Kelly's World

Oh boy, I let it all creep up on me again. Deadlines, weight, lack of fitness etc. I think I blinked back in June and suddenly I find myself in September wondering where the time went. Guess it’s time to pull that boomerang finger out, and get on top of it all again.

Deadlines:

In 6 days I have my next uni assignment due and I haven’t started it yet. I’m going to start it tonight.

In 9 days I will be flying to Rockhampton to stay on-site at uni for 4 days for residential school, where each day we attend lab class and do some cool experiments. Except that in preparation for res school I need to have done my pre-prac assessments and read up on each of the experiments we’ll be doing. This will be started as soon as my assignment has been completed, and thankfully I had the foresight to take the day off before I head north, so I can spend all day preparing then as well.

My Project 365 updates are months behind, but uni takes priority at the moment so as soon as that’s all taken care of I’ll get back to doing more of those again.

My 52-in-52 project also has several updates owing. I need to tell you all about the cool things I’ve been doing, like visiting a winery, going to comedy club, reading a book in a park etc. I’ve been busy definitely, and have loads to share!

Weight:

I just saw a photo of myself with some of the Brisbane Roar players when they released the new uniforms, and was horrified. My face looks puffy, and it’s clear that I’ve been putting fat on while losing my muscle tone. Not happy, and need to fix that immediately! Time to fix up my bad eating habits yet again! P.S. I LOVE the new Brisbane Roar uniforms.

Theo, myself, Danielle & Roary

Lack of fitness:

I’ve been playing netball again, and I do personal training sessions on Saturday mornings so it’s not that bad really, but I’m not happy. I should be running every day, and if I really want to have some good results in the triathlon I’m planning on doing in November I need to get cracking. Thus this week I’m going to resume riding my bike to/from work as well as aiming to run 3 times a week (I’d like to do more but I’m going to give myself a little bit of a space so I can have a day off if needed) and I’m also getting back into the swimming starting one day a week. The lifesaving season starts back again in a fortnight too, so I need to make sure I’m in tip-top shape for that (this year I’m the First Aid officer for our group too, so I need to go back and revise everything I learned there so that no one dies on the beach because of me).

Call it winter fat, call it general laziness, but whatever it is I don’t like it. The motivation to succeed and the fire in my belly is back. Time to win!

So, I’m currently sitting around the corner from my personal trainer’s house waiting for the clock to count down because I have arrived a little early. It turns out I’m now doing the training myself. Of the other two girls that were going to do the training with me, one decided she couldn’t do it due to many other commitments she had, and her sister didn’t want to do it without her.

So it’s just me. Yikes.

The scary thing about being alone with a trainer is that it means you can’t cheat. They’re solely focused on you, and no one else. There’s no looking away. They can identify the minute you slacken off and will call you out on it. For your long term fitness progression, it’s perfect. It means you get fitter faster. For your short term pain levels, it’s terrible.

Wish me luck.

*************************************************

So it’s post session, and it was a great workout. My arms are going to be sore by the end of the day, and I must admit I’m disappointed in how little upper body strength I have. Lower body held up great, and my running was good. I ran better on the treadmill than both the trainer and I expected I think. All up it was probably about 15 – 20mins on the treadmill, and something similar to that on his road bike (which was set up on a rotating wheel thing so that it could be used as a stationery exercise bike – awesome contraption).  Then some time doing all the arm exercises, and a bit of chatting

My fears were realised though – I definitely didn’t have any chance to slacken off. Yet it wasn’t as bad as I thought, and I found I was much better at pushing myself than when I used to do personal training.

I have 7 weeks until the triathlon, and if I really want to nail this thing I’m going to have to apply myself nearly every single day of every week in the lead up (rest days are required of course). I need to be cycling nearly every day, swimming twice a week, and running as often as I can. I need to eat properly, and give my body the fuel it requires. I need to pay attention and make sure I don’t slacken off. I need to keep motivated.

I need to push myself to do the very best can.

7 weeks. Here I come.

It’s only just past lunch time, and right now I feel like going to the bottle shop, buying a bottle of wine and cracking it open. Anyone care to join me?

