I do want a new Blog

I really think that I want to go back to using blogger as my main blog publishing base.

I think it is possibly more user friendly than wordpress nad it just integrates so brilliantly with everyone else (well nearly everyone else) I know who blogs.

That and things have changed now and it’s spring and I feel like a spring clean, and a freshen up and some bright colours – you can do that on blogger.

Decision made – and yes, yes I do want a new blog. So here is the address:

www.fitambition.blogspot.com

It would be great if you came and visited me over there!

Here comes the Sun

and that blog title was especially for Geoff because he likes song title blog post headings!

Today was my RDO and I have spent the majority of it outside in the georgous spring sun dosing up on Vitamin D. After taking myself to coffee at a local coffee shop (bepe’s @ the Belconnen markets) I bought a big bottle of water and some grapes and took myself to a Lakeside park at lake Gininderra and soaked up some sun for a while, while I was reading notes for my assignment. It truely is a georgous day here in Canberra today.

After that I headed to the shops for some retail therapy and bought some tops and a necklace. I am really into black and white at the moment. Well, wearing either a black or white top with denim on the lower half and then dressing it up with a funky necklace for something interesting.

I found a beautiful pair of shoes in Myer that really go well with my plain yet not theme. They are patterned in a coral and white colour scheme. I quite like them!

Next on my list of things to buy are some of these funky resin necklaces like this:

Which is from Polka Luka. The green is nice but I would really like something along these lines in fuschia.

I have also been getting strong desires to buy a new Duvet cover, linen and towels to better match the decor of our new house. The master bedroom has a light grey carpet and navy curtains. I am thinking of going along the lines of slate grey, navy and white and so far have found a few nice things.

I really want to make an inspiration board to help me conjure up creativity – but that too will have to wait until we have moved in. Only  a few more weeks to go!

Honey Honey

 

I just found this great new product on the shelves at woolies. Awesome for when you want just the perfect portion of honey to squeeze into your tea or for on your cereal.

At just 99KJ per squeezy tube – it is something you can definitely afford for a natural sweet treat addition to your diet!

Lazy Sunday

After a short sleep in this morning until 7:30 (I can’t believe that I consider that a sleep in now!) we were up and out for our 7km lap of the Lake with the black Labrador.

I find the lake lap quite challenging if we are walking at a bit of a pace. By the time we get towards the end I am usually feeling fatigue in my legs and defniitely am getting sore feet. I need new shoes because my well worn Mizuno’s have done more than 1000kms and are due for replacement. I am going to buy a pair of proper walking shoes with a bit better support though because I dont want to get a pair of $200 running shoes to waste them on walking.

The plan for this week is to get in 3 x 40 minute walks in the mornings before work. I am aiming for Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday mornings this week. Walking in the morning motivates me to keep the pace strong because I have a limited time frame in which to complete the walk.

I didn’t get to my leg strength session this afternoon because I was trying to combat staying awake and finishing an assignment. The staying awake didn’t win and I found myself having an afternoon nap at around 3 pm.

I have been stocking up on Luxury cosmetic items while I still can and this afternoon I found myself on Strawberrynet buying a salon sized Dermalogica cleanser, and two lipsticks. Internet shopping is sooo dangerous!

When Abs were a distant memory…..

I think that the majority of us forget just how often we use our Abdominal muscles in everyday life.

I for one hate training abs and I used to justify not doing any ab work because I told myself that I ran and that was good enough.

Now that I am pregnant, I am starting to really appreciate just how much I use and need my ab muscles to do everyday things.

Looking in the mirror ,all I can see are the faint outlines of where my Rectus Abdominus muscle used to meet the external obliques – but I reckon I’ll only have that for one more week.

I’ve been feeling a lot of weakness in my glutes and hamstrings in the past couple of weeks, so I have been making an effeort whenever the opportunity presents itself to walk up a hill. Today we did the lap of Lake Ginninderra which is about 7km, but instead of staying on the path like we normally would, we took a bit of a detour through the bushland and up over a hill. Boy did I notice the lack of ability to engage my abs as I walked up the hill! I want them back! But alas that wont be happening for at least 6 – 7 more months I think

Once I recover from the birth I am definitely not going to neglect my abdominal muscles by not training them anymore – no matter how boring I find training them. I think that I will also be focusing on bringing my glutes and hamstrings into line with my quads – because now that my centre of gravity has changed – I am really noticing the weakness in that area.

