdrawals from the sleep bank and not enough deposits, hopefully I will get back onto an even keel soon.  One thing I haven't slacked off on though is my running.  Thanks to hubby who has been cooking his own dinner each night so I can do my drills and time trials and strength training after work.  I just can't get my act into gear to do my workouts in the morning, no matter how hard I try.

I have had quite the trial in the last few days doing a lot of baking ... and I mean A LOT OF BAKING ... for the CWA cake stall today at the election hall.  I will admit here I did fail miserably with the choc chip cookies, until I slapped myself around and threw the remainder of the condensed milk can out.  So apart from a slight indiscretion I made sure I did an extra run to make up for it on Friday.

Here are some pics of my week...

Hill Sprints on Monday.  Looks like I'm running clear up to heaven there!

And no sign of the man who thought I was chasing him last time, tee hee.

Trying these babies out.

The verdict is in ... yellow laces make me run faster!!!

Last weekend I did a nice easy 4km to get used to the runners

and every split was consistently 6.something min/km.  

That has never happened to me, there are usually a few

7+ min splits thrown in.  Go me!!

Friday after work I ran from the Breakwater to the Flume,

the sea was rough and the weather ominous

so took a pic at the point of turning around.

Rained on the way back but it was light rain at that point in time

and it was so refreshingly cool.

My hair usually turns into a birdsnest by the end of the run!

Back at the Breakwater.

Will be heading down to see family tomorrow.  I love that each time I do that I get the whole gasps of astonishment as to how much I change.  I forget they don't see me all the time.  It's good validation that I'm still on the right path.

Before I go I have said that I will keep updating my 12 min time trial here.  Honestly I feel like I just can't go any faster to go any further in the 12 mins.  I can feel I'm stronger but I was tearing up that footpath until I had nothing left in the tank.  It will be interesting in the weeks to come if I will look back on these results and just smile knowingly that I knew I had it in me all along.

• STARTING DISTANCE:  1770 metres
• WEEK 1:  1790 metres
• WEEK 2:  1870 metres
• WEEK 3:  1930 metres 
• WEEK 4:   1930 metres (go figure, exactly the same)

And before I go, exciting times in the G House tonight.  Here's my husband watching the election results on telly!!

HA!

Stepping out of my comfort zone and into the world of Burlesque!!!

Yes you read right!  I did hint that Sunday's activities with the Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt crew had something to with feathers didn't I??

One of the lasses from our group very nervously announced that she has been doing pole dancing.  I'm not sure why she was nervous, we all pounced on her - how, when, where, what, we all had questions.  So she tee'd up a glimpse into the world of this (and I can now say) very VERY strenuous exercise.

Twelve of our 12wbt crew quickly put our hands up and filled the spots.  It was settled.  Six of us would do a Burlesque dance lesson while six did a session on pole dancing, and then we would swap, so we got to experience these two different art forms.

Oh but not before I announced that we all needed a Burlesque name, so found a name generator on the internet and soon my alter ego Florida Fannie was joined by such lovelies as Amethyst deVine, Iva Bottom, Nurse Twinkle, Colorado Candy, Blaze Supreme, Ginger Starlight, Miss Panties and others.

The Burlesque dancing was a hoot, what I did with a chair oh my!   Can't tell you how many times I nearly strangled myself with my feather boa and almost sent the chair flying as I tried to lean back and kick my legs up in the air.  By the end of the lesson you'd think a barnyard of multi-coloured chickens had lost their lives in the room, there were feathers EVERYWHERE!!!!

The Pole Dancing, wow!  What upper body strength you need, it was hard work.  I jiggy jigged my hips, I got myself oh about 6 inches off the ground! hahahaha.   The fact I was wearing daggy shorts and high heels, yep it really was a sight.

Don't we look the part ... kind of ... may be ... okay with a stretch of the imagination!!!

Both lessons were quite strenuous in their own different ways.  In fact one of our girls wore her heart rate monitor and in just over an hour had burnt 560 calories!

Lots of fun with this terrific crew I am honoured to be part of.  Lots of laughs and good good times.

So as an addendum to this I got home and thought Mike might like to see my Burlesque routine.  So I place the kitchen chair in the middle of the kitchen and off I go to the strains of "Hey Big Spender".  Okay so my singing isn't quite there, and any fluff ups I thought I could hide with a twirl of my boa, a jig of my hips and my come hither look!    I wasn't expecting him to almost keel over in hysterics when he couldn't stop laughing.  That wasn't the effect I was going for, hmmmph!  

Each to their own, in MY mind I was a sensational knock out!