How I'm feeling right about now

Notable moments from today thus far:

1. Having a horrific night’s sleep, averaging one or two hours here and there interrupted by stomach pain and insomnia. A bit of entourage on the tv in my bedroom helped to pass the time, but today my eyes are pretty dry and sore.
2. Going for my first proper run in over a month (I’ve been sick with bronchitis thus running was out of the question) and barely making 2 – 3mins of continuous running before getting a super painful stitch and having to stop. This doesn’t bode well for the 14km run I’m doing on the weekend, and going off the time from this morning’s run it would take me over 2 hours to do the City 2 Surf. I’m going to be running every day in the lead up hoping to remind my lungs how to breathe, and will pray that I’m better come Sunday.
3. Getting into the office, rebooting the computer and after troubleshooting for an hour with the tech determining the hard drive died. Then spending several hours with the bosses discussing whether I get a replacement hard drive, new computer altogether or if they send me one of the free laptops sitting in the office. All I asked for was a new hard drive – it didn’t have to become so complicated! I was on their suggestion that I look at getting a new machine, and when I sent through prices they freaked out. Um…it was YOUR idea fellas, how much did you think a new tower would cost?! (FYI – the agreed on a new hard drive finally).

On the plus side, a friend I haven’t seen in a while just rang and we organised to go to the movies tonight (I was meant to study but I think I deserve a night off after the start to the day that I’ve had) so there’s some good news at least. I know my day could be a lot worse, and I guess the lack of sleep is what is making everything else particularly painful.

Still, I wonder what this afternoon has in store for me.

My god my life has become busy. I’ve been telling my friends that it’s lucky that I’m single at the moment since I doubt I would even have time for a relationship, but that’s probably a defense mechanism, and me being in denial. However, there’s no denying that my life truly is crazy busy at the moment.

Take this week’s schedule for example, starting on the Saturday just gone:

Saturday: Volunteer work at Future Music music festival

Sunday: 5km International Women’s Day fun run in Brisbane, drive back to Sunshine Coast, check out possible share house

Monday: Kayaking at 5am with my dad, work by 8am until 4pm, depending on the state of my arms after the mornings event I wanted to go to the pool, this may be changed.

Tuesday: Run in the morning, work by 8am until 4pm, twitter meet up in Mooloolaba that night

Wednesday: Swim in the morning, work by 8am until 4pm, lifesaving theory training 6 – 8pm at the surf club

Thursday: Run in the morning, work by 8am until 4pm, chemistry study at night

Friday: sleep in, work 8am until 4pm, swim in the afternoon

Saturday: chemistry study, exercise rest day

Sunday: Lifesaving training at the beach 8 – 11am, straight to Brisbane for the A-League grand final, expected late night

Monday: day off from work, recovery

It hurts my head just looking at it all, and I believe there’s going to be a couple of other days there when I go kayaking with Dad, in which case whatever exercise I had planned for the morning will be getting swapped to the afternoon. If I can convince myself to do some sort of a work out on Saturday there’s a chance that I could use the next 2 weeks as my “work out every day for 2 weeks” challenge on my list of 52 items…but I daresay I will be looking forward to resting my weary body. If I can keep my diet and exercise up though, I’m pretty sure I’ll drop the final 1kg to make my goal weight (and get my reward of a brand new Brisbane Roar jersey).

I also changed the plan from looking at a share house this afternoon (Sunday) to looking at it tomorrow after work. This afternoon I got home, had a nap, then went shopping with my friends. I ended up buying one really nice top, which I only bought after my friend insisted I try it on. I really liked it, so got it (thanks Paige for finding it). It’s quite girly and not something I’m used to, but the colour looked good and I guess I’m starting to become happier with my figure again. Still some weight to go yet though! I also still need to buy some more bottoms though, since I”m now down to only having two pairs of jeans, one pair of cargo pants and one pair of boardshorts that fit. I also occasionally wear a camo skirt but it’s too big, and you can tell. I definitely need to invest some time and money into my wardrobe, so looks like I’ll be hitting the shops on my day off on Saturday.

Tonight I took some time out to do some more chemistry study and managed to finish week 1 off, so everything uni is wise is up to date – hooray! Now I’m going to go fill up the bath tub and soak luxuriously in some hot water while reading my book. Bliss!

Note – while I am incredibly busy, and I have no one else to blame but myself for getting into this predicament, I have to say that I LOVE IT. Why sit on your bum at home when you can be out enjoying the things that life has to offer?

