juneathon - the end

Evening, just looking at yesterdays post and I  see that my ipad made it's own mind up about how to spell things!!!

I sort of ran out of time today, so the runwalk was shorter than I intended, but certainly faster than at the beginning of the month! 25 minutes for 1.8 miles. never going to break any records, but proof that intelligent training may well bring positive results. Then body pump to follow, I enjoyed it so much, and looking at my heart rate, I think next week I'm going to have to up the anti and put more weight on the bars.

Part of the reason for my forced retirment a year or so ago was due to continual injury as well as chronic tiredness. I seems, I may have cracked it. I'm getting niggles, but dealing with them.

I'm really sorry to see the back of Juneathon - I want to carry this on through July, I hope I can, but the thought of having to log and blog my activities every day through June has kept me going out there. I'm not going to blog every day now, but will pop in with a weekly summary.

Before I go, I want to share another project that I've been playing with. I've not shown off a creation of mine for a while, and I'm quite pleased with this one.

Juneau on day 29

An early spin class for me today. The instructor is a hard taqsk master trying to get the best of everyone. I kept up with most of it, just needing to ease back on the resistance toward the end of a very hot and humid class. Then a short 22 length swim before work.

I've not got anything more interesting than that to say really. Tomorrow is the finishe of Juneathon and I must say I've enjoyed the challenge aqnd will likely extend it to 2 months, possibly 3. Watch this space as they say.

Juneathon day 28

Two days to go and only one day missed, not bad. Looking at my stats, I seem to have improved fitness wise a huge amount over the past month. I actually felt like I was cruising at times tonight. There is no feeling like it, fit enough to just let the body do the running. For me it reaches something deep inside, like it's something that we are meant to be doing. I suppose it's the primal thing, we were never meant to be sitting in cars, on buses and even on escalators being carried along. At least we've not evolved into that kind of being as yet.

Anyway, enough philosophy.

I've played truant today (worked hard yesterday so I could take some time out today) and had a girly day with my daughter and her daughter. It started of not quite as we meant to as Mia (3yo) needed a trip to the hairdresser to try and remidy her DIY haircut!!!! Lots of kiddies do  that - her mother did, so now she has a fetching short style and the bald bits get covered with a headband! Then some clothes and shoes. I spent loads of money, but came home empty handed - now how did that happen?

No matter, I had a nice parcel from those nice people at Wiggle when I came home. Tired as I was, I had to try the running kit out now didn't I? Just a 2 mile walk run, but faster and feeling better than the last time I did it. It's also very hot and sticky out there and there is a lot of smoke hanging about from a rubber tyre fire that's been burning in the area for a couple of weeks.

Off to babysit now. RPM and  a swim in the morning ☺

Juneathon Day 27

I feel so much better at this stage than I did in January, then I was tired and looking forward to the last day. Now I'm not so tired and actually looking forward to my daily jaunt. I can't run every day, it would be silly to try, but I can do SOMETHING every day. I'm now in  a routine of 2 RPMs, 2 Body Pumps, 2 swims and 3 runs in a week.

With that routine and the help of Weight Watchers, today I moved categories from obese to merely overweight ☺, I was trying to work out just how much weight I've lost in my lifetime, the thought of it makes me shudder with something akin to embarrassment! I must have gained and shed weight at least 4 or 5 times in the last 30 years or so. I usually do it myself, not wanting to get involved with big corporate organisations whose main objective is to make a profit. (and weightwatchers ready meals are foul!). But this time, I've had some trouble losing the weight. I started off ok, then got stuck. I gave in and investigated several online weight loss/management sites. I must say, that weightwatchers seem to have got the balance right. No food group is eliminated (not even alcohol which is nice ☺), but it does encourage the person to aim for a health balance with the diet. I'm hoping that it'll be easier to maintain once I've lost what I need to!. Just about a stone and a half to go, which, looking around the site is hardly anything compared to some poor souls.

I think that my running will improve as I get stronger. I'll never be a racing type, I plod along and enjoy the view, but to get back to a 5(ish) hour marathon would be my dream. Maybe then I could complete the 6 nations challenge I set myself quite some time ago - only 2 left Edinburgh and a Welsh one (save the best till last ☺

juneathon day 26

It's hard to believe that we are in sight of the finish line!

Sunday, always a busy day for me. Lovely because I get to see family and eat lunch with them. There is something comforting about the fanuily sitting at table and eating together, a bit Waltonesque maybe, but nice.

It's been hothothot today, in fact, we ate outside and I now have comedy tan lines on my arms. It was too hot to stay out there for long though, and we spent a pleasant afternoon indoors watching a film and me making some jewellery.

Then off to spin class I went. Not many people were mad/brave enough to turn up. I think there were about 5 of us in the class, a struggle for the instructor, but she managed.

All in all 22 km in 55 minutes, I thought it would be slower, because this instructor goes for heavy resistance, the Wed guy does speed. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was marginally faster than last Wed. My legs did feel it though!

juneathon day 25

I have the whole day to myself, just me and the two muppets. HWMBT has gone to Cardiff to play old soldiers, he won't be home until late this evenng.

After I dropped him off to meet the other old cronies I toddled off to the Gym. I have something of a sore leg. I've always had problems with my ITB, the right one in particular. It is such that I'm almost limping, so I decided to reduce the impact on it and work on the cross trainer first. Half an hour on that, then half an hour runwalk on the dreadmill. My electronic coach is still wanting me to keep my heart rate low, so I kept it in zone 2 for most of the time.

After a good hours work, the leg felt looser, I did do lots of stretching and rolled around on the foam roller (OUCHOUCHOUCH!)

Now what to do with the rest of the day? I have to get the muppets out for their walk, then shower and maybe a trip into town, I really need some running kit.........

juneathon Day 24

Blimey this month is just zipping by! Janathon was much slower than this, but maybe I'm just a little fitter than I was back then. I'm beginning to see/feel as I was about 3 years ago. Fitter AND slimmer it must be said.

Not a bad day all told. A colleague needed some emotional support this morning, a nice chat over a coffee sorts most things out I feel. I had to do some timetabling - tricky but boring as well! and I managed to do some more work on my paper wot I'm riting.
My internet was intermittently going off again as was the interactive telly that HWMBT likes. A bit of shouting at the virgin peeps and they offered to come today between 4 and 7 to fix it. I was praying they would be here by 4 so I could get on with things and planned my day accordingly. I was going to find a problem crowbarring some exercise in, especially if they were late, so fingers crossed. Then I had a txt from HWMBT saying the man was coming early! So I hotfooted (drove) home and got here just before he did. To be fair, he seemed to know what he was doing and had us up and running pretty quickly, which gave me time to get to my scheduled exercise. Friday is swim day. Now slow is not the word for my swimming and I'd let it go for sometime and was building up again. I decided to go for the 1K all in one go, something I've not done for quite sometime. The most challenging thing about this is counting! I usually divide the swim into 100m, this meant 10 x 100m, so I doggedly swam and counted - 1of 1 2 of 1 .........all the way up to 10 of 10. I may have lost concentration at one point because suddenly  I couldn't remember if it was 2 of 8 or 4 of 8, to be sure, I made it 2 of 8. All in all 1K in 33.33 (satisfying in one way cos the numbers are so neat).

Now I'm sneezing and sniffling away, but feeling ok with myself.

I called into M+S and had a cheating tea of chicken curry, I cooked the chicken, Messrs M+S supplied the curry and the rice ☺