Race 3 is up!!!

Blogging has fallen by the wayside lately. As a previous post said my life is pretty busy at the moment. Between working full time, running with the running club, slimming world meetings, gym classes and university work there is not much time for anything else. I haven't really even found time for the university work to be honest. Luckily I had a full day of studying today and managed to do all the reading and the first draft for my next TMA which is due on Thursday. This has been hanging over my head for a month so to get the bulk of the work out of the way feels a massive relief. This will leave my head clear for tomorrows run. Race 3... Bournemouth Bay 10k.
I managed to complete 6 miles in 1 hour in a training run this Tuesday (I know this thanks to the amazing present the chippie bought me - A Garmin 410 forerunner GPS watch) so I am hoping to get ever closer to a 1 hour 10k time. I really want to do it in under an hour but I don't think this is realistic just yet. I've gone from 1.06 to 1.03 so to go to 1 hr would be amazing! 
I'm quite excited and will let you know how I get on. xXx

Birthday done and dusted for another year!

My birthday was a very happy affair. I had birthday friday in Southampton with Miss A which was a brilliant yet drunken affair. I hadn't planned to drink like a 24 year old but sometimes you just need to go with flow. I suffered a 34 year old hangover and felt rough for the next 3 days. Saturday was a afternoon picnic in the sun. The chippie gave me an early birthday present of a picnic basket / rucksack and had prepared a wonderful syn free picnic. Sunday was sent in London with the Chippie and my parents, we went to see Lenny Henry in Shakespear's Comedy of Errors which was not very good at all. Monday was actual birthday day and I spent the day at work for once. Some friends at work joined me for a birthday drinks at lunchtime (I drank diet coke only!) and then it was off to slimming world where i had the happy birthday news that, despite all the drinking and pizza express I had managed to lose two pounds. I did say that throwing up at the end of the night would mean I rid myself of all the syns!!! All done until next year :0)

Slimming World Week 3 result

It's a bit late as it is now Friday and weigh in day is Monday but for those that are interested I lost another pound and a half last week which makes a total weight loss of eight and a half pounds in three weeks. Not too bad at all. 
Next Monday is my birthday so not expecting a great result but I have been quite sensible and roughly planned for how I will manage my eating and drinking (yes I am going to drink, it's been a while!) so as not too have a massive gain. It will also be my "star week" which always screws with your metabolism and can give you a weird result! I will let you know how I do.
Oh yes, a normal pizza from Pizza Express is roughly 20 syns per half a pizza in case you were wondering! Guess where my best friend is taking me tonight to start the weekend of celebrations! :)
xXx

Busy, Busy, Busy... Better than Bored, Bored, Bored

Life is feeling quite hectic at the moment. Between work, running, gym sessions and studying for my Open University degree there is not a lot of time left over  - hence my blogging at 5.45am on a Friday morning!
One of my friends posted on facebook last night that they were bored for the first time in a very long time which made me realise that I also have not felt bored for quite a while. It was not something that I had given much thought to until I read his post but what a nice realisation. 
There is one small problem: I need to find more time as I am supposed to study for about an hour a day and it is currently about an hour a week which will not lead anywhere but to fits of tears in the exam room. I also need to start running longer distances as 10k is no longer enough and I need to start building up to 10 miles in the next month. But hey, I am quite glad that these are the sorts of problems I'm facing. How bad can life really be when the biggest problem is not having enough time to do everything you want. At least I have so many opportunities available to me and was instilled with the drive and passion to chase after things I want, thank you once again Mum and Dad! 

A brilliant work out / weight loss tip.

A little while ago I downloaded an article about Running for people who hate to run. from Amazon onto my kindle. It had one invaluable technique that nearly anyone can use to shift the excess pounds. If I could remember the authors name I would credit them but I can't!
Now before I explain, I feel I must point out...again... that it is about calories in versus calories out so if you use this tip but still consume too many calories in a day you will not see any benefit. However, if you have a reasonably healthy diet you could shift up to 5 pounds of fat in 2/3 weeks. 
It is all based on the HIT principle. Those of you who watched the Horizon programme about exercise may be familiar with it. HIT is High Intensity Training and raises your metabolic rate so that your body burns more calories. 
For this technique all you need is access to is at least one flight of stairs. 
The idea is that you run up one to three flights of stairs and then walk back down them and repeat this for 5 minutes every day. Thats it! Although it may not be as easy as it sounds straight away so you may have to build up to 5 continuos minutes. If this is the case start with 1 x 1 minute session and 2 x 2 minutes sessions and build up. 
If you do this everyday for at least two weeks you should see a difference. I did. 
xXx

Sliming World week 2 results.

