A week of strange happenings

...in which odd things have occurred

You may (or may not, depending on how often you read the blog and how much notice you take of it)  remember that back in June, our younger son's scooter went missing when the Elder Teen left it in the park while we were at the beach.

This week it turned up out of the blue; some of the younger teen's friends saw someone on it, asked him where he'd got it (apparently he'd just found it) and brought it back to us. Since we've claimed insurance we have to pay that back (but not all of it, which was a bit of a surprise...insurance companies being reasonable and quite nice is a new one on me).

Our kettle (which had stopped working for no apparent reason a couple of weeks ago) started working again (also for no apparent reason); since I'd had to buy a new kettle we now have a spare one (we like the old one because it has a filter in it).

The oddest thing that happened though was probably Wednesday. Amy, who is doing 53 marathons on 53 consecutive days was in town. She's from a local village, so I thought I would go along and support her by running with her for part of the route around the town (along with some other folks, including a lady from the Slimming World group I go to).

I don't have much work on at the moment (if anybody needs a contractor to write C# for them please feel free to get in touch), so I had most of the day free; I originally intended to run until around 11, when we would get to my daughter's school. I'd run 9.5 miles last Sunday, and that was supposed to be around the 10 mile mark, so I was pretty confident that I could do that; I had to drop Princess Bubblegum off at school and only had about 15 minutes to get to the start, so I ran up there to be on time.

So...somehow I didn't quite stop at my daughter's school. I didn't stop when we got to Whittington either (although I didn't know how far we'd run at that point)...and then just after Whittington someone said we'd just passed the half-marathon mark. By now I'd made friends with another runner and we were running together, and neither of us wanted to stop, although we were both quite surprised to hear that we'd gone quite that far.

Somehow, even though neither of us usually runs more than 10 miles, we carried on to West Felton (where Amy was interviewed by the BBC at her old school) and then back to Oswestry....at this point it was around 2:30PM and I had to stop and pick the daughter up from school (and my running partner had given up and got into the pace vehicle, but she'd made it to 20 miles). 

I worked out later than I had run a total of around 21 miles (including the run up to the start point and the runs around the various school fields with school kids); I'm pretty sure I could have made it to the end of the full thing if I'd had the time though.

This was more than a little surprising, since the furthest I'd ever "run" before was the Reading half marathon, and I ended up walking probably about 5 miles of that (I was 4 stone heavier back then, after all, and I couldn't train properly); I was running all the way this time, although there were admittedly quite a few breaks for things like photos.

It definitely helped to be running with other people; I usually run alone, which gives me a chance to listen to music and get a certain amount of peace (in a house with 2 teenagers that's in short supply), but there was a lovely feeling of camaraderie about the event, even though a lot of us didn't know each other.

My legs still feel pretty good; I rested on Thursday and then went for a short (3.5 miles) run tonight; I'll be going to the gym tomorrow and aiming to run 10 miles or so on Sunday.

Of course, compared to Amy (who is on her 53rd and last marathon tomorrow (27th September 2014) in Manchester) 21 miles looks pretty unimpressive; but for me it was a major achievement.

In honour of this, and since it was Amy that inspired me to run so far, I have decided that I will run the Manchester marathon next year and will raise funds for the same cause that Amy is running for (the Isabelle Lottie foundation). 

If you'd like to donate to the foundation for Amy (and boy does she deserve it), you can find a BT giving page here: https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/53marathons

We have a barbecue (almost certainly the last one of the year) tomorrow with Saira and her VSO. Some innocent songs will no doubt be subject to sonic abuse again....

So near and yet so far...

...in which our intrepid hero is almost but not quite there.

It is Monday, and therefore it is weigh in day. I have lost a pound since last week. I am feeling a bit ambivalent about this. On the one hand, it's nice to lose any weight, and a pound a week is around my average; on the other hand I was really hoping to get to target tonight. I needed to lose 1 more pound to do that, so I am really, really close now.

Of course, the wine on Friday/Saturday (I can have alcohol again now) probably didn't help; one of my favourite Merlots is on offer in one of the supermarkets at the moment, so clearly it's a conspiracy to make sure I don't get to target too quickly. Those naughty supermarket people, tempting me with their fermented grape juice.

Other than alcohol, it's been a fairly good week food-wise. I've made a couple of things that I made up the recipe for on the spot with what we had in the fridge and they were pretty yummy (according to other people in the family too, not just me)! There was some cider on Monday as well as the wine and I had a couple of moments of weakness involving the kids' definitely-not-healthy leftovers, but I did keep under my allowed syns for the week.

