breathe sarah ...

*sigh*

panic is over ... for now!!! Thanks for the kind words. My lecturer got back to me at about 11:30am and told me not to panic and to email the essay to him, he will try and mark it over the weekend so that I have some feedback before the exam.

So, now I wait for my mark and see if I get penalised for the "late" submission (because he didn't mention anything about if I would or not). He seemed pretty understanding and agreed that the electronic drop box on the uni forum can be a little unreliable at times. I might have to start stressing over the amount of study I need to do for the exam once I get my mark back!

Study and me have such a love hate relationship - I love using my brain for something other than deciding what to feed the kids for dinner, where to take the kids today, and counting to 10 before I blow my stack at the kids (oh, you think I'm joking!) - but on the other hand I can't wait until this is over and I have a life (albeit revolving around the kids!) back.

Anyway .... back to the interesting stuff ....

PT on monday was good - nothing unusual to report, except I couldn't do any of the running intervals Drew had planned due to my painful blisters (what a sook). Seriously, I tried to run on the treadmill before the PT, but after a couple of steps it was just agony.

This also meant I decided to rest on Tuesday and not run because my blisters were still too sore. By this morning they were fine and I toddled off to my spin class - they had a new instructor who was B O R I N G. blah blah blah.

I know she was probably a bit nervous, being her first class and all, but she was just trying a little too hard to be chummy to everyone. But perhaps it was just me feeling like a grumpy old so and so due to the essay dramas. Anyway, did the class, came home and have been sitting here at the computer ever since trying to get my other essay for my other subject done. This one is proving a little more interesting and easy than the anthropology one.

Land of the Rising Sun

Here's the basic 'in a nutshell' details ... So, there's a job. It's in Japan. 2 to 3 years. A speaks Japanese. I don't. The kids don't. Could be good money. Could be fun. Could be interesting. Could be risky. Could be cold. Could be expensive to have a baby there. But we'll cross all those bridges when we need to. That's about all we know at the moment. A met with the guy at the airport on Saturday - the guy wants us to seriously consider it - I need more details before I can seriously consider anything. So we're waiting to hear more.

Running tomorrow. Might get up pretty early and head out for 45+ min hit out. Wouldn't mind doing a 5k timed run and seeing where I'm at - will probably be bitterly disappointed, so that might not be a good idea. :) I think I will strap my feet this time.

I'm ashamed to say I ate my way through the stress of my assignment with the aid of my brother who turned up on my doorstep last night with a tub of Baskins ice cream and episode 21 of Heroes he's downloaded off the net ... how dare he?!!!! Don't ever eat ice cream at 9:30pm right before going to bed! :)

crap...

Some of you may recall a few weeks ago I was a little bit stressed about an Anthropology essay I was writing. Well, I just found out - literally 3 minutes ago - that my lecturer has not received an essay from me ... ^%$#@

Because it's an off campus course, everything is submitted on line via an internal uni web site, I thought I had submitted the essay and was a bit concerned when I still hadn't received a mark back yesterday - sent a message to the lecturer and he says he has not received an electronic submission from me.

crap.

I don't know what to do. I've sent him an email and hope to have a response tomorrow asap. I think I feel sick. Why should he believe me - he doesn't know me, he's never met me, he has no reason to believe me. crap. 30%. 30-freakin-per-cent.

Was going to write about gym and running, but I just can't now ...

F@*& it, you know what, I'm so mad - I want to hit something, really hard. geez I stressed so much over that essay I can't believe this is happening. This is so bloody frustrating - and there's nothing I can do about it until I hear back from the lecturer ...

There's a bear in there ...

It's been a long day and this is going to be a long post - consider yourself warned! Where should I start ... the run ...

Went and ran with Veg, Katy (ihatetoast), and Nikki from CR - Katy left us about 1/2 way through - we started at the G'will bridge and did a length of southbank, across victoria bridge, under the expressway and over the g'will, along the cliffs, over the story bridge, along riverside and the gardens and back over the goodwill. All up, just under 10k i think and 1:05 of running.