So this week was the dreaded week two weigh in. If you watch Biggest Loser or any other weight loss / work out show you will know that week 2 of any regime will always be the toughest. If you stick rigidly to your chosen programme (as long as it is not a fad diet) you will have good numbers in week 1 due to the shock to the system but week 2 will be difficult. This is because your body is trying to recover from the shock and reacts differently than normal. Some people maintain their weight, some even gain back a tiny amount. This should not be disheartening and if aware of it you can plan to try and overcome it - This is what I did. 
I made a conscious decision to reduce the amount of syns i can have a day from 15 to 10. This is obviously slimming world speak but the syns are the things you have to count that contain fats, oils etc. This would help me effectively manage my food intake. I had planned to up my exercise but I got struck down by that awful cold and managed to zero amount of exercise. 
I took this into consideration as the week went on and reduced my syns further as I was now not burning any extra calories via exercise. 
The good news is I managed a 1.5 lb loss which makes my total loss for two weeks 7lbs, or half a stone!!! 


As a seperate note, fad diets do not work. I have previously done Atkins - once carbs found me, boy did they find me! I put on all the weight I had lost and doubled it! I did the zone, south beach... you name it, I tried it. I am lucky in that I have never been 'fat' but I have been above what I call my happy weight. The only thing to consider when trying to shift the excess pounds is calories in versus calories out. You have to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. It's a complicated or as simple as that!


xXx 

Colds make me slow :0(

So, I haven't written much over the last week. I have been quite ill with a bad cold with ridiculous side effects! I would lay down and feel drunk as the room would spin and I would feel really queasy. 
I didn't do the New Forest race at the weekend because, although I could manage at work (sitting at a desk is not overly demanding, even in a weakened state) I did not feel I could even walk 5 km's let alone run at any kind of speed. 
I will again make my public promise that I will replace my missed 5 km race with at least a 5 miler. 
The good news is that I am pretty much all better. I still have some sneezing and cold symptoms but nothing that will keep me sofa bound. I have to go back to the doctors on Monday as there is still something wrong with my ears but nothing that will keep me down... it does make me slow though. 
I did a 5k yesterday morning which felt ok, my Nike Plus suffered an epic fail so I don't know exactly how far I went or in what time. It was about 30 minutes. 
Tonight was my first night back with Victory and we did a 5 and half miles and I got back in just over the hour... slow but at least I did it. Still faster than I can go on my couch!!!

Give myself a break!

I never thought that I was a competitive person. Years of playing Squash for Hampshire and not once did I beat myself up about losing, not being able to attend practice or moving down the country rankings. But, today I feel quite unwell, to the point where I have skipped the Winter Handicap run and I am already starting to stress about my training schedule. 
I knew that by tying running to something so very important it would encourage me to persevere with something that I have given up on over the years. I never thought I would start stressing over missing training runs or worrying about my PB. It never occurred to me that I might care about my race times! 
I am surrounded by a lot of people that run, obviously at the running club and also at work. 
I need to remind myself that I have only been training as a runner in earnest for a total of 4 weeks. I do feel proud of what I have achieved in a short amount of time but also thoughts lurk in the back of my mind such as "as a dedicated and committed gym bunny of over 4 years shouldn't I be a better runner already?" The short answer is NO! Running it not easy, thats why many, many people do not do it. It's a skill and like all skills it needs to be learnt. I need to give myself a break. 
I am always the one to point out other peoples achievements and encourage them to celebrate the wins... I need to be my own cheerleader! I'm good at faking it i front of other people. I figure fake it til you make it! 
So I'm missing one training run, is it the end of world? No! Will it ultimately effect my end goal? No! So... give myself a break. 

A lesser John Bishop! I'll do all the running...

John Bishop achieved something quite amazing this last week to help raise money for Sport Relief. The money he raised by biking, rowing and running will go to support a number of projects both in Africa and the UK. 
The way the people of the UK give so generously to this charity every year always humbles me. Even when things are not great, we manage to rally round and help others less fortunate. 
What I would like people to think about is how things are never that great in The Gambia. It is a truly desperate country where people struggle to live everyday. They are not the worst off in the world I am sure, and I do hope that the Bantaba Project becomes a blueprint for further projects in Africa and around the world. The reason I am starting in The Gambia is because the people have touched my heart. They are truly happy, even living the way they do. They do not wish for IPads, Cars or HD TV's. They wish for enough money to be able to have fresh water and rice to maintain a diet. Even when they do not always get this, they are not unhappy. They rejoice in the things they do have... family, music and dance! 
A bag of rice in the Gambia costs £20 and this will feed an entire compound for over 2 weeks! 3 bricks to help build the Bantaba Project cost about a pound. I will do all the running... like John Bishop, and you don't have to do anything, except maybe think of everything you have and take for granted and maybe go without one little luxury this week and donate the money to my justgiving page.


The Bantaba Project will aid development and bring job creation to this very desperate country and allow people the chance to build a better lives for themselves. They don't want handouts and someone to magic all their problems away. They want to have a place of work to go to every day. They want their sons to learn useful trades so they don't have to marry middle aged British women and leave their country. They want their daughters to learn skills that will provide a future so that they do not have to spend the evening in seedy clubs, picking up British guys who will pay them 50 dallasis (just over £1) for a nights work. 


As I said, I will do all the running! Please, donate the money that would normally go towards that cup of coffee, that extra pint, that magazine, that muffin, that whatever it is, to my justgiving page and help me make a real difference in the world! 


xXx