June 2006 Archives

I only have 3 days at my current job. Yes, I'm changing companies next week :) The new offices are about 4 miles closer to home, but still close enough to the other office so that I won't miss the Friday lunches we do. Every Friday at lunch we go down to the local pub, have a snack basket between the five of us and have a drink each to celebrate the past week. The past few weeks have been stressful and I had a lot to get done, but it does seem like it will be finished by Friday.

With that said, the swimming the past few weeks have really helped keep the stress under control. Yesterday afternoon I didn't particularly feel like going for a swim, but Andy got me through the gates and into the pool and in the end I was really glad that I had done it.

Then I woke up this morning and did a bit of cycling. Not much, just a little bit, but every little helps on the road back to fitness. This evening I'm supposed to go meet Andy for another swim at the leisure centre, and afterwards meet a friend from the running club to go for a 3 or 4 mile run.

I feel a little more inspired every day!

At my gym there's a "challenge" of sorts at the moment. The challenge basically is to swim 25 miles between the end of May and the 10th of September, which, if you swim half a 750m every second day, you would easily make. Myself and Andy decided that we'd try our hand at this, and since 3 weeks ago, we've been going to the pool at least twice a week. Afterwards we go to the reception, where a pleasant girl (whom I'll refer to as Miss Summer because she's always cheerful and happy and you can't help but smile) gives us a file and we have to fill in our lengths before she signs it.

Now this week, I'm not sure where Miss Summer is (probably on holiday), but she's been replaced by a sour old cow that doesn't know how to smile, and instead of moo-ing at us, felt that she has to bark at us when we smiled at her and asked if we could have the file this afternoon. She then continued to ask us our surnames and gave a slight bit of a raise of the old eyebrows when she realised that although myself and Andy are married, I haven't adopted his surname yet. Of course she then wrote down the numbers behind a hidden desk (reminded me of some form of exams), where I couldn't see what she wrote down until she did Andy's, but at least she told us what our respective totals were

I walked out of the gym, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl. She's obviously unhappy with something, but to take it out on us was really not necessary.

Oh well.

Back to the swimming - I'm really enjoying it, and although I also try to run 3 times a week, the swimming is making me feel fitter and stronger than I have in the past few months. Tomorrow morning we're going for a run again :)

I'll try to update more regularly - next week I start a new job and things at work is too hectic now to think of much more to say :)

This morning Andy had to be at work at 7:00 AM, which meant that unless we got out for a run at 5:30, he'd not be able to come along. Unfortunately he also didn't want to wake me this morning, so at 6:30 he was out the door on the way to work.

I pondered waiting until tonight before going for a run, but knowing that my current state of mind is lazy, I decided to get out there!

Now, just about everyone knows that the Cloud Trail is one of my favourite places to run. It has a large flat section, but there are a few hills on it that I can run when the mood strikes me. This morning however, the CT obviously felt like it needed to scare me witless.

A few months ago an asphalt plant was built alongside the trail where the quarry is. There was a lot of fuss from people in our village as it would cause some noise (I haven't heard any since it was built), and the quality of air would go down (I read the pamplet). This morning as I was under the trees, I smelled something. I assumed it was the asphalt plant, as they start work at around 6. Obviously the smell didn't bother me enough, because I carried on running.

At the end of the first part, just before you have to make a turn onto a bridge, I noticed something smouldering... someone had slipped a trailer down the path, and in the middle of my lovely trail sat a burning trailer! Well smouldering... it had obviously burnt down in the early hours of this morning. What upset me though was that it was slipped down a part that couldn't have been an accident. And if it hadn't hit a pole that didn't budge, it would've been in the middle of a load of trees! Seriously... did they want to burn down all the trees around the village?

Enough of that. I carried on jogging and then turned back. On the way back I was starting to wonder about the trailer. Then I saw something that made my mind go numb and my watch beep frantically to tell me that my heartrate was going above the limit I set. I stopped dead in my tracks and froze. A few feet in front of me a snake was having a lovely slither between the trees.

After what felt like a lifetime, the snake slithered into the grass and between the trees again. It took me a few more minutes to unfreeze and stop the bleeping watch. I couldn't get my legs to move properly. I managed to start running with my jelly legs after a few steps and then the adrenalin reached my muscles and I probably ran faster home than I have in years!

Now I'll have my tea, take my shower and go to work. I have never been so scared.

This weekend was mostly spent watching World Cup football, but I managed to have the tele all to myself for an hour or two and see Asafa Powell blitz that 100m off in 9.77 seconds. What an amazing run :)

The weather has been quite hot the past week - at 9 tonight though, it cooled down enough for myself and Andy to get out for a 20 minute run. We ran into the most beautiful sunset before having to turn around towards the house during the last 5 minutes - where's a camera when you need one?

All in all I felt happy with the exercise that I did this week. If only things can carry on this way now :)

This morning we woke up at 5:30 again - which presented the opportunity to find ourselves out in the crisp morning air again for a quick run. I wanted to try and run for 10 minutes at least before taking a walking break this time. I was pleasantly surprised when 20 minutes went by without me needing to take the break, despite really tired legs and next to no breath.

Afterwards I was rewarded by a lovely glass of orange juice while Andy got ready for work. Outside it looks like it is supposed to already be noon :) I guess summer has finally arrived!

My last post was a happy one. I'd just gotten married and life felt good.

The week before my wedding though, I felt incredibly ill and even on my wedding day, I didn't feel at my best. The Friday before, I went to the doctor and he took some blood tests. The Monday after, I found out that I had glandular fever... and from the look of things, I had had it for a while.

So once again I was out of running or any exercise at all for that matter. It felt like one thing after another was hitting me this year in order to keep me from enjoying exercise.

The past few weeks I've been receiving treatment and two weeks ago the doctor told me that I was healthy. A week ago, he told me I could start doing light exercise again, but I could hardly manage the lunchtime walks before being out of breath.

This morning I did my first run in the golden rays of sunrise. I had to take two walking breaks and the pace was really slow, but at least I was able to do it.

The road back to fitness is going to be a long one :(