A thoroughly enjoyable run despite feeling the start of a large blister at about half way and then feeling the start of another about 3/4 of the way through on the other foot :( I bought new shoes in March and as much as I love then they seem to create blisters in the same place if I run anything over about 5k ... The blisters are always in the inside of the arch of my foot - on both sides. So any suggestions on how to deal with that would be welcomed - the girls today suggested new socks (which I will check out) but also strapping?? How do I do that??! I'm clueless!!

I really enjoyed the company and we chattered away the whole way - sure makes the time go a lot quicker!! I struggled a bit with my throat and chest and breathing, but nothing that was going to stop me. We had a toilet stop part way through and while I was waiting for the girls to come out of the toilet I really began to feel the effects of running with the remains of my cold/sinus/whatever - felt quite light headed but the option of returning to the car on my own - a couple of kms away - was less attractive than the thought of finishing the run with the others. As long as I kept running I was fine. Stopping was a whole other story ...

I was really glad to be out there this morning. Driving in my car at 5:45am this morning I passed so many people out and about, a couple of packs of cyclists, lots of runners, and the PCRG was hanging around the g'will waiting for their start at the time we were there - saw Tesso - but it just gave me that 'happy all over feeling' to see people out early in the morning and doing their thing. I've missed that with my recent slackness - sure was busy out there this morning.

Anyway, coming home from the run I began to think I might have over done it a little. And by about 11am I was certain of this ... the background headache i was feeling had turned into a splitting one and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. I didn't get to do this until much later.

Came home and got ready to take the kids to the Playschool Concert - which was fantastic. They loved it and it was really nice to see them singing, dancing and clapping along. They both love Playschool :)

Max then had a 1am birthday party at McDonalds, so we raced home, Maeve had a sleep, I had a nap and were were late to the party! I've got to say, I understand why parents have parties at McDonalds, but they really are crap and it didn't do anything for my headache and caused me to take some pretty strong pain tablets before I killed lots of people! ;)

Then we finally got to come home and relax ... well kind of ... I had to go do some grocery shopping!

Tomorrow is A's birthday - I went and got some yummy fruit and croissants and english fruit muffins for breakfast tomorrow morning and his mum is coming over for roast tomorrow night. Tonight we're having take away something cos I'm too buggered to cook - I'm not sure these plans are going to do much for my plans of beating Miners this week over at FF, but that's life! Consider yourself lucky Miners! :)

I've been feeling pretty beat all day, and I don't think I did my sore throat any favours by running this morning, but I don't think it's anything I won't get over.

This week I AM going to run - there's only 5 weeks to gold coast ... holy moly!! :) So if I don't get out there I'm going to regret it. Plus I had such a great time this morning that I'm feeling more motivated and excited about it.

There's some other life changing/exciting/scary decisions being made in this house at the moment ... involving jobs and countries of residence and a whole heap of other decisions ... geez, like there isn't enough on our plates at the moment ... but more on that as we know more - early days and we're not sure it's the 'right' thing to do yet - how do you decide something like that anyway???

feeling better

Thanks for all your well wishes and advice! :)

I'm feeling better - I sound a bit funny and my sinuses are still a little stuffed up, but the fogginess has cleared, so that's good.

Peter: "since it's uncool to run with a hankie, i've mastered the bushman's handshake"

that is absolutely disgusting!! :)

So tomorrow's run is looking good and I'm actually looking forward to it, which I'm really happy about because I thought I might dread it ... :)

My lovely husband had a medical check up yesterday for work - pretty thorough - and they measured his resting HR, which was in the low 40s and his body fat was 14% - It's so unfair ... how can someone who does 1/4 of the physical activity I do, and eats pretty much whatever he wants, have those results??? He thinks it's funny!

Tomorrow we have a full day - I'll come and report - not much running related, except the morning, but all of it good family fun stuff.

Oh, I just want to clarify something ... I'm not pregnant and probably won't be for a few months - August at the earliest probably :) It's not something that comes easily for us, and hopefully won't involve too much heartache - but there's still a few months to get in some quality running :) So I just have to pull my socks up and get a few people to give me a swift kick and remind me how lucky I am to have my health and fitness and get on with it.

Jumped on the scales this morning to check on the FF progress ... I know, I know, I shouldn't, but I couldn't resist ... anyway MINERS - you're gonna have to pull out a 1kg + this week ;) If the scales are the same/better on monday anyway!!

