Sunday 15th November

Exercise: Spring into Shape 4km Run (8’s Blue)

I tossed up last night whether to do the 4km or 8km race this morning. I made my mind up when I got there. It was to be the 4km.

Reason being that I sat in the sun for a few minutes before the start of the run and it already had a real kick to it, and as I haven’t really done much running over the last couple of weeks I thought it wise to do the shorter distance.

How surprised was I when I stopped my garmin at the finish to see that I’d actually run better than the 1st race. I beat my time by 10 seconds Tell me how this can happen when I’ve been so slack with my exercise?

It was great to catch up with Hobbles and her son Connor after the race

Saturday 14th November

Exercise: 16km Walk – MMCT (Trigons)

It’s been hot! I love the heat. I normally love to run in the heat. Unfortunately this time round it’s my excuse not to run

Bootcamp was cancelled on Thursday I was actually looking forward to Bootcamp. I worked back late instead

As it’s been so warm I arranged with TW Michelle to meet at 6am for a walk. If I could get my ar*e out of bed every morning at 6am (as long as I’ve gone to bed early enough to have plenty of sleep) I would probably enjoy running as it was wonderfully cool this morning at that time.

It didn’t really warm up properly until about 8.30, by which time we were nearly home

Saw this little friendly fellow on the trail

Sunday 8th November

Exercise: 10.5km Walk – Millgrove to Wesburn (Supanovas)

This morning dawned bright, sunny and very warm. Perfect weather to be out walking up big hills

I woke up feeling okay considering I had been out drinking last night. Downed a Berocca and some Advil as soon as I got home and drank a big glass of water before I went to bed.

Cilla and Shells met me at my place and we then drove over to Wesburn where we left Shells car, then continued on to Millgrove where we started our walk.

It was a pleasant walk up to where we got off the Warby Trail and on to the Backstairs Track. Once on the Backstairs Track however it wasn’t so pleasant. I hadn’t downloaded the TW map so I was hoping that my memory came good as to where we were meant to be walking. Only one small uncertainty, but I picked the right way (phew!!).

We finally made it on to the fire trail and enjoyed a bit of a reprieve from the climbing. Then it was a nice walk down to the bottom of the mountain before embarking up “Tanty Hill”. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t find it as difficult as I thought it was going to be and it didn’t take us too long to get to the trail that leads back down to Wesburn.

Here’s Cilla doing some “stamping” as she called it. She found it easier to do a slow jog rather than walk down the steep aquaduct.

I also remembered to turn left rather than right at the junction that, 2 years ago, had us walking round and round in circles at 2am because we’d turned right instead

Here’s us when we’d finished. Check out Cilla’s new running skirt too

Once back at Millgrove we headed over to the Bakery for some grub and a cold drink before heading home.

Wednesday 4th November

Exercise: Bootcamp (Trigons)

Would you believe that I was actually looking forward to doing Bootcamp tonight

A much smaller turnout tonight, which wasn’t a bad thing.

Much of the same warm up from last week, but tonight our circuit consisted of arm work

I just know I’m going to feel it tomorrow! Luckily I don’t have to lift my arms to type on the computer so movement of arms should be minimal

I had lunch with my bestest buddy Michelle today. It’s been ages since we caught up and between the two of us, nobody else would have been able to get a word in edge wise!!

I received my race pack in the mail for The Great Australian Run. I suppose I’d better get my fat a*se out the door and actually do some running

I hope everyone did well with their bets for the Melbourne Cup. Right from when I first saw the form guide I knew I was going to back Shocking. I may have made a bit of noise watching the race yesterday afternoon, which the neighbours may have heard too

Saturday 31st October

Exercise: 20km Walk – Home/Montrose/Home

The start of this morning’s walk was painful and slow

It took my legs about 5km before they’d warmed up enough for the DOMS pain to subside a bit. Every time I went over a bump my legs screamed at me

It was, however, a fantastic morning weatherwise. After the thunder storms and rain last night I was expecting the same this morning, but it was a perfect spring morning. Dare I say it even got a little bit warm towards the end of the walk

The time seemed to fly by, as I was in full flow with my chat and didn’t notice how far we’d walked

TW Michelle has improved so much over the last few weeks, and it was really evident as we’d done this walk previously and she’d struggled up a few of the inclines. Today she zoomed up them without a thought

