Just because...

Just because I'm feeling rather uninspired today to come up with anything that might remotely be considered an interesting read, I thought I'd share this picture that I found here.

This coming week is a pretty ordinary week. 

This afternoon Bianca has gymnastics, tomorrow is swimming for the kids, Thursday is Bianca's cheerleading and Friday evening my swim lesson. I was going to have my second talk for CCF on Friday, but they have postponed this event until July.  So my next session will be on the 21st of March. 

This coming Sunday will be our triathlon in Palmerston North and last night Rose and I suddenly realised just how early we are going to have to wake up to be there by 7.  That would be 7 in the morning...  I suspect we'll have some grumpy kids and husbands...  Yesterday's trial session (click here) went well and I really enjoyed it. 

I really like this video...

And this song is one I sometimes hear on the radio that today is stuck in my head...

Okay, watching these two videos have now put me in a bit of a reflective mood, so I'll stop this rambling post here.

How was your Monday?  Do you have anything interesting planned for this coming week?

A long but good day!

Today was a long, but good day.  Today we treated as a trial run for next week Sunday when it is our next triathlon (click here).  We specifically wanted to see if we could fit 3 bikes into our car and 7 people in Rose and Mike's car (3 adults and 4 kids) and it worked really well. 

When we got to Palmerston North we met Sarah at the start of where the cycling course is. Next week it will be a 9.5km bike ride and it was nice to see that the course will be through quiet streets, mostly on the flat.  I did it in about 22 minutes which is a bit slower than I'd like to be. 

We did the 3km run next which was rather confusing as the map was incredibly hard to get our heads around and in the end the route we chose was not exactly as it will be next week.  I have to admit I really enjoyed the running course (never thought I'd say that...).  My legs still got a bit sore, but not too bad and I was able to mostly put it out of my mind.  While I didn't run the full distance and walked in places I was pleased that my breathing recovered quickly.

The swim will be 300m next week which will be 6 x 50m lengths in the pool.  I don't have a realistic time today as there were times we waited for each other to catch up.

I have no idea what my time next week might be because of course there will be transition times on top of the actual times it will take me to complete each leg of the event so we'll see. 

I have to say I really enjoyed today's session. 

Did you have a good weekend?  What did you get up to?

No pain no gain...

One phrase I have heard quite a few times now is "no pain no gain" and tonight at swimming Val said it quite a few times to us.  She really worked us hard!  I love how she will start off saying "I want an easy 100m freestyle".  In my world there is no such thing as "easy" when it comes to swimming or biking or running. 

In addition to doing what seemed like an incredible amount of lengths, she also made us do 6 length sprints (or whatever they say in swimming terms) which she timed.  I was pleased to maintain about 28 seconds with one length 27 seconds.  It used to be about 30 seconds so I'm pleased tonight was a bit faster. 

Tomorrow morning I plan to go out and do this hilly block that Paul wants me to do - not quite sure how many times I am meant to do it, so will need to find out (somehow I think my legs are going to hate me) and on Sunday we will all set out for Palmerston North so we can try out the triathlon course so I will then treat that as my longer bike ride.  Hard to believe that next week Sunday (18th of March) I'll be doing my second triathlon. 

Tonight is just a quiet night at home.  How was your Friday?  What plans do you have for this weekend?

Pooh bear and gardening

Bianca and Caitlyn have rediscovered the world of Pooh Bear and Harold and the Purple Crayon. 

Last night I went through some old containers and took out all the old DVDs the kids used to watch when they were little and that we since packed away to clear some space.  Two of our friends have really young kids and we thought that maybe they might have better use for these DVDs that our kids have outgrown a bit. 

So of course as soon as the girls saw the old DVDs they insisted on watching them again.  I don't mind the Winnie-the-Pooh DVDs or Harold and the Purple Crayon, but when Bianca insisted on watching Teletubbies I put my foot down.  Most definitely not!!

Today I mostly spent outside lining and filling the last 2 (of the 4) garden boxes Terence made for me a while back.  I was hoping to get out bike riding but by the time I was done filling the boxes it was nearly time to get the kids from school and then Bianca had her cheerleading session after that.  At least my arms got a workout today ;-).

Other than that today was mostly just a quiet low key day.  How was your day today?  What did you get up to?

5 isn't really a lot, is it?

That awkward moment when you are having a conversation quietly in your head, then you say something in response out loud and then realise that your kids in the back of the car are looking at you funny...  I tell you some days I'm sure I'm losing my mind...

My legs and I aren't on speaking terms right now.  I'm getting pretty fed up with them not playing nicely when I go out for a bit of a running session.  Yesterday I thought there was hope.  I went out, it started off sore and then it was suddenly all better.  I was all hopeful that finally my legs would give me a bit of a break, but no.  It seems they were merely using that moment to "catch their breath" or perhaps "get over the shock" or something because they suddenly decided to punish me and "complain loudly" and I finished my run with pretty sore legs.  So no, we're not speaking to each other right now...

Paul suggested last night that I really should consider doing some hills when I go out bike riding considering that the running isn't working so well right now.  Now if you haven't yet "met" Paul, Paul loves the hills.  And not just any tiny little hill, no, he means business when he does his hilly rides. If you haven't yet, this blog entry he did is well worth a read (click here), but you might want to sit down when you read it because it is a pretty exhausting read...

So the suggestion was that I would go up and down our street and do this 5 times.  And I have to say it was great!  I was certainly flying faster than I thought I would.  I was amazed at just how little effort I had to put in.  What a great idea!  Going down the hill was simply amazing!

The uphill bits...not so much!  My goodness, what a lot of hard work!  The words sheer hell popped into my mind several times and Paul did warn me I might curse him during the session and I would have if I had enough energy left over and wasn't worried I might just fall off my bike.

Going down the street was amazingly easy!

Up the street, not so much...

 Even Prince Charming thought I was absolutely nuts...

"Humans sure are crazy!"

Now 5 doesn't seem all that much.  Certainly in monetary or chocolate terms the number 5 is not a lot at all, but let me tell you going 5 times up the street was a lot of hard work for me.  By the end of the session I could hardly stand up straight and walking down the steps to get back into the house was nearly impossible. 

I distinctly remember the first time I tried to ride up our street.  I just got my bike and went out to give it a try and I was going really well until it was time to come back home and I turned the corner into our street and came to an almost dead stop as I was trying to cycle up our street.  And as I struggled to keep pedalling and seriously considered just getting off the bike and walking the rest of the way pushing the bike back home, this lady came past me with this massive big heavy double pram or buggy with 2 kids strapped in as well as a baby seat on top with a third child strapped in and she was walking faster than I was cycling at that point...  Now that is rather embarrassing I tell you. 

But no, seriously I do respect and appreciate Paul's advice because he has a lot of running (and now cycling) experience.  It is wonderful to have his support and interest in my fitness adventures.  So I'll keep going even though I do feel like I'm half killing myself in the process.  Even though I have to work extra hard at this and even though right now it doesn't ever feel like it will become any easier or that I'm making any progress (which is daft because I know I've made progress)

Just recently I saw this quote and I thought how incredibly true this is:

"It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit."  George Sheehan, runner and author