December 2005 Archives

We arrived back in England this morning at 6:20 and was home by 11, although I'm feeling a little off the weather - which makes a great excuse for reading blogs. I opened Bloglines and saw the 505 unread entries staring back at me and thought I'd better take a nap first.

After leaving Johannesburg last night in 24 degree weather, the shock of coming back to a very white area with degrees in the negative area, was much more pleasant than last year when I was greeted by -2 on Heathrow and a strange country at that stage. I felt like I was coming home this time. Absolutely wonderful. Right now I'm heading to the doctor, but when I come back, I'll write all about my holiday.

Well, the holiday in South Africa is going great so far - weather has been all four seasons round, but things are absolutely great. I just stopped by the internet cafe to inform you all that on Friday, 16th of December 2005, Andy proposed to me! I of course accepted and now some big plans start.

I'll keep you up to date on further developments and write a quicker email tomorrow since time is short now.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

After spending a lazy day at home we finally went for a run at 4 this afternoon. It was sunset. It was absolutely beautiful outside, although it was cold enough for polar bears to join us and not overheat. I had my gloves and full body covering on, while Andy braved the cold in short running shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Crazy!

As we ran the sun set and in the end we were two lone figures running back towards our village in the darkness. It was absolutely beautiful though. The run felt good - even though we went slower than we've gone in ages. Afterwards we got home, relaxed a while longer and ended up just watching television.

I can't believe in three days we'll be in South Africa and probably find it odd that it will still be light at 6 o' clock in the afternoon.

On Thursday I mentioned the house that brightens our village with its OTT (in my opinion) amount of Christmas lights. That's the one. Although I had difficulty getting any picture, this was the best I could come up with in the end. It might depends on personal taste, but to me that is just horrible.

Last night was our end-of-year supper and we ended up only getting to bed around 2 this morning. We slept over in Birmingham and came back home this morning - since then I've been pretty lethargic. I've just been watching some sport on the TV and some shows that I haven't seen in a while. Its been the first weekend we've not had anything we had to do or anywhere we had to be which leaves me pretty happy - I get to have some relaxation the weekend before I go on holiday!

While running today I realised a couple of things. The first thing was that running in 1 degree weather requires more warmup than when you run during summer. We ran a km, stretched and then started running again. Unfortunately my body didn't feel warmed up enough yet and a km later, my muscles started complaining that they were feeling a little cold still. So we kept at the pace we were going and vowed to either get warmer clothes or spend more time warming up on our next run - which would be Sunday seeing as how tomorrow evening we're going out for the end-of-year supper with the rest of my office and on Saturday we have a fair few things that we need to finish before the coming week.

Another thing I realised is that some people have no sense of when Christmas decorations outside the house is just too much. We ran past a house in the village which would make a great example of when too much is too much. I'm all for some lights and decorations to make your house look festive, but to try and light the whole village with your house is a little much. We'll go back there tomorrow on our way to the supper and take some pictures so we can display it for all to see right here.

Andy opted to run the Shakespeare Half Marathon with me on the 7th of May next year, which means he's got some incentive to start training as well now. He ran with me tonight and I seemed to get the idea that he liked it, although he ended up feeling a little hotter than he wanted to and once we stopped running and started walking towards the house he gave me the chills as he took off his warm top. Luckily it is only 100m or so that he was without it, but still - it was FREEZING outside. I'd never have been able to do that.

Nooooo, instead I was the one that got home and jumped into a hot bath in order to stop shivering.

Righty. Since midnight has arrived, I shall now go and get some sleep - 5km was run on the 8th, and that's all there is to it.

Tonight we went for a run. Not long by any means - only 3km. But it was a start. And as I was running I was thinking that I need a goal. So.... Ladies and Gentlemen.... I've entered the Experian Robin Hood Marathon for 2006 - which takes place on Sunday, 10 September 2006. My entry was processed all of 10 seconds ago :) And although it is only a year ago, I figure that it should be enough to keep me going until then! There's nothing like knowing that you're already entered to give you a little motivation to start and keep going.

Now, when Andy comes back from his visit with a friend, I'll inform him of this very bold move on my part.

Next week this time I'll be in South Africa, probably relaxing outside next to a fire :) There's a nice race down there while we're there which I might attempt to make it to. But seeing as we're on holiday I somehow doubt I'm going to get Andy up at 6 in the morning to make it to the start. We'll see.

Everyone have a great evening!

Its been a relatively unproductive week for me on the sporting front. Work has been quite stressful and evenings quite busy while we're trying to get everything finished before we go on holiday. Luckily we have nothing planned for the next few days so hopefully I'll get back into running and exercising. The cold weather is really getting to me. Although, I have to admit that I like the coats and way people dress in this weather. Very snuggly.

We went to a party this weekend where there was some fireworks displayed. It was absolutely gorgeous. I wouldn't mind getting some fireworks for Guy Fawkes next year.

I'll keep you up to date on how running goes this week. Until then, I'm going to go for a nice and relaxing evening and sleeping now.