Yume No Chikara

just 1162 to go! Yes I've started the Loch Ness Challenge which is to do 1226 lengths of the outdoor pool whilst it is open!! Well 64 is a start! Longer pool than the indoors one at 30 meters instead of 25 and lovely and warm until the shadow appeared when it was cold! Just warmed up with a nice bowl of homemade veggie soup and toast! Now off to make some more for tomorrow's swim!!

With the sound of a complaining Pixie!! OMG!! Duck is a BITCH!!! Let me explain my weekend. Saturday I drove down to Dorset with the rain clouds above me all the way! When it stopped raining the traffic jams started! I got there about 2.30 I guess! Then that afternoon we took the dogs out for a walk. Suzy went to Win Green the highest point in Dorset and showed us Madonna's house (well the roof!) and the grass! Bless her! Lovely terrier who thought it was great to sit on my lap watching out the window! She also took us to Wardour Castle which is where they filmed part of "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves". So very nice! Scamp, the nutty black lab, then took us round the villiage for a stroll! Between the 2 we did about 2-3hrs walking Sunday - Bacon and Egg sarnie! Heaven! This was then followed by almost 13hrs of walking! Duck took me up and down loads of hills, across 2 wild life reserves and a couple of roads. At 10m we started up an Ox Drove that took us up and down and up...

height 5ft 1 weight (this morning) 10st 13 Blood pressure 108/60 (was told this was ridiculously low as expected!) RHR 52 (seen by me!) MHR 206 (seen by me) Blood sugar 4.5 (after 10hr fast at christmas!) Verdict I am very healthy, don't worry about the weight and keep running marathons!! How cool is that! That was from the nurse at my surgery! The 1st medical person (not including forum folk) to not say I need to lose weight! Also: She looked at me and said "so how much overweight do you think you are?" I said "I'm 10st 13 (BMI of 29) at least 1st maybe 2st, been near enough the same weight since I started running 4yrs ago!" She said "You may be the same weight but have a lot more muscle, I wouldn't be too worried! Keep running the marathons" Walked out beaming!

Ok so I've trained 4 times this week (2 runs 2 swims) so today I will rest! It's raining. It's cold and I have lots of walking to do this bank holiday so I'm not worried! Last night I mowed the lawn (cross training!) and then went for a walk with Gnome. Just 2.4m but took ages (57mins!) as he kept on stopping and looking at stones and flowers and his laces came undone etc! During this walk he declared he wanted an all day walk after the half term! When we got home he declared his legs were tired!! LOL! So today I am resting! I may do a short 2-3m walk later but that depends on the weather! I have my kit to pack for the weekend!! Tomorrow I drive to Dorset to see Duck, we may do a short walk with the dogs (read as expect!). Sunday is the 35m ISH walk and Monday we may do another 10m. Tuesday I drive home having missed all the holiday traffic!!

Oh Yes! I did it! I've been and exercised again ! Gosh this is getting a habit! Better put an end to that smartish! Today I woke up and went for a splash! I was planning a nice easy one. Just swimming, no pressure, no goals. I was in the pool for 7:05 (thud) so had an hour. I swam a bit, stopped for a drink, said hello to the fast bloke, swam a bit more. Cleared my misted goggles, drank and swam some more. I used Hollywood's finger watch thing to count my lengths and paused the time when I stopped. Total swim time about 53mins and distance (drum roll please!) 1.8km! Yes I did 72 lengths! Long gone are the days of a quick 30mins in the pool doing say 30 lengths, maybe more if I get in early! In Febuary 50 lengths was 50 minutes and in March the mile was taking an hour (including breaks) so when I look back (thanks Fetch !) I am improving! Problem is I seem to have lost the front crawl bit! It kills me! back to 1-2 lengths max but at least I keep going rather than stopping for a ...

Ok so I went out for my munchtime potter ... with a huge beam thanks to Adele and her inspiration comment! I was going to run, it would be a great run, I would be inspired and write wonderful things about it and be inspiring! Mile One - nice and steady. Warm up mile. Just keep trotting no fancy speedwork stuff. Nice easy even pace. Quick stop/walk to take off coat (I'm not convinced about my ability to do a whole run and it had been raining!) and the time was 12.48. Mile Two - I carried on, nice even pace, nothing speedy just trotting along, brushing against a tonne of wild flowers happy that I was nice and steady as I wasn't breathing heavy! Get to 1.8m and BANG! Legs gone! It's that "I'm sooo tired, knackered slightly giddy wobbly legged" feeling you get at the end of a hard race or speedwork session when you know you have to keep going. I walked, then tried again. Fit speedy god like runner passed and said "keep going" I tried again (yes ladies I ...