Ever since we’d bought Mat some awesome new cross trainers for netball and the gym, I’d been highly jealous. I love new things (yet go out of my way to get them rarely) and it had been a year and a half since I’d purchased a new pair of trainers for myself. But, I’d promised myself I would be patient, and only buy a pair when necessary.

Then I was rewarded. The sides of my shoes opened to form a gaping hole for the side of my big toe, and a new pair of shoes because a necessity rather than a want. I waited until pay day, then no sooner had the clock struck 5pm and I had finished work for the day that I was headed out the door to Rebel Sports.

I thought I would be just doing the exact same as what I’d done back at the start of 2007. Look at the Asics Netburner range, look for the most expensive, and somehow convince myself expensive meant great (although my last shoes WERE pretty awesome). But this time I had an additional requirement – they had to be good for running too. So through the process of evolution I now needed a pair of x trainers, not just shoes to be used exclusively for netball. This whole area was new for me, I was in foreign territory.

I consulted with the footwear assistant on my dilemma. He confirmed running shoes were out, as were netball shoes. Then he got technical, which I’d never had before. I stripped for him (just my shoes – get your mind out of the gutter!) and paraded up and down the catwalk, I mean, store, in just socks. At first I was comfortable with it, but then during later discussions I decided I was never doing that again. He had observed everything I hate about my feet.

He pointed out that:

1. I have extremely wide feet at the front
2. I have a normal sized heel; and
3. Therefore I don’t have a normal shaped/size woman’s foot.

I asked if that meant I should be looking at men’s shoes, and he said while they had other women that did that (and I could if I wanted to) he thought I should still aim for the women’s shoes, but that my range was now limited. By a lot. In fact, to 4 pairs of shoes out of the total store. I could have added more, but he echoed my thoughts when he said it’s not worth going for the cheap shoes – with footwear you truly are paying for quality.

My choices were limited to a pair of each of the following brands: New Balance, Brooks, Nike (although grudingly, he said they were more designed for fashion than for serious stability), and some other brand that was obviously not very good because I can’t remember it. Now I should confess here and say I’m a HUGE brand snob when it comes to my trainers. I’m usually a 3 brand girl – Asics, Adidas and Nike. And giving his pain in recommending the NIke, that one was out. The other one I can’t remember why I didn’t choose it, but it was out too.

Which left me with the New Balance and Brooks. I’ve always always always thought in my mind they were both crap brands. But I wanted new shoes, and was willing to give them a chance. We measured up my feet, where we found I also had a massive foot. 10 1/2 in women’s shoes, holy moly! He went out the back to get the sizes while I sat down with a foot complex.

He came back and explained he’d forgotten they didn’t have 1/2 size shoes when you get up to the 10′s and so on with women’s shoes, so it was 10 or 11. I tried on the size 10 of the new balance (purple and very girly) and found my toe was touching the end, it was too small. Size 11 it was (FAR OUT!). Unfortunately they didn’t have a size 11 in the New Balance either, so if I didn’t like the Brooks then it was no go for me. I tried it on, and found that surprisingly it felt pretty damn good!

New Brooks x trainers

I went for a walk in it, he pointed out the benefits of the shoes, and I tried blocking out the brand and focusing on the feel. They were light, they felt supportive, and very very stable. I was sold, and was more keen than ever to replace my current shoes with this new pair. He escorted me up the front where I paid for them (scoring a 5% discount courtesy of my gym membership thank you very much) and made my way home. As I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve actually been wearing the shoes and occasionally looking down at them. There’s just so much silver!!

The technology section on the Brooks site sounds pretty impressive. MoGo etc etc. On the back of the shoe (you can’t really see it in that picture) is a bit of plastic that has the words “HydroFlow” on it. I couldn’t find anything on the internet, but on the label it says the shoe has a “Patented silicon-based system engineered to dampen shock at impact. Dynamically disperses fluid around the heel (huh?! Cool!). Never wears out, outlives the life of the shoe). Wow!

So tonight I crossed a new path – I’ve shrugged off the brand snob label and giving a new brand a go. In just under an hour I’ll be playing my first game of netball in them, and will have to give you an update of how they went. I have a feeling I’ll be very very happy.