Sick

Woke up in the middle of the night on Monday and felt horrible - sore swollen glands at the back of my throat and a gluggy kind of nose and throat feeling. Today felt really foggy in the head (some would say that's no different to my usual day to day functioning:) ) and have generally felt worse rather than better today.

I'm hoping whatever it is goes away because I have a major essay due next week and was planning on a run on the weekend with Veg ... I skipped my run on Tuesday and have no plans to run tomorrow, despite saying I would - I'd rather get better first. There's no point running sick and getting even more run down ...

Anyway, I'm off to bed early - it's just gone 8pm and I can hardly keep my eyes open. Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning. Thankfully Max is at kindy tomorrow and I'll only have 1 little monkey to take care of.

Let me just say, some of the comments last time made me chuckle a little bit ... but this one :

Ph said "to deal with cold i go to bed dressed in my running gear...but then again, we are not expaning our family ;-) "

...very funny!!

Ben - I like your idea of going out with a bang!! I might have to use that for motivation ... once I get over this cold/flu whatever it is.

nighty night.

issues...

Lost .3 this week with FF - but admittedly I had a pretty slack week ... I was thinking Miner's 'challenge royale' would be a butt kicking, but it seems he managed a .5 ... so what d'you reckon?? Still in the game there. So this week is going to be better.

This morning had my PT and some cardio at the gym. Drew again threw in some cardio interval type work. I normally have a couple of weetbix for breakfast with 1/2 a cup of milk (at the most) - but this morning I decided to have sultana bran instead and I think I had more milk than normal. So all through the PT I was fighting that gluggy throat feeling of trying to keep breakfast in the tummy ... ewwww.

Now, there was NO running this week. What's happening??? I had planned a long run on Saturday morning but circumstances beyond my control meant that I couldn't go. A got a call on Friday night and had to go and help a friend early saturday morning which lasted all day. I was good though and got on the elliptical trainer at home for 45 minutes - but it doesn't compare to the real thing.

I'm struggling with the motivation to get up early and get out the door for a run - a commbination of the darker mornings, cooler weather and me just being tired all the time really doesn't help much. Also lurking in the back of my mind is the fact that there has been significant discussion in this household about having another baby and although I know there are people who run through pregnancy - I can tell you now - that aint gonna be me :). I'm not a happy pregnant person. But I don't know how long it might take, or even IF it will happen. Anyway, the doubt is there about this little venture and new found enjoyment continuing for an inderterminate amount of time and I think it's making it hard to be motivated.

But GCM looms and this week I AM going to go out on Tuesday morning and Thursday morning and the weekend, as I normally would do before I got so slack! I'm never going to make my CG goal if I don't get back into it.

Anyway, I think that's it from me for today.

QUICK - there's a famine coming ...

take everything you can, you'll need it for future fat stores ...

I've joined Beki's (sekhmet from CR) Fat Fighters - and if I could figure out how to put hyperlinks in with blogger, I'd do it, but alas, I'm am technologically stupid and you'll have to resort to the sidebar if you want to take a look.

But my body (brain??) seems to think it's going to be a famine and I'm having a battle of wills - I won't say yet whose winning ...

I'm on housecleaning and assignment duties today - so I'm going to ban myself from the computer.

building sandcastles

This post isn't much to do with running at all really ... but it's all part of the bigger picture.

Normally I run on a Tuesday morning, which I had planned to do this morning as I wasn't going to be going to the gym either because I was meeting Kathy today (more on that later). But last night I fell asleep on my bed while I was doing some reading for uni (what can I say, the textbook was called "The Political Economy of the World Trading System") and as a result I didn't set my alarm or get my clothes out ready for my run - I have to do this otherwise I wake the whole house turning on lights etc.

So I didn't run this morning ...

Took the kids into southbank where we spent some time building sandcastles on the 'beach' (which was the absolue highlight of my day - both of them loved it and I think it set the tone for a really great day, hardly any fights or tantrums and just generally pleasant) before meeting Kathy - her blog is linked in the sidebar - she has amazed me with her weight loss of 40kg and her attitude and dedication to exercise and trying new things, so it was great to put a face to the blog and take a walk through southbank with her.

