Time for some accountability

Some of my recent escapades...

Where did my stamina go? I thought I was staying fairly fit and active, what with the skating and skiing and ocassional gym trips. But then last week I did a relatively strenuous gym session followed by some serious ski practise the next day (by serious I mean continuously up the lift, down the slope with little pause for breath or chat). It totally wore me out! I was soooooo tired afterwards - I practically collapsed into bed that night. And even after taking it gently for the next few days (just some light swimming), my muscles didn't recover forat least three days.

It's time I took my fitness a bit more seriously. How am I ever going to survive a long weekend hiking in the Peak District, a couple of days' worth of surfing lessons in Devon or a winter skiing holiday if I'm this out of shape?*

So I'm going to workout every weekday in June, and post my progress here on the blog. It might not make for very exciting reading, but it's my way of being accountable and committing to improving my fitness. 

For the purpose of this challenge that I've set myself, the bear minimum daily workout will be my favourite core workout session from the wonderful Jess at Blonde Ponytail, which only takes 10 mins so should fit easily into the busiest day. I also plan to get to ballet classes (did you wonder what had happened to the ballet? I've been averaging one class every three weeks recently), definitely get to my gym (it's so close that there's no excuse) and also maybe swim occasionally.

Wish me luck!


What are your top tips for getting fitter and staying motivated? Do you have a short workout routine that you'd recommend?

In other news - I plan to do some more posts about all of the amazing Alan Turing events that are happening at the moment. My twitter feed is full of exciting news from Alan Turing Years, The Imitation game and Bletchley Park Podcast...

* Currently none of these exciting sounding trips are booked, but you never know what's round the corner!

Nothing like being busy

What an active weekend - I'm certainly starting to work my muscles and build a bit of stamina; my legs are a teensy bit sore today!

On Saturday there was more skiing. I'm trying to get lots of practise in so that I don't lose the skills my instructor taught me and continue to grow in confidence. I did lots and lots of runs. In fact, barring the short break for a cup of tea in the middle, I pretty much skied for two hours straight. And I got to wear my new ski jacket which I treated myself to after being signed off by my coach (up until now I've been skiing in my sailing jacket, which worked just fine but won't cut the mustard on a proper skiing trip).

At the top!

Sunday turned into skating day. We didn't join the London Friday Night Skate crew for their Sunday stroll because we wanted to take it gently, so instead we pottered up down and around Hyde Park for a couple if hours. The place was packed (well it was 27degC) so we had fun dodging pedestrians, cyclists, other skaters, skateboarders, scooters and other associated Sunday park goers. Sunshine, ice cream and selfies on-the-move. Glorious.

We topped off the weekend with homemade seafood paella (very loosely based on Jamie Oliver's recipe here), dining al fresco :) Long may the warm weather continue!

Gone skiing

I finally had the skiing lesson that I've been promising myself since Christmas!

It went well. One hour 1:1 tuition, having only ever tried it once before about five years ago, and I was (fairly) happily zigzagging slowly the main slope! Not quite competent enough to ski without an instructor yet, but my next lesson is booked - want to build on the good work I put in before I lose it again :)

before

after - the bottom of one of my last runs

Catching up - Christmas

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I certainly did, although I caught the traditional Christmas-holidays-cold which rather knocked me for six in the run up to the big day :( But apart from that it was wonderful!

My Christmas tree, featuring this year's new bauble - my sparkly pear:

In the run up to Christmas we took the nieces ice skating outside the Natural History Museum - super fun!

On Christmas eve we had a fish dinner, something that my family have always done and I'm not entirely sure why. Might be linked to my mother having lived in Spain for many years? I made a fantastic fish pie which has to feature in its own post because I took lots of photos!

Christmas Day was fairly busy with church and two families to visit. Luckily, I still managed a few cuddles with my new nephew!

Then Boxing Day was the start of the real adventure... which deserves a post of its own...

Good intentions

That's right - I laid out my running gear, ready to head out either this morning before work (yeah, I know that was pretty unlikely!) or when I got home. It didn't happen. Ho hum.

On a brighter note, I've managed all of my planned fitness sessions this week: ballet, body conditioning, swimming and karate (the first time I've been hitting people in while). Hurrah!

The perfect insole?

