Exercise!

Speaking of exercise (the last post on the dance...), I have started jogging again.

I only ever jogged at the beginning of this year to prepare for the Round the Bays (see relevant posts). However, I did get fitter than I have been, and I quite enjoyed it. I also like the feeling of being a bit fit, rather than a bit blobby. Since the days have started getting lighter I though I'd fit in a few jogs (or brisk walks at least!!).

Now, motivation...
This is always a good question: what's going to motivate me to keep this (good habit, whatever it is) up?

I have bought a sheet of holographic smiley stickers - and when I do some exercise (like a run, or a longish walk, or DANCING!), I get to put a sticker in my diary!! Good one eh?

We'll see how this idea goes....

Family Dance at Church

Our church held a family dance last night, which we went to. They had sections of Scottish, Irish and Assyrian dancing during the evening, demonstrated then all joined in. Good fun, and quite energetic!

I had been at a playcentre meeting all day (for the federation Promotions Team, which I am Media Officer for), so I arrived late, and in street clothes and shoes. I would really have done better in a skirt and dance shoes. It was on carpet too, which isn't the best for dancing. Still, all good fun, and a fundraiser supper for the community youth group at the flats across the road too.

Soccer

It's the first day of term now, but we have had some lovely times playing with the big kids over the holidays. (Apart from the shocking weather last week, of course!)

In a gap in the weather last week we got out to the school playground, and took some balls to kick around. Eva and Elanor spent ages on soccer. Lot of running and retrieving, and a good sleep in the afternoon too!

Walk to the Windmill

This morning I went on a school trip, walking to our local wind turbine. This was with Sophie's syndicate - 108 kids, 4 teachers, a handful of parents and 3 dogs. It took us about 50 minutes, uphill all the way, and was fine except for the last 5 minutes which was a bit steep! (Brutal actually.) Beautiful view when you get there though. I hadn't walked it before. I think that counts for my exercise for today and at least one other day as well.

By the way, you can see our house if you know where to look.

Round the Bays Photos

They have finally got the photos from the Round the Bays funrun up on the web. These are commercial photos and can't be saved to disk, so I can't put on the blog, but you can see me finish at this link. I don't know how long these links will work, but they are good today.

Bernard is here.

Sophie is here.

Jerusha is here.

Round the Bays 3

Well, what a gorgeous day was turned on for the run! Overcast at first (which keeps the heat down), with the lightest breeze. By the time we had been going 20 minutes the clouds cleared, but I had the sun behind me at that stage, so, perfect. I really appreciated the water station at the 3.5k mark, and several people were spraying their hoses across the road to cool people down, which was also really good. (A fire engine was doing the same thing at one point.) One of the houses along the way has a patio over a street-front garage, and a small live band was up there singing and playing over loud speakers.

It was quite exciting being is such a large crowd (about 11,000 people). Bern was ahead (he ran the first 1/2 of the course before his first walking break), and Sophie and her friend Jerusha were behind me after the first 1k or so. I found a good strategy was to choose a person and let them set the pace, and if I needed to have a walk, I would just choose someone else when I was ready to run again. There was one guy who carried two plain blue flags the whole race. I guess he was with a group, but he was very useful to me as he was going at about the right pace, and was very visable. Sometimes I would be behind him, and just keep up; sometimes I would be ahead for a while, and he would pass me while I had a walk. I think I finished the course just ahead of him.

At the end we were given water and bananas. The girls came in a bit later, and we missed them in the crowd, so we spent over 1/2 an hour looking for them. Lots of entertainment, food stalls, etc at the park at the end. It would be really good to be with a big group, and there were lots of corporate groups. We saw a few people we knew. We queued for the free sausages and then queued for the free bus back to the start point (where we'd left the car).

And my time? I was aiming to make the 7km in 60 minutes. The times will be confirmed in tomorrow's paper, but on arrival I was told I'd done about 46 minutes. I was stoked! (This might vary depending on how long it took for me to reach the start line after the hooter.)

Round the Bays 2

Only one week to go until the event. We just went on a 6km walk/jog around the waterfront. The total length of the course is about 7 kilometres. What we have done is drive the course and work out a landmark for each ½ k mark. Then we park the car at one point, walk/jog a known number of ½ k’s and then back to the car. For me and Sophie, a brisk walk is 10 minutes per kilometre. I’m up to walking ½ k and jogging for ½ k. I was pleased with the time we made tonight, but a shame about the headwind that came up on the way back.

It was really nice coming round a point and seeing the fountain quite a long way off and watching it as we ran toward it. We also watched a cargo ship being guided into port by a couple of red tugs, and there are other joggers and dog walkers of course. Quite a few people have fishing rods (often more than one per person), and they seem to have buckets so I suppose they are catching fish, though I haven’t stopped to ask anyone.

Round the Bays

One of my new year's resolutions was to "exercise more". Given that I was starting from a reletively low base last year (not even as much walking as usual), this has been quite achievable so far. I've been going for a brisk walk every other day, and adding in a bit of jogging too.

I've decided to do the Round the Bays walk/run on the 18th. If you haven't seen it, go here. Bern is doing the "run" version and Sophie and I are doing the walk. Though, to achieve my time goal I'll need to put some jogging in too. It's a bit of a chore training round here though. Any direction we go in involves a stiff hill at some point - often just before getting home again! My 'brisk walk' today was down the hill to town - 35 minutes at lunchtime. The bus took care of the hill climb. :-)