Came home and fluffed around doing not much really, washing and making dinner etc...

This evening I got on our elliptical trainer for 40 min, burned 350 cal. Now, this is something to be celebrated because we have had this trainer for about 3 years and I can count on my fingers the number of times I've used it. A uses it every morning - he's funny, he gets on it and goes full pelt for about 10 min each morning - but I've had some strange aversion to using it - stubbornness more than anything.

Did 11.3 k in 40 min. I'm going to try and jump on it most nights for 30 or 40 min - can't hurt the running at all and it might help me reach my goal of being under 70kg by the GCM.

So I'm sweaty and I stink, so I'm off to have a 2 min shower :)

Oh, and I just want to say how good I am that instead of going to the haircut I had booked for tomorrow, I've put it off and will be heading to the gym for my spin class. I deserve extra points for that ;)

Running in the Rain

So in the early hours of Sunday morning I woke to the sound of rain ... part of me was excited - I would finally get to experience running in the rain and see for myself what was so good about it - part of me just wanted to stay in bed nice and dry! :)

I got to southbank with the plan to meet the other girls at 5:45, and just as I got out of my car it started to come down quite heavily. It was still dark, it was quite a cool morning, I don't own a running/rain jacket. By the time I'd jogged the 20 meters from my car to the meeting place, I was cold and wet and starting to wonder what on earth could possibly be good about running in the rain. I was there first, so stood under some shelter and waited for the others and tried to warm up!

The downpour didn't last that long and by the time we set off the rain had eased to a light spit. I could handle that. In fact, I found it quite humid to run in those conditions. Part of it I think was the shirt I had on - the race shirt from the Brisbane Marathon festival - it's a beautiful BRIGHT yellow - you'd never miss it. But although it looks like the technical kind of fabric some of my other running gear is made from, it really doesn't breathe at all and is quite hot to run in.

Anyway, we'd planned to do at least 8k on Sunday. After about 20-25min we dropped Katy off at her car, then shortly after that we made a toilet stop, then shortly after that we ran into tankgirl from CR who was on her way to the MDC at southbank. So it was a bit of a stop start run and in the end only ran about 7k because I had to get home for mother's day celebrations. But it was still a good run - quite a social run. There were lots of people out and about, lots who looked like they were headed to southbank for the run, which was exciting. A bit of banter back and forth between us and a few other runners who we passed or passed us about the race shirts we were all wearing - there were a lot of them out there on Sunday morning! That was fun.

So then it was home for breakfast, which was croissants (a real treat for me as I never have these - don't think of the calories!) and Max gave me a bead necklace he'd made for me at kindy.

This morning I headed to the gym for another go at the aerobics class I did for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It's called "fat burner" but I've been disappointed at the number of calories burned (according to my HRM) for the class on both occasions.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to have my PT, but I'm meeting Kathy tomorrow morning at southbank!! Should be fun.

Rant for the Day

Tell me - when did it become acceptable to pay $3.?? for a lettuce???? I've just come home from grocery shopping, and granted, I did have to buy nappies and washing powder, but I am always amazed at how expensive our grocery bill is. Especially when we're trying to eat healthy, lots of fresh vegies and salads. It's just crazy. No wonder this nation has an obesity problem - it's probably cheaper to eat 3 meals a day from the Mcdonalds than it is to eat 3 healthy meals. And another thing that ticks me off big time about shopping is the very strategic placement of an assortment of kids bubbles, balls, toys and other crap at regular intervals down each isle. It sure doesn't make it easy to shop with kids.

Anyway ...

Here's a question for you - why does my remote locker device for my car not work when the car is parked out the front of our house? It works EVERYWHERE else, but WILL NOT lock or unlock out the front of the house ... how weird is that? It can't be the batteries because it works fine everywhere else, and we haven't even had the car for a year yet ... I can't figure it out!

I love hills

...not likely!! But I am really happy that this morning when I headed out for a 5k run along my usual out and back route from home - which I think I've said before is mostly downhill the whole way out and all uphill the whole way back. well, this morning I ran THE ENTIRE WAY BACK. I was able to run up the hill all the way home without stopping! I was slow, but I did it!

