Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Not all rice crackers are created equal

This I learned the hard day last night/this morning. Last night while at class (doing the ever-exciting Gym Maintenance 101) I had some rice crackers. The person who was offering assured me they were fine to eat and silly me, I also assumed they would be fine. Not so!

A night of sweats, bloating and headaches and a morning of severe stomach pains and other symptoms - all this from a couple of suspect rice crackers.

Then I received a very apologetic call from one very upset friend. She thought she had packed the gluten-free rice crackers for class but had mistakenly packed the other ones instead - ones containing gluten.

Oh well - live and learn. But I will be more careful next time someone offers me a snack.

Mullet Monday

This entry is not about running.

After all you really don't want to hear that "I ran 5km, it was hard; or geez I struggled in that 8km I ran on the weekend". Boring.......

At the moment my running is just not that interesting (if it ever was). My goal hasn't changed - I am still aiming for SFT in 2009, though at the moment it feels like I am at the bottom of one of those huuuuge hills wondering how on earth I am going to make it up to the top!!!!

So there won't be too many running entries until things get a bit more interesting than the slow 5km - 8km along the cycle path.

However I did go to the gym Monday lunchtime. Now this is a time of the day that I don't usually go to the gym but I was too tired that morning to get out of bed to do anything that looked remotely more active than eating breakfast, showering etc!! So I made a promise to myself that I would go to the gym at lunchtime. Now this is usually a hollow promise - one where mentally I go "yeah, yeah - until it gets to lunchtime and then there will be a brief to do, someone to ring, a meeting to go to, or more importantly a coffee date". But I kept my promise and found myself in my gym gear in a busy gym at lunchtime.

What struck me first was the number of young guys were there - they must be from the nearby college. The next thing that struck me - I didn't know mullets were back in style! Boys, boys, boys - the mullet style is not stylish, trendy or god forbid, sexy. What on earth has possessed you to adopt this ridiculous style? Apologies to anyone reading who is a fan of mullet hairstyles but for me it conjures up scary memories of Billy Ray Cyrus *shudder* The mullet is up there with those 'orrible little rats tails that some guys have - you know the ones - they have either shaved their heads or its very very short but they persist with either a little fringe or a rats tail or both. *double shudder*.

So there you go. Now you know one of my pet hates!

Monday, September 08, 2008

The Road to Six Foot Track 2009……

This morning I started running. Or more specifically, I started the Couch to 5km program – a program I have actually used with work colleagues and my son, all of whom were non-runners. However at my current level of fitness and dodgy health status, I thought it was probably an appropriate starting point for me too!

The session this morning started with a 5min brisk walk warm up, followed by 8 x 1min jog (90sec walk). I began really well, I thought. It was like, wow, I haven’t forgotten how to run, I’m not huffing and puffing, this is good. By the 5th 1min jog, it was more like gosh, how many more of these blasted intervals do I have left, it’s a bit harder than I thought, where’s my puffer?! But in all honesty it did feel good to be back outdoors and doing something that vaguely resembles physical exercise. After 6 weeks of doing bugger all, this felt great…..after I had got my breath back and my heart rate had dropped from alarming levels.

In five months I will be running Six Foot track. Today was the just the beginning of that journey!

Monday, September 01, 2008

The light at the end of the tunnel

It has only taken me all of the month of August but I think I am finally recovering from a bout of pneumonia, which was further compounded by sinusitis and complicated by a recent diagnosis of Coeliac disease. So I think I’ll just forget the month of August and move on….

Today is the first day of Spring and Mother Nature has certainly laid the weather on – gorgeous sunny blue sky, no clouds (that I can see while gazing out my window at work, taking a break from the squillions of emails that have accumulated since I’ve been away).

I haven’t run for over a month now. I went for a walk to the local shops on Saturday and suffered with DOMS on Sunday – sad, isn’t it! So I’ll focus on doing some more walking this week and maybe try slow jogging next week, fingers crossed. But at least I am up, out of bed, back at work, and feeling halfway normal – can’t wait until I feel 100% healthy again!