In an attempt to solve my knee pain, I've taken several steps:

• quad strengthening exercises (squats, leg raises, etc)
• ankle weights (for exercises, Wii Fit and generally wearing round the house)
• shortening my longer runs (back down to 3-4 miles)
• including more swimming (which I really enjoy anyway)

And so far, for the time being at least, I've eliminated the problem :)

On Saturday, continuing my quest to make sure the knee pain stays away, I wandered into SweatShop to get me some supportive insoles.

What I didn't realise was that they were going to fit the insoles to my feet. This was an interesting experience which involved heated insoles being pressed into my instep whilst I balanced on my toes and heels:

(The shop assistant is hiding behind the contraption, pressing the insole into my other foot. It's a classy look.)

So now I have uniquely molded insoles which fit neatly into my trainers and hold my instep in place when I get tired. Apart from wandering round the house to break them in, I've only tried them out on one run and, once I got over the odd feeling, they seemed pretty comfortable.

Not a great start

I signed up to the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge organised by Amanda at RunToTheFinish blog:

The basic gist is that you earn points for exercise, along with bonus points for eating healthily, and as a result hopefully survive the holiday season in a fit and healthy state. Sound like a good idea?! I thought so.

So, the challenge started on Saturday, where I visited a friend in the afternoon and had a lazy afternoon. Then there was Sunday, which we mostly spent running errands and trying to sort out the clutter in our not-exactly-tidy house. So two days in and I've not earned any points at all! Rubbish.

The plan is to continue in the same pattern that I've been in for the last few weeks:
Tuesday - run
Thursday - karate
weekend - one of the following: parkrun, rollerskating in London, hiking or something else active!

So I plan to start accruing points soon!

ParkRun and an accidental PB!

ParkRun is a growing phenomenon in the UK (and starting to spread across the world). The idea is that they organise free, weekly 5K runs that are free to enter and open to everyone. They're run by volunteers and are very cool.

This Saturday, I dragged myself out of bed (after a very long week) and along to Thames Valley Park, where the Reading ParkRun takes place. It was my second appearance (the first, rather embarrasingly, being back in January!) and I wasn't expecting too much from myself - the furthest I've run since restarting is 2.2 miles, so I was just hoping to get to the end of the 3ish miles in one piece.

headspace for running

How do you motivate yourself to get out the door and run?

What do you think about when you're running?

What keeps you going?

Given my dodgy (and somewhat lazy) running history, I'm trying to organise my brain better. I'm a bit of a wimp - much better at creating running plan spreadsheets and listening to episodes of the Marathon Talk podcast than actually putting in the miles.

Whoa, this brings back memories!

Urban Adventuring

Whilst hanging out in London at the weekend, we started spotting Rat Race team members jogging around the capital with maps and a slightly excited but confused look on their faces. And, predictably given my personality, I started thinking, "Yeah, I could do that..."

Doh.

Must-try list

I've spent a bit of time updating the info pages for this blog (which hopefully you can find by links above).

I've also add a loves and must-tries list - a bit like a bucket list of things I want to try. Please comment and add suggestions for new activites (or places I should visit). I plan to keep busy! :)

My karate history

Long, long ago, when I was a fresh-faced 18 year old, I headed off to university. Throughout my years at secondary school I had studied ballet and thoroughly enjoyed the balance of learning and body control that it developed. Arriving at uni, I discovered that there really wasn't an option for ballet and started looking for something else.

For a short while I joined the sailing club but, whilst I enjoy sailing and still go occasionally, the university club was not for me - I didn't really click with the other people and drifted away pretty quickly.

Surfin' the waves

About 5 months ago, I received an exciting invitation - a girls' surfing weekend in Devon. It was completely unexpected as the invitation came from a new friend (more of a friend-of-a-friend). All I could think of was, "I'm not going to miss this opportunity!"

We travelled to the delightful (if slightly busy with tourists) village of Croyde and stayed in a very cool surf lodge called Baggy Lodge (you can find out about the accomodation here - highly recommended).

photo from the Baggy Lodge website

Still to come...

It's been a busy ol' summer and I'm failing miserably to write about it all! Here's some of what's to come in the next few posts:

• girls surfing in Devon
• horse riding in Tenerife
• Notting Hill Carnival
• my return to karate

 And I'm not relaxing yet - my plans for the next couple of months involve:

• more karate (I'm back for good)
• a spot of dancing
• a busy fireworks season
• maybe another attempt at motorcycling, this time off road!

Exciting times.