I also discovered an advantage to being slow - Augie March's 'One Crowded Hour', which is one of my favourite songs, is perfect for running to when you're slow like me!! ;)

Running tomorrow with Vegie & she said I Hate Toast from CR might also come - I'm looking forward to that because any time I've read her blog it's been an absolute crack up.

Happy Mother's day to any mum's out there. I hope your toast in bed isn't too cold!

one word

Edited to add ... one word ... GASTRO. Wednesday night - Maeve is vomiting no run Thursday morning - vomiting all morning. So far, 1/2 a banana and 100ml of water have stayed down ... I'm not holding my breath!

Wednesday ... okay, so pre-kids I used to look forward to Wednesday's because it meant the working week was 1/2 over and the weekend was coming soon ... a break from work, time to relax, do the things I wanted to do ... I'm not even going to go into what wednesday means after-kids, except to say the weekends no longer hold the same promise as they used to ;)

BUT ... now I think, it's Wednesday, the week is half over, only half a week to go before I get to run on the weekend :)

PT on Tuesday was tough, as I expected it to be. Drew threw in some cardio intervals on what RMR calls "the mincer machine" ... after a few minutes 30 sec intervals with 30 sec recoveries my legs felt like jelly ... funny how you push yourself a lot harder when there's someone standing there telling you to go faster!! so that combined with some bench presses, some squats with weights (well, they have this machine which meant I was pulling weight up on the way up, and then countering the weight on the way down), some standing tricep rows (if that's what they're called - who knows?!) and then a few minutes of intervals on the rowing machine - all of that in a circut 3 times then onto cardio work for 20 minutes before stretching and heading home. I was pleased to see the total calories for the hour was 720 and no soreness today either - noice.

Drew asked me half way through the session if I thought I was working hard enough - now that's a tough question for me to answer because the lazy Sarah says "of course" ... so I asked him if HE thought I was working hard enough and he said some very nice things about my commitment and work at the gym, which were good to hear - everyone needs a little pat on the back every now and then.

Today was spin - nothing unusual to report.

I've decided that my gym schedule is going to be 3 days a week, as opposed to the 4 I have been trying to do - my 2nd weights session has often been dropped. So I've decided to keep my PT and cardio on a Mon, run Tuesday, Spin on Wed, Run on Thurs and Box on Fri - then I'll split my 2nd weights session so that I do arms & upper body after spin on Wed and legs/lower body after box on Fri. I feel good about that, means I'll have an extra day back to do housework!!! Yeah right!

The countdown seems to be on for GCM with newsletters being emailed weekly from the organisers. I'm really looking forward to it ...

The good news and the bad news ...

The good news is I had a great run this morning. My friend didn't turn up, as I expected, so I got to go for a run with music for the first time in ages. I LOVED it! :) Did a bit of music fartlek in the middle of the run with the aid of a live rendition of U2's Bad/Streets Have No Name (if that doesn't get you running, I don't know what will) and a bit of Fat Boy Slim. I have to say, that was a lot of fun. I would just pick up the pace for a chorus/verse and then drop it back a bit, for a chorus/verse and keep going like that. 2 tracks (well, 3 really with the U2 combination) of fairly decent length. It felt really good.

I ran from New Farm park out along the river and floating walkways to the story bridge, where I turned around and came back - all up just under 6.3km and a time of 38:48, which is an average of pace of just over 6k/min. I was really happy with that.

The music really helped me with the negative thoughts I normally suffer from. I didn't think about walking except to think to myself "hey, I haven't even thought about walking yet"!! In fact, I only stopped to grab a quick drink from one of the water fountains along the route.

Sara - the Sony charges up in 3 minutes!! So no getting caught with flat batteries. I saw yours and Andrew's articles in Runners World this week. It was the first time I'd ever read the magazine. As a beginner runner I really liked the mag and will probably buy it again.

The bad news is that when I bought the mp3 player, which looks like this but in green:

I didn't buy an arm band because the only ones you can get are sony ones and cost $30 - I thought I'd just tuck it under the shoulder strap of my bra - which is what I used to do with the shuffle and in hindsight is probably why the shuffle died - because when I finished the run and took the sony out, you could see there was moisture (sweat) under the coloured casing :(

a. I never knew I sweated that much

b. It never ocurred to me that sweat could get in there!

