So the world didn't end, and I realise now I was totally remiss not to clean my house from top to toe and make a special visit to the boys bathroom left behind for people (sinners mostly) to comment on in case the rapture occurred and there was any kind of unclean activity in the bathroom area.  Anyway, all solved now until the actual real end of the world happens, which no one knows the date of so will just have to keep a toilet brush at the ready.....

Dare I even talk about my own run today?  Perhaps not.  I am, however, prepared to talk about my beetroot addiction. 

As you know, I have beetroot in some shape or form every day.  Shape or form mostly being juiced.

Today I tried roasting a beetroot in the oven.  It wasn't that nice.  A man in work swears by this recipe and to be honest I added my own flavour to it, but it wasn't really that nice.  So the plan was a bed of rocket, a roast beef, cooked rare and sliced finely, roasted beetroot sliced finely and a horseradish and cream sauce to dress.  The rocket, roast beef and horseradish sauce were all fab, but the roast beetroot was not great.  I wonder if I did something wrong, so if there are any beetroot roasting genius's reading this (and that is highly unlikely as I think I have a readership of two) could you please give me pointers.

I have been making my own beetroot and carrot juices and they have been amazing.  I am still totally addicted to beetroot juice, and I have never had clearer skin since I swapped my protein bars for vegetables.  Although sometimes my stomach doesnt know what to make of it all and I am able to leave silent but deadlies on the train at the very best moments, like when the fat smelly man sits down and opens his broadsheet newspaper right in my personal space whilst breathing yucky garlic over me......

Today 11km with Simon - it hurt.  Hip hurt, achilles hurt but I kept on.  Pleased with the run.  Then another 6.5km later today to pick up banjaxed car.  That really hurt.  By then achilles and hip had gone into protest mode.  Worried about tomorrows 26km trail run.......

IOMS

My dedication knows no bounds, and yesterday morning, yes, Saturday, I got up at 5.30am to meet Simon at the river at 6am to run.  This really has been my first flat road run in ages, up here it is impossible to find flat.  We did 11km and I ran much faster than usual (keeping up with Simon who has now become very fit).  I have had DOMS before, but I swear, I had IOMS (instant onset muscle soreness) afterwards!  The fronts of my thighs were burning!  So I did what any sensible woman would do and went back to bed for a few hours after the run.  This morning my legs felt like I'd run a marathon, so I took them, my hangover and the dog out for a 8km run which HURT - EVERYWHERE!!!

Last night I caught up with some girls I haven't seen for around 15 years.  We were all the "soccer wives" from way back when, and have lost contact over the years as life moves along.  Amazingly eye opening evening, hearing everyones stories.  One girl was a heroin addict for nearly ten years and basically lost 10 years of her life - can't remember a thing.   Another went through a marriage break up and moved cities.  Another had a daughter who played professional soccer and became a lesbian (I am not sure if I put that right - do you "become" a lesbian?) - another lost everything when her husband had an accident leaving him almost a paraplegic and unable to work again.  I think back on the last fifteen years and I have really been blessed.  Really lucky.  I might take the piss about the end of the world and all that but I am pretty certain there is someone up there taking care of me and for that I am very very grateful. 

1.7kg thanks to beetroot and tomatoes

So after feeling really really guilty because of Sundays pizza and wine (but hell, it was FUN!!!) I spent the week reminding myself at every given opportunity that my arse was way to big and only sensible food intake and careful choices would get me back on track. 

So - a couple of months ago I picked up a little book called Slim for Life.  Aspirational title.  Anyway reading it makes a lot of sense.  And it is stuff we all know.  Shit like sugar makes your legs go wobbly and crave more sugar.  Sugar is the devil.  Sugar is really the key to everything.  And starch, but to a lesser degree.  So this week I have devoured the labels of everything to assess sugar content.  And, result.  1.7kg off my rather rotund arse.  Actually I have no idea where it came from,  but it is gone. 

I am proud to say despite my 3 hours of train travel daily, the freeezy frosty temps and life in general, I have still managed to get out for three runs this week and plan two at the weekend, am meeting the HC tomorrow for a run early in the morning and will do my fave local trail run Sunday - so that is good and I have been doing weights at home just as an incidental thing - a few squats with the pump bar before my shower in the morning, a few bicep curls before bed, AND I HAVE DONE MY PHYSIO BUM EXERCISES EVERY DAY.  My bum is the key to everything.  My glute muscles, despite being FUCKING HUGE are really fecking lazy.  So Physio reckons if I "fire up" (his words) the glutes, I will stop getting injured.  So religiously doing exercises each night.  Sick of running with pain.  Looking back, I was soooo lazy when uninjured.  I should have done more when I could.  Anyway, according to the Zealots, tomorrow is the end of the world and we will all be either sent to hell or raptured up to heaven.  Personally, I don't classify myself as "The Meek" so I guess I know where I am going.  At least it will be warm.....
Until tomorrow......

Biosolids - putting me firmly off "out of the punnet" nibbling....

A mixture of a hangover, a gently nagging hip, a loudly complaining soleus and sub zero temps made this mornings run rather unpleasant, but even a totally crap run is better than no run at all and I arrived home with very pink cheeks, a runny nose and the radiant feeling that I might have made some kind of dent on last nights excess, not that I can remember much after the second bottle of red was produced from a bag under the table.  I do recall someone asking me to order a medium pizza rather than a small so we could share, and then quietly snorfing the lot of my own before anyone even got a chance to sample it.  Tonight Curtis advised me that upon returning home I proceeded to finish off his not very secret stash of mint chocolate and I found a half finished glass of vodka....so whatever good intentions I had at the weekend of eating clean and excercising and generally utilising more calories than I injested was an abject failure.  All that fecking porridge and brown rice was a total waste of time.

So - where are we this week?  Starting the week feeling the usual guilt at overindulging at the weekend and declaring the week to be DRY (again) and fruit, veggies and protein (and of course fecking porridge) to be the only thing to pass my lips. 

I might have to re-connect with my beetroot fixation, or at least find a veggie juice that isn't such a bright colour that could harbour clot like substances in it murky midst.  And all that guff in the papers about biosolids really put me off eating my Romatherapy Tomatoes straight out of the punnet.....

Chilly times

Despite the fact I am sitting her typing this in my undies, it is actually the worlds coldest day ever here in the FOOTHILLS of the Blue Mountains (god forbid should I refer to my place of residence as "The Mountains" - it's makes the REAL mountaineers very upset indeed.)  Anyway, up in the REAL mountains (as opposed to these pretend suburbs) it is currently SNOWING. 

Anyway, weekend training went much better after a visit to Mr Very Clever Physio Man - I managed 11km on Saturday and felt really good throughout the run, although I did stop and have a stretch halfway through.  Then Sunday I did the same 11km but didn't feel quite so good, but still a heap better than before my leg got put back where