Skinny Blog

Had a busy day yesterday tidying the garden and pottering about in the sun. Planted some veggies out and cut the grass - gardens looking neat and tidy again!!

Went for a run and managed to get round with out stopping - 4.14 miles. I'm still building up my stamina and though my pace is slow, I am very proud of what I have achieved.

I started walking a few times each week early last year and then stepped it up a little in July. I bought a treadmill and in about November I was able to run 3miles. However I lost track a little over Christmas and over did the training in early January and injured my foot, that put me out for approx 5 weeks.

So now my training is every other day a run and every in between day a walk of the same distance. Anything else is a bonus!!

I have not been doing any resistance training with my hand weights although I was digging yesterday so today my arms ache - but I need to do more - just 15 mins  should do it each day or every other day?  I might do it on the day I walk - what do you think?

BS and her BB are coming down to visit - hope the weather stays nice - going to take her for a walk/rant. That's what us women do and we can hold 2 conversations at the same time  "Oh do you know what he did last week!! - those snowdrops look nice - he only washed the car - look! a buzzard - after me moaning to him for weeks - bless, look at the lambs - and then he wanted a medal for it!!"  I'm sure you get the picture!!

Really, we will be spending the day getting active in the garden, getting the onion sets in and I'm hoping BB can get Dave out and mow the lawn.  It looks so much better when its done and I'm really looking forward to getting out in the garden this year.  Going to hold fitness classes for my friends in the garden, burn off some calories and raise money for cancer relief.  I'm thinking of setting an obstacle course up one end (comprising of washing, ironing and other such obstacles that get in the way of every day life!) and a creche the other!!  We can get next doors geese to round the kids up if they go astray!!  I was watching them last night - they were shouting at someone or something - I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of them!

BB & Dave the Mower

Did you know they can make you fat?

Woke up this morning with a very fuzzy head - felt like I'd been out on the tiles all night! Bimbled downstairs and continued to cultivate a very bad mood. Lots or pouting and banging of doors.

Its really quite funny trying to be a "positive parent" and encourage your kids when you have a bag on - "put your stuff away please, I'm sick of telling you - oh and well done for doing your lunch last night - and while your there, turnoff the lights and hang your wet towel up - oh and thanks for putting your clothes in the wash"  Clearly - I still have a great deal to learn.

Being the emotional eater that I am, I was doubly confused this morning - should I feed my insecurities as a bad mother 1st or should I trough out because I have a general I hate the world/noid head on me? 

I did neither, I avoided the kids and power cleaned the house then I charged up my ipod and me and Enrique did my first lone run - wasn't that bad actually - don't know why I hung onto that excuse for so long!!  After all, thats what it was, an excuse, a block, to stop me exercising.  So I've screwed that one up into a ball and popped it intot he bin.

Talking of pockets, Enrique complained about being kept down my bra so I've had to bite the bullet and buy an ipod arm strap thingy - I noticed George Micheal and lady Gaga where a little moist yesterday too.

Also - I waved to the chickens, the gate and the cross roads as I passed them and I aimed for the 2nd hedge which is the 3 mile mark.  I am very proud to tell you I passed that too and completed the 4.14 run with only 3 x 1 minute walks!

I've not been keeping a track from the very beginning but here is my progress thus far. Click on it to make it bigger.

We are so busy this next few weeks. The boys have school trips coming up so there are meetings to attend, then there are training events and work to be shoe-horned in either side - not to mention the washing!!

DS1's wardrobe threw up 2 days ago and so far the clothes have managed to crawl out of his room onto the landing. I think I heard the mass of fabric growl yesterday and today its sprouted eyes. And trying to separate the whites from the darks is like trying to knit jelly!!

Why do kids take everything off at once?? There is a body-less human at the top of the stairs made up of undies and sock in situ inside the trousers and shirts and jumpers tucked inside one another and they hold onto each other like glue. And when you do manage to wrestle them apart you are either static shocked fto death for your trouble or have to chase a maverick sock around that won't join its friends in your very full arms.

Can you imagine the scene as I waddle down the stairs, hair stood on end holding an huge pile of smelly clothes, breathing heavily with the effort (getting a good lung full of the malodour emanating from the clothes to boot) and then some smart arse says - "have you washed my jeans yet" ARGH!!!!!

Went out for a run today with BB - he hurt his knee last time so he was on the bike and I was running.  No I didn't do any shadow boxing and he didn't have a mega phone with him!!