Anyway, I left the little bugger on a windowsill today and most of it seems to have dried out, hopefully it hasn't done any damage ... time will tell.

I'm not running the MDC on Sunday. I wish all the races weren't on Sunday's. It would have been nice to run it just as a training run and see how the time went.

I have a PT scheduled for tomorrow. After last week's, I'm keen to see what is in store for me. I enjoyed last week's even though it was hard, and couldn't raise my arms above my head for 3 days after. In fact, I think my arms have toned up heaps over the last couple of months, there's not a lot of wobble happening there, which is good. ;) I'm also looking forward to getting stuck into some cardio at the gym after the PT - once again, it's much easier to do with some music!

Miners - I'm still trying to figure out if you actually do want an explanation or if something about those bags and balls has been lost in translation!

Kathy - I just wanted to say I hope you're feeling better. Your blog entry today gave me a lot to think about and I'm really glad you have the courage to be so open and honest.

This week I need to start on my next assignment ... will it ever end?! I've been looking at my watch for the last hour, wondering if it was too early to go to bed ... time to catch up on some blogs first.

weekend report

Got out for a run on saturday morning. Ran through Southbank from the g'will bridge end and out along the river towards west end to what was the 10k turn around point the other week (which is just before the west end markets start) and back to the g'will bridge. Not sure how far it is and can't be stuffed looking it up and mapping it out on anything. But took me about 40 min, albeit with a few walking breaks (what a sook). It wasn't the greatest run, just ok, but I was out there and that was all that mattered.

As usual I was exhausted on Saturday night and pulled the plug on any plans for a Sunday morning longer run. Am going out tomorrow morning, probably out to New Farm park for a change. A friend was going to meet me, but I have a feeling she's going to pike - which is fine by me because I want a chance to break in my new mp3 player. Ended up getting a Sony 1G. It'll be nice to have some tunes to distract me from the negative thoughts in my head. I'm no purist and will do whatever it takes to get me excited about getting out for a run ;)

The diet has been pretty good the last couple of days. I've definately noticed a difference in my attitude and approach to the whole issue. However, I'm not being pedantic about it either. We took the kids to southbank on Saturday afternoon and ended up staying for dinner - had Pizza. Don't ever go to Amici's at Southbank - it's terrible. Anyway, ate 2 slices of pizza, but didn't stress about it. Aside from the Pizza, Max threw the mother of all tantrums as we were leaving *sigh*. He's being very difficult of late. Everyone tells me it gets easier, I just wish it would get easier quicker. 4 is not a very pleasant age for our household at the moment.

Tomorrow is a public holiday in QLD, so a long weekend, which is noice. But bed time for me if I'm going to be up to be off for a run in the morning. We also have an afternoon tea birthday party for A's niece - so that will test my resolve with the party food etc etc...

motivation...

*sigh*

hmmm ... this week has been a real non-running week. I've struggled a bit this week with even wanting to run. I've wanted to run, half heartedly mostly. I'm going to blame uni and tiredness. But ever since the 10k a couple of weeks ago I've found motivation is lacking somewhat. I know I've been busy with essays etc, and sometimes life just doesn't have the same plan you do, but in a way, I think it's been my own laziness too ...

Didn't go out on Thursday with the pram - Maeve was ready for a sleep and I couldn't be guaranteed that she would sleep in the pram. Oh, she's 12kg and the pram is about 15kg ... 30kg baby :o can you imagine ... eeeeeee!! :)

Last night I got the running gear out ready to go for the morning, set the alarm and was intending to head off in the morning for at least 5k - I just couldn't get out of bed - probably the remnants of the late night on Wednesday when I was writing that dreaded essay. And the naughty sarah in my head told me I didn't need to go because I had Box class this morning. :(

So I stayed in bed and then went off to Box, which was fun, but something was missing. A thought ocurred to me today in that class - we had about 4 new people starting and a comment of Kathy's came to mind - I was no longer the biggest person in that class, I certainly wasn't the least fit person, and I could actually hit those bags and balls with some force and kind of look like I might have a bit of a clue about what I was doing (just a teeny bit!!).