I do realise that I can do small things still to work on the glutes problem at least a little. I think I am going to try and do a little bit more walking than I have been doing – especially now that it is getting warmer and lighter. I think I will also try to incorporate some body weighted squats  and walking lunges in during the week to at least try and keep some of the strength that I have still got. I was very pleased to notice today that I still have enough flexibilty to put my palms flat on the ground when I bend over – keeping my legs straight.

So – on that note – the plan for tomorrow is another lap of the lake with the hill thrown in for good measure. and 3 x 15 x Walking lunges, and 3 x 12 x Squats.

Worldly Advice

My running coach in Canberra  (when I am actually running) keeps all of his followers up to date with coaching, his runs and results via his blog. He also has wise words for his followers and today his words were particularly pertinent.

Link to his blog here if you want to read on:  Speedy Geese

I think the underlying meaning to his message is applicable – no matter what goal or sporting event you are working towards. To go anywhere towards meeting your goal in the long run (LOL – no pun intended – and if you want to know what I mean then you will need to go and read his blog post!) – then a establishing a good base is essential.

When I was training for the half marathon earlier this year – I initially hated the Long Slow runs on the weekend – more than anything because they completely shattered me for the remainder of the day. By the time I got towards the business end of the half marathon training I had come to really enjoy my long runs both because I was able to measure my increasing fitness on a week to week basis, I was able to see a noticeably different weight drop on the weeks that I did a long run (especially as they got really long) and I learnt that I knew I would be able to make the distance of the half purely because I could be out running for that period of time.  It was a confidence builder for my running all around, and that in itself spurred me along to training each week. I also figured out that if I ran in the afternoons – I wasn’t quite so shattered and I could still have a productive day!

But I think that the between the lines advice to take from Geoff’s post today is to ease into any new program or goal slowly, and allow for your body and your psyche to adapt to the new routines and programs.

Look back on your progress each week and congratulate yourself for even the smallest achievements – and make sure that you give yourself credit for those small achievements. And if you think just getting out of bed on a cold morning is not an achievement in itself – then you are dreaming because that is probably the biggest achievement.

At the same time as celebrating the small achievements – don’t over analyse your training and look for areas where you might improve marginally – because that is where negative self talk and criticism start to creep in and eat away at your good work. The old adage that goes – If it’s not broken don’t fix it applies to lots of different areas of life.

I think the biggest part to take away from Geoff’s post is this paragraph:

Have a long term view, and have a plan and stick to it – realise you cannot do everything, so work towards only one goal at a time. That means that you must decide in advance what your running goals and priorities are, which is why discussion with a coach and on-going feedback is important.

Strong Focus. Small steps. Sticking to the long term plan. and Celebrating achievements – all of these things have gotten people to great places.

Sometimes the Keep it Simple Stupid approach really is the best.

On another note about interesting blogs – I am sure that you have all gotten to have a read of Sam’s blog post from yesterday BUT if you have food issues and you haven’t then I strongly suggest you do!

While I haven’t competed in Figure competitions – I did struggle with dieting for about 3 years before I started to get anywhere. When I did start to get places it was because I had stopped “Dieting” and started eating good, fresh healthy foods. Sure they were in smaller portion sizes and they definitely had a more balanced ration of protein to carbs and fat BUT I wasn’t what I would consider restrictive at all. When I ate yoghurt – I didn’t usually car if it was full fat or No- fat.  Same with milk in my coffee or on my cereal.

I didn’t weigh out every portion to the Nth degree – but I learn’t what a ‘portion’ size for the meal I was consuming should look like and I went with that.

I didn’t eat different meals to my husband at dinner time – but I did fill both our meals with lots of Veggies and make them nutritious and healthy. I just had a smaller portion than him – and if he wanted to have ice cream afterwards then he did – and I usually didn’t. Mainly because I realised that if I wanted to get to my goal then no Ice cream was a sacrifice I had to make.  Although I did  have it occasionally – perhaps even once a week (Paddle pop  miniz are a godsend!)