Any hoo - last time we went out I ran to a certain point I will call gate after the 2nd bridge, I set my goal for the next run to end at the next farm along where they have chickens, hence, next stop the chickens (see a couple of blogs ago).

But I passed them with a cheerful wave (actually I didn't even look at them!!) and continued along to the 2mile mark.  I walked for a minute then headed off to the cross roads, the next 2.14 miles I ran with only 4 x 1 minute walks - if you knew me 6 months ago, you'd know how much of an achievement this is for me.

Runners talk about being "in the zone" well I was flying today, caught in the breeze and the sights and the sounds.  Totally focused on putting one foot infront of the other and keeping upright!!  BB was calling encouragement as I needed it.

My only problem is I can't do this on my own - I'm scared to go off alone in case I can't motivate myself round but also I have a safety fear.  And yet unless its got 4 legs and goes baa or is tractor shaped, I've never really bumped into any one. 

I have to conquer this fear otherwise I'm limited to when I can go out on the road - and don't worry about Roger - he's not redundant we still see each other every other day at least.

Seeing as though they are aching from carrying the weight of the world on them - I thought it only fair to run a huge bubble bath. I set it the way we women like it - at the temperature of lava, I took my mug of tea and an easy peel orange and settled down to half an hour of me, my shoulders and the Camping and Caravanning Magazine.

I plastered my face with honey and wheat germ face mask and waited for the phone to ring - as it always does when you're in the bath - and yes it did.   After a brief and watery conversation, I cleaned the earpiece which was now full of face mask (it has a lovely soft feel to it now) and continued my lobster transformation.

Men - one of the reasons women like the bath hot is because when you get out you look like you have a tan! 

So after my bath I got weighed, it hadn't changed from the weight I was before I got in, though it was up from when I was weighed befor my evening meal and this mornings weigh in too!!   It is down from yesterday though by another lb but I think I may have a manic scale addiction!! 

Any one else a serial hopper on and off the scales type of person?

well I'd like to say ass but that would be rude!! I went for a run with BB and we got lapped by a teeny lady several times. I was doing so well, had run the furthest without stopping that I'd ever run out on the road and with out needing an ambulance and she sailed past us again. Off she went into the distance and we turned a corner onto the next lane and there she was again!!

We ran a bit more, down to the next big cross roads and here she was coming back - and you guessed it, we were lapped again towards the end of our course until I could take it no longer and took a divert also known as the quick route home. Just in case she went past our house, I could lean on the wall and shout out, "what kept ya"

And she was going some speed! I reckon she was running like mad till she was out of sight then slowing down to fast walk, doesn't explain how she was getting down the lanes and round the back of us so quick though.

Still, I moved my personal goal distance wise and have the chickens to aim for next.

Don't ask!

Devils Chair Stiperstones

The views up there are a real reward but the ringing ears leave a lot to be desired! Going to have to get over feeling like the "prat in the hat" all I can hear is the sea without the shell - or the sea!!

 I'm in desperate need of a new coat so I've just placed a bid on one on eBay - the one I'm wearing is my old coat - its 4 dress sizes too big so I nearly took off and flew over the top of the devils chair. Nice of him to have a rest up there and empty the stones out of his shoes.

Life is busy - I appreciate that and I also get the fact that every one needs some time out.  But its not really that simple for some folk to do this.  Have you ever been told to relax? Or told to have some "You" time. What is that?

If you have kids then "you" time has disappeared up its own ass till the youngest is about 7 and old enough to work the remote!!  Do your kids follow you into the bathroom or up the garden just to ask if its their turn for the TV now? Does your child walk past 1 or even 2 other adults to seek YOU out and ask you a question they could've asked the 1st person they past.

"You" time sounds good in principle but even if there are no other human - or animal distractions, how do you turn off your head? How do you stop the running commentary that's going on in your head about the jobs that still need to be done while your having your you time!  Or the the voice that questions why you are having the you time in the 1st place. 

Guilt is part of the problem, doing something for yourself can feel incredibly selfish but then the biting and chewing of heads can be seen this way too.  I for one just need 5 little minutes to myself a couple of times a day.  I'm trying to have one now with you but I'm currently being bothered by one of my children who is not even in the same house as me!  He is texting me as he needs to have an answer now!!  To a very important question!!  (in his mind only) and though I can turn my phone off I don't. 

I have given him my answer - he is happy - I'm one child free for the evening and about to go and shake the other 2 into shape and take them on a route march - thus tiring them out and giving me opportunities later for some further me time - which I will be taking in the form of Mr Darcy and Lizzy Bennett.