Vegie is off running the Glasshouse at night this weekend, so I have no running partner for Sunday morning :( Ah well ... I'll still go out, and it'll probably be good to just have some time running with my own thoughts.

Plan to head out tomorrow morning too.

I filled in my 10k entry form for the GCM on line yesterday. Woo Hoo!! 8 weeks. I'm going to use that 8 weeks as a kind of a challenge. Not just for running, but I'm going to try really hard with the diet side of things and see just what I can do if I put my mind to it and stop making excuses.

I was thinking today I really need to get my brother into running - he lives in the same suburb as me, and he has a real runner's build, tall, thin and wiry. He might be really good at it - I've suggested it to him a couple of times and he thinks I'm mad ... with my genes he could be right, but then that means he's in trouble too ;)

funny thing ...

Peter said in the last comments

well done on the assigment - forget the retail therapy...reward yourself with a run...hehe

So I was on my way home this morning (about 11:30, after being out at the shops with Maeve, Max is at kindy today - hadn't yet seen this comment and was going through all sorts of scenarios in my head trying to figure out a way I could go for a run with Maeve in the pram!!! :) I'm still trying to figure out if it'll work or not - I guess there's one way to find out. I'm feeling a bit ansty as I haven't been able to get out for a run since Sunday ... well, when I say "haven't been able to" I really ought to say I haven't tried hard enough, but I've been burning the candle at both ends as it is, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it too much.

Anyway, I *think* I'm going to go and get into the running gear and put Maeve in the pram and see what it feels like to run in the middle of a beautiful Autum day pushing and extra 30 kilos :o !

check it out

I have a new photo!!! :)

That's me coming up to the finish of the 10k at Brisbane a couple of weeks ago - which is why I look like I'm in pain ;)

ok, back to the assignment - 700 words to go.

ETA - the assignment is DONE!! I have never, in my life, struggled so much writing an essay as I have with this one. I am SO glad it is over with! I think some retail therapy is in order ...

still procrastinating...

I was going to go for a run this morning (normally do on a tuesday) but had a PT scheduled at the gym today and wasn't sure if I should - I'm glad I didn't because the PT was HARD today. I think Drew tok on board my whinging about being bored and unmotivated last time and decided to step it up a couple of levels. Which is good.

But not good for running because I won't get to go until Thursday now.

I did a new class at the gym on Monday which was in an effort to inspire me to get excited about being at the gym again (not sure that it worked though). The class was basically an aerobics class, and I was pretty happy with myself that I was able to keep up with what the instructor was doing without looking like a complete dork ... well, I suppose tha last bit is subjective really! ;)

But as far as workouts go, I find it really hard not to compare everything to running these days. I can burn as many calories in half an hour of running as I can in a 50min aerobics class ... so it makes it hard to be excited about it if the main reason you exercise is to lose weight.

Ideally I would just like to run. But it's not possible. The gym allows me to fit exercise in with family life as it has childcare available. I could get up at 4am every morning like some of you do ... hmmmmmmm - nah!!! :)

Seriously though, I think I am going to have to start getting up earlier on weekdays to fit in more running. I know the gym work has a place with cross training and all that, so it's not going anywhere. anyway, as much as I complain, I do enjoy it mostly.

I think our Guinea Pigs are having a domestic (2 males) because everytime I go outside, 1 is at one end of the hutch and the other one is at the opposite end. This is unusual. Normally they both hide in the covered area of the hutch... I hope they patch up their differences, I'd hate to be kept in a cage with someone I didn't like. and one of them definately has the raw end of the deal - he's been sent to what seems to have been nominated the poo corner!

Today Deakin released their semester 1 examination timetable. The location of my anthropology exam scheduled for the 12 of June was listed as Box Hill town Hall (which is in Melbourne) ... what the?!! I politely informed them I reside in Brisbane and could they please change the location. Just seemed silly to me that they would schedule an examination in Melbourne when all of my student info indicates I live in Brisbane.

anyway, I'm absolutely hating my anthropology subject at the moment. I won't bore you with details, but suffice it to say that it is driving me totally nuts, my children are becoming addicted to tv, I'm not sleeping well and it's making it very very difficult to stay away from the chocolate!