Yep! Monday run, Tuesday swim and today I will run again! No really I will! The rain is here (again!) and it's cold but I have my kit and soup to warm me up afterwards! Ok so it may not be a long run or fast or pretty but I will get out and do something!! I hope!! Tomorrow is staff lunch so I will swim before work again!

I went swimbling! I got up early and popped on my cossie to gain an extra minute or two at the pool. I was in the pool for about 50-55mins. I did 1m (64 lengths) and swimming time was 47.29. The finger counter/watch thing I got offf Hollywood also gives me lovely stats! Best length (always the 1st however hard I try to swim it slow!) was 1min 15. When I say length I means 2 lengths or 50m. Worse 1mins 40 Average 1min 29 which is my best I think which is excellent! The goggles make a lot of difference! It's nice to be able to see others and the time and everything! The times look good but it felt hard, which was either the fact I am getting slightly faster or that it's because I am swimming on a glass of low cal no sugar (lots of sweetners) fruit juice which gives about 10cals per 250ml! When I go swimming I make a travel mug of tea up and by the time I have finished my swim it's perfect to drink. Boy did today's tea taste lovely! It was then as I changed that I realise...

A few weeks ago I signed up for Audible.co.uk and got a few I-Pod Shuffle! So far I have listened to my all time favourite book "Pride and Prejudience" and I am currently listening to "confessions of a reformed dieter" which is funny as well as good! I then have the Da Vinci Code to listen too! Last month I also had the BBC New Hour to listen to every day and this month I have The Times to listen to. Both programs are about 1hr and ease me into the day!

Wednesday, September 21 Research to be done ... Well I decided to recruit the folks on the RW forums for some help and ideas about the beginners course/group at club. Well it's kinda evolved and I ended up talking to Shades and sending a mail to the folks at the Womens Running Network .I'm going to seriously look at starting my own group. It would give me some training either through them on a UKA approved course or indeed a UKA course. It would also give me something positive to do and allow me to get to know more people were I am too whilst helping and encouraging others to take up the sport we love. I remember so clearly the time I finished my 1st 5K. It was also a race and although it was in my villiage I knew no-one. When I finished I was so happy and proud that I called my mum! She thought I was about to collapse as I could barely talk! Then when I finished my 2nd race (the Flora Light in London) I was soooo happy and hyped up I immediately declared a love of running and ...

I had a great heading for today! Watched a children's art program with Gnome yesterday and they were making wet pictures and added a word to enhance the wet look! It was a great word and sounded nice and wet and defined what the picture was like! Out of interested I did a define in Google and found out that this innocent word is infact relating to being wet but not in the rain! Think more of the err smutty side of damp and wet!! I won't say anymore!! Anyway the heading was to imply that it was wet and damp out side and I was going puddle jumping at lunch! It also linked into the 90mins Gnome swim yesterday which involbed us both trying to dive in! Lunchtime Edit..... Unstructured Structured Speedwork! Totally unstructured speedwork session and also totally unexpected! 1st mile was slow but too fast for a 1st mile after not much running meaning my calves ached and hurt! then I just start running allowed the GPS time to work out pace looked at pace stay within that bracket until ...

We are now week 20 of 2006! I'm about 4lb lighter than in Jan (having been 7-8lb down at one time) I've run 154m (331 logged last year) Have an average of about 7m pw!! (best is 24m twice) Not run at all 6 weeks! Total run time 34hrs Total swim time 19hrs Two races. Both halves. Both PBs. Not bad! Need to get back to running mind! Maintain the swimming and get more consistency in there!

Warning - this post made perfect sense when I wrote it in my head on my run! Today was one of those thoughtful runs. It wasn't pretty or fast or anything like that but I was thinking a lot. I started out .... then walked to take my jacket off, trotted then walked and stopped to cross the road (wasn't bother by any of this) and carried on. It was now my mind started to wander. My legs .... from waist to toes were, at first, muttering and then shouting! "Stop you fool!" It took a good 1.5-2m for them to give in! My heart and lungs on the other hand were saying "well come on, get on with it!" and mind was saying "come on to the next tree then you can walk!" You see as runners we expect a whole lot of our body to work together to achieve what we want, yet it's only when we get injured that we really notice things! As I ran along I had this image in my head ... it was a cartoon race. I was lined up at the start and the gun went. Head went charging ...