It wasn’t easy, I still had to spend an hour every sunday doing meal planning for the week ahead and a little bit of food preparation – but in doing that I made it easier on myself during the times that I was too busy to really think hard about meals and food.

I never felt deprived or like I was missing out  (except when my friends were eating pizza – but I think that I often caved in when that happend).

Like Sam now that I am not actively trying to lose weight – I am pretty much eating what I feel I need to nourish my body and the baby that needs nutrients to  grow. I don’t get cravings for Maccas or want to eat an entire cake or go on a massive binge like I did when I was “Dieting” back in the early days.

Our bodies are amazing things when we listen to what they need.

Oh My! I am Slack!

I find it really difficult to blog about things when I don’t have an athletic focus.

This past week has been a bit full on as well and blogging has really been the last thing on my mind.

Mark’s mum had the operation last Tuesday and all is not well. They found a lot of metastatic cancer in her liver and general abdominal area and the surgeon decided to close her back up and not go ahead with the originally planned Oesophagectomy. So the prognosis now is not good and we can do nothing really but be there for her and support her in the decisions that she has to make over the coming months. The question we face now is to have Chemo or to not have Chemo – my thoughts are that we need to determine the true benefit that chemo will give her before she makes any decisions. 

It is such a tough ethical decision – when Chemo makes you sick and feel awful – but you feel relatively OK when you aren’t having it and have some good days and some bad – if Chemo is only likey to buy you an extra few months – is it really worth it? My thought are no – but other people often think that it is better to do everything humanely possible to prolong life as long as possible.

I have decided to support her in her decision whatever she chooses – even though I know that will be difficult for me to do – all we can do is do the best we can to make sure she feels loved and cared for.

Baby has been having a growing week this week and I have been a little uncomfortable on top of all the stress and tears.

Between going back and forward to the hospital for both work and visiting, I have been trying to finish off two assignments – argh! This is my final semester of Uni and I am finding it difficult to be motivated amongst all of the other things that are going on.

We are going to sign the contract on our house this afternoon! Yay!!

Green Tea and Dishwater

When I first discovered I was pregnant, one of the things that highlighted me to the fact was that i found that my standard daily cup of green tea had started to taste like dishwater. Now I found this rather dissapointing because I would usually drink at least two – if not three cups of green tea a day.  Up until now – I have been a little reluctant to give it another go – mainly because I don’t much like dishwater.

Mark has been taking green tea to work because his work doen’t have a fridge yet and he can’t have tea with milk – this morning I stole some of his tea and thought I was ready to give it another go.

I am very glad I did because it tastes totally normal again! Yay!

On to another topic….

I am what I would consider a half environmentalist/greenie. I like to do what I can here and there – but I am not by any means an extremeist. With all the harsh chemicals around today I was thinking of using a more environmentally friendly Washing Powder, Diswahing liquid etc once we move to our new place – and hopefully setting up some good Grey water systems to funnel the water freom the washing machine at least into the Garden. I am also thinking that it will be better for the baby to not be exposed to quite so moany chemicals.

Another thing I am dabbling with the idea of is using Modern fitted Cloth nappies. Even if only for part of the time such as when we are at home.  It is a tough call to make because there are lots of good arguments both for and against cloth vs. disposable nappies. I have to admit that one of my main drivers is cost. Over the course of the time the baby will need nappies I can see us spending alot of money on disposables – especially considering that a standard pack of 80 costs around  25 – 30 dollars and a newborn will go through around 12 – 15 a day – the costs will really add up over the years. Where as with the cloth nappies – sure there is a little more work involved with washing and cleaning them, and there is a bigger initial outlay BUT I can see it saving us a fair bit in the long run. Especially considering they will be reusable when we have a second child. I am still in the very early stages of my research but I am definitely going to cost it all out and do a cost benefit analysis. The brand I am looking at is www.babybeehinds.com.au – they are adjustable in size and apparently will fit “Most” babies from Newborn through to when they are toilet trained.