Exercising is also going well. I went out for a pre-breakfast run on Sunday (powered by a single banana) and did 9.5 miles; this is the longest I've run since the half-marathon and I've recovered really quickly - I was a bit achy yesterday afternoon but that's hardly a surprise, and I was fine today - fine enough to go to the gym, even.

I'm intending to run a couple of 5 mile runs this week (hopefully one on Wednesday with Amy from http://www.53marathons.co.uk), and then do 10 - 11 miles on Sunday; if that goes well, then I will think about signing up for another half-marathon, but this time I'll do sponsorship and stuff.

I think these Sunday morning runs will be a regular thing now, at least as long as the weather stays good; I went out at 6:40 on Sunday, just as the sun was rising, and although it was chilly (which isn't much of a problem for very long when you're running) it was lovely to run in the slowly growing light. We live in quite a rural area and there was mist on the fields as I ran past, and as the sun rose it gave the mist a sort of pale gold glow on top.

There's a certain peace about the world at that time of morning too; a kind of silent anticipation of the new day, with all its possibilities. There's only you, and your thoughts, and the music, and the need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and it's a wonderful kind of solitude.

Sorry, got all poetic there for a moment. In other news, I had an interview today for a new contract; I have no idea how it went really, although I didn't feel as if I gave the best account of myself I could. Still, if this one doesn't work out there's plenty of others around (a contract is unfortunately a necessity in the next month or so).

Anyway, that's it for tonight....more may be forthcoming this week. Or maybe not till next week. Until then....

On the home stretch!

...in which the (probably) final target is so close I can taste it.

On Saturday we had Saira and G around for a barbecue (probably the last one of the summer). The wine flowed freely, and (as usual) a good time was had despite mine and Gary's insistence on creating as much noise pollution as possible via the medium of our guitars and voices.

So to help make up for the wine, on Sunday (despite the rather late finish on Saturday) I decided I would do a pre-breakfast 5-mile run; I'm told by people that know such things that if you run before you've eaten anything your body burns fat immediately rather than using up stores of carbs (the body stores carbs as glycogen and the body will burn this first during exercise if it has reserves of it. Apparently). 

I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate or not (there seems to be some debate on the Internet, but that's a bit like saying there's some discord between cats and dogs), but I did actually really enjoy running early in the morning and will probably do it again next week.

Since I'd also had cider last Monday I wasn't that hopeful for weigh-in yesterday; however, the run (plus 3 visits to the gym and runs on other days), along with eating sensibly the rest of the time, seem to have done the trick; I had lost 2 pound (0.9kg), which means that now I have just 2lb to lose to get to my new target of 11 stone 4lbs, so I'm really hopeful I'll get that next week. 

That will mean I'll have lost a total of 4 stone (yay! another sticker and certificate! I love those. No, you're a bit of a child at heart :P) in a little under 9 months; I haven't had to go hungry (I have had to eat sensibly, of course), and I'm really very impressed with the way Slimming World fits together so many strands of common sense into a single diet plan that's easy to follow, doesn't involve fiddly weighing or measuring and lets you eat loads and still lose weight.

This is also the last week of my platinum body magic award; that's 16 weeks of doing 150 minutes of exercise over 5 days. I have become the sort of person that has a fitness regime; I go to the gym for an hour every other day, do resistance and "core strength" (I'm not even sure what that is but apparently that's what I'm doing) workouts for 30 minutes and then 30 - 40 minutes of cardio (treadmill or elliptical, rowing machine, and exercise bike or cross trainer (Oxford comma seemed appropriate there)). 

So, with any luck I'll get a hat-trick of awards next week (4 stone off, target and platinum body magic). Go me! :)

On the days when I'm not in the gym I run (generally a minimum of 4 miles), and am aiming to get up to 10 miles by the end of this month (I've done a couple of runs that are close to 7 miles and been fine, and I'm planning an 8 mile run after lunch today. I usually have one rest day per week as that's all I feel I need right now.

And I feel good about it. There, I said it. I like being the sort of person that can run 5 miles without struggling. I like the feeling I get after exercise (not so much the feeling I get during it). I like the effect it has on my body. I'm not vain (I hope), but I like what I see when I look in the mirror now; I still have (very small) man-boobs and a bit of a tummy, but they're shrinking and slowly becoming more toned....I may do a topless before/after picture. If you're really unlucky ;).

On that rather horrendous thought I shall bow out for the week...till next time.