I don't do sulking very well so I'm making an effort! As such I have a race to enter: Long Eaton 5m on 11th June Only 5m so I can get home in time to cook the Sunday roast and not mess up family life too much! So running kit to the fore ... just need to shift this lurgy like thing that is lingering!

when work upsets your plans! We have a client coming into the office today so no munchtime run which in hindsight is probably a good thing! Got up for my swim today, about 15mins late. So in the pool later than hoped. Sat on pool side to sort out new goggles and OMG I can see! It's amazing! I can tell the time and see the other people in the pool! Amazing! When I first started to run I always went off too fast. I've slowly learnt to do the first mile slower. Seems that this habit needs to be learnt in the pool too! I had noticed my first 50m seemed faster and today was no different. Which meant that the first 16lengths (400m) became a time trial. Time: 10:45! Was amazed! Was knackered! I total today I was in the pool for about 40mins, but only swam for about 30mins. Part of the reason for this was I kept on stopping to adjust goggles (altering straps!) and partly because I was tired. The last few lengths were awful! I had aimed to do a mile seeing as I wasn't running but 1k...

ARIES (March 21 - April 19) You may not have a practical or structured plan of what your next move or indeed moves should be. When you look ahead you still feel unclear about what you want or indeed how to reach your goals. Maybe it is a time to drift a little. When in doubt, as the old saying goes, do nothing at all.

I don't do down very well so I'm trying to get back into the groove. Been swimming again today, pre-work and breakfast! Managed 2km which was good but I started to flag at about 50lengths so the last 30 were a lot slower than they should have been. Took about 1hr. My breast stroke and front crawl are almost the same pace, but crawl takes a lot more effort and leaves me shagged! So, just like my running, I'm a bit one paced so need to work on pace. I think if I can do some weights this will work as my upper body strength is pathetic really!! Also will try to do some drills with a float or pull bouy as I am sure that will make a difference. Plan this week: long swim today short swim tomorrow + munchtime plod long swim Wednesday munchtime plod Thursday and/or Friday Will continue to read my book on weights and try to get a routine in and do that a couple of times a week. May even get on my exercise/bike!

Ran Friday .. very slow 2.5m that was surprisingly hard but I wasn't bothered! Was quiet happy to walk and enjoy the sunshine! Went to town yesterday .. Gnome had to have his eyes tested and needs glasses. Just like me, short sighted. Took 2 hrs to choose glasses! Once we got them home we realised they are almost identical to mine! He's also made comments about how much clearer things are which is good! Been swimming today with Gnome. 1 hr in the pool messing about! Did a few odd lengths including one at 29 secs! Well impressed! Several in 32-33secs too! BTW this is just 1 25metre length!! But hey normally I take 35-40secs and when I started back swimming earlier in the year it was 50-55 secs a length!! Well pleased! Wanted to run but CBA! Did do a few bicep curls etc and already noticing more strength in my swim stroke thanks to the occasional "weights" and already noticing them feeling lighter as such. Having now located the hubby's weights I will try to plan a ...

I can/have/have done .... swam over 2.5km in one go (more than once!) cycled over 50m in one go walked over 40m in one go completed 4 marathons completed 4 half marathons (2 new PBs this year) a wonderful, happy contented and well mannered son a loving,caring husband great friends all over the country a self funded, degree done part time whilst maintaining a full time job raised money for needy causes good customer service skills loyal friend survived a car crash! This Year I will: Lose some more weight become a better runner improve my swimming (goal of 5k swimathon 2007) FINISH the trailwalker change jobs learn another skill enter FLM2007 do an off road event for a laugh do a "splash and dash" for fun do a triathlon for a laugh! (maybe!) swim 1m at least once a week tell my son and husband I love them every day learn to paint and draw teach Gnome to swim properly do more family stuff Think that will do for now!

I've lost my way! My walk with Duck proved I can't read a map and it's the same with life! I'm fine ... just lost. I'm fed up (which you might have noticed!) and there are a few reasons for this. Fed up with work - being treated like a PA for a start Fed up with being overweight and unhappy with myself Fed up with the lack of security or direction in work Fed up with some staff at work I've lost my running mojo and I need a challenge and new direction And that's where I am. The work links to the weight because I am an emotional eater. I've lost my confidence in me and my ability to do jobs because there is no challenge or direction at work. I've already spoken about the exercise - so I'm just doing stuff when the feeling takes me whilst looking for a challenge. In an odd way the TW does not meet the challenge criteria! I know I will do that, its a fact. So I'm lost and trying to find a map I can read!