When I got home I made the most of being sweaty and warm by getting out into the garden and planting the roses that I’d bought last weekend and pulling the rest of the weeds out of the garden bed. My rose garden is starting to look how I visioned it last year. Just need a few more miniature roses to finish it off, then I want to put some of that black mesh stuff down that stops the weeds from coming back through and to finish off I want to put some pretty white smooth rocks down. This will highlight all the colour from the roses. Just hope it looks as good as my imagination thinks it will

Some photos from the rose garden:

Thursday 29th October

Exercise: Bootcamp

Yes I am well aware that it’s been a while since I did any kind of bootcamp, including squats and lunges, so I am really going to feel it tomorrow and the day after that

It was organised by one of the girls I work with. One of the bosses has a son who’s just qualified as a PT, so about 10 of us have signed up to do a 6 week course. At $10 per session I think it’s great value, and with all the work colleagues it’s very entertaining too

Got up at 5.30 this morning to register for TW. All done now

Tuesday 27th October

Exercise: 9.9km Walk – Local Streets (Trigons)

Wasn’t it fantastic weather for a walk tonight

Met TW Michelle for our usual 10km walk around the local hilly streets. Not much else to say about it really.

Am going to get up early tomorrow to register the team for Trailwalker.

I know I haven’t really spoken much about my new job as I’m still not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand the day flies past and it’s 5pm before I know it. On the other hand it is stupidly busy, so much so, that I rarely get to take my full hour for lunch and more often than not I work later than 5pm. Anyone who is a facebook friend of mine will also have noticed that there is no time for internet, even if I wanted to

Sunday 26th October

Exercise: Spring Into Shape 8.4km Run – (Sequences)

It’s amazing how quickly the weather changes. Yesterday was fantastic. The sun was out, the wind wasn’t too cold and it was a comfortable warmth.

Today it was bloody cold again, with showers too

Made it up to town with plenty of time to spare so I sat in the car for a while trying to keep warm. Probably didn’t help much that I was wearing a running skirt rather than a pair of running pants, but I was feeling very optimistic when I got dressed this morning

My original plan was to run the whole series doing 4km, but Cilla asked if I’d run the 8km, and I was happy to oblige as I need to start doing further distances if I’m going to run the GAR next month

We both had a quick (free) massage before the run, me just getting my calves warmed up

Then we were off and running. As we were a bit further back in the field, it didn’t feel too congested and we didn’t have to stop and walk at any bottlenecks this time (they were doing footworks last time).

A really pleasant, enjoyable run, with the sun even appearing briefly. I pretty much talked Cilla’s ear off too

Saturday 24th October

Exercise: 16.6km Walk – MMCT (Trigons)

Was a bit chilly at 6.30 this morning

Met TW Michelle at my place and we walked to the Ringwood end of MMCT. Even at 7am it was fairly busy, with lots of bike riders and dog walkers.

Didn’t take too long to warm up, with the sun out and a brisk walk happening

Had a pleasant afternoon wandering around a few nursery’s, looking at what plants are around just to get some ideas on what to plant in our garden once it’s had it’s makeover!!

I bought a couple of Roses, one being a ‘Mystery Rose’, where the tag had come off and it hadn’t flowered yet, so nobody knew what type it was. Looking forward to seeing what colour it turns out to be

Meeting Cilla tomorrow for the 2nd SIS fun run. They mentioned showers

Thursday 22nd October

Exercise: 6km Run – DCT (8’s Blue)

All hail the lunch time run

Yep, I finally got the, what would you say, probably courage, to get my ar*e out there for a run during lunch.

My original lack of motivation came because I didn’t know where the gate was to actually get to the trail. You have to go through the car park (not the same one that I park in, it’s the one on the other side of the building), so it’s all unfamiliar territory on that side and I didn’t want to walk around the car park like an idiot trying to find the gate
Stupid excuse I know, but that’s the plain and simple truth.

Today was going to be different. I knew this morning that it was going to be a nice day, and I brought all my running stuff with me into the building so I wouldn’t have to go back out to the car to get it. I also told a few of my work colleagues that I was going to run, so it would have looked pretty lame if I hadn’t gone!

To say that the run was a whole lot of effort would be an understatement. It hurt….badly!! There were a few walk breaks, and did I mention that it hurt!!

But the good thing is that I’ve now bitten the cherry and know where the gate is (it wasn’t hard to find ) so lunch times are now going to be much more productive

Just need to get myself a small fan to put at my desk as I came back looking like a beetroot

Jadey, in answer to your question, you are quite correct, I did adapt the original recipe that I saw on the Better Homes show a few weeks ago. I swapped the mushrooms and leeks for bacon and onion though, which made them even nicer