I also went out pram shopping yesterday and the more I look the more I think that I am going to need both a stroller and a more rugged three wheeler. I intend to do a fair bit of walking and hopefully some light jogging as well and for that I need a fairly rugged pram that can handle a bit of a beating. But the Baby Jogger one that I am in love with has a very wide wheel base and isn’t the best for trying to maneuver around the shops – and we all know how much I like to shop. ChonGirl over at www.chicmums.com posted about the Silver Cross “Dazzle” stroller a few weeks ago and I fell in love. Considering that we will be saving money on a lot of other things that we don’t have to get due to handmedown’s – I think that I am going to have to have a bit of  a splurge.

I have made a new friend down here recently and she is not only 38 weeks pregnant and about to pop anyday – but she is also a naturopath and I have been picking up a few interesting tidbits from her about different organic foods etc. She put me onto this awesome Organic Soy milk – which has to be the tastiest Soy I have ever had. Unfortunately I only know what the packet looks like but I am going to look out for it when I am out and about. She also put me onto using Organic tea and coffe – and I really can taste a huge difference in the flavour. Now if only I could bring myself to actually eat my 2 and a half cups of Veggies and 2 serves of fruit a day. Hmmmnnn…

I’m thinking that my blog is going to be less marathon oriented and more Infinity oriented for the next 6 months – so I hope that not too many of you get bored and decide to  tune out!

I will attemt to take a belly pic sometime over the weekend. By the afternoons I look very obviously pregnant now and I kind of like it!

Bits and Bobs

Ah – the weeks just seem to fly by don’t they?

Last week put put in an offer on a house here in Canberra and it was acepted – so YAY!! Now we have a house. I am a bit happy about the fact that it has a pool for me to swim in in Summer. It is a bit silly that I probably never would have had a pool in Qld and here you can only use it for half the year – but Oh well! I am  positive that it will be very useful when I am heavily pregnant in the middle of summer.

So one month until it settles and then we can start to move in. I will post pics after it has settled – just in case anything changes in the meantime.

Today Mark’s mum has gone in to have her operation to remove the Oesophageal Cancer. It is a 6 hour operation and then it is likely she will be in ICU for two – maybe three days afterwards.  We have been told that she will be in hos[pital for somewhere between 10 days and three weeks. She is such a strong independent lady – I think it is going to be so difficult to see her have all that taken away from her for a little while. To be honest i am not really looking forward to when she comes home from hospital – I think that is when the hard work for us will really begin. I hope that they have a good home nursing service here in Canberra. BUT I know that once she starts to heal – that she has a very good chance of beating this cancer so that is what we are looking towards.

I had a bit of a happy moment the other night when I was watching some of the track and field at the athletics. I realised that after the baby is born and I am able to start getting back into it and regaining my fitness – I will be turning 30 in march next year. You might wonder why this is important in the grand schemem of fitness related thoughts BUT it means that I will be old enough to participate in the Masters Athletics events – which means that I can do the Masters Track and Field season at the end of 2009 – that made me very happy. While I don’t mind the long hard slog of 21 Km – I much prefer my running events to be shorter than 3 km – preferably shorter than 1500mts – and involving jumping etc.

That made me very happy.

I also discovered an excellent jogging track near our new house – which also made me happy. The only gym nearby that has a childcare facility doesn’t actually do any of the Les Mills classes – which means sadly – no RPM. I’m not sure if I will even bother joining But I also know that I will definitely need to spend a solid six months regaining all of the strength that I am slowly losing. I already know that I hope to participate in the Gold Coast Half marathon next year  – but I will have to think about the gym thing for a little longer I think.

Friday Already!

This week has just flown past so quickly!

I have been super busy at work and at home. Work has just gone through the roof this week and with Ob/Gyn appointments and houses to inspect it has gone so quickly.

I was really happy yesterday because I had a massive day at work with lots of running around, I barely got a chance to sit down and eat lunch. After work we had to go and have a second look at a house that we were going to put an offer in on. Then last night I had to make morning tea for work today  – I made pumpkn scones and toffees. By the time I fell into bed I was exhausted but as I was lying there I felt quite proud of myself – because two weeks ago I would have collapsed in a heap and not have made it through a day like that.

I am definitely starting to look more pregnant now – my abdoment is starting to take on the right shape and my normal clothes are fitting me less and less.

Hopefully by the end of today we will be signing the contract on our new house in Canberra. It has georgous views of the brindabella mountains and it has a pool – which will be lovely in summer!

Once we have finalised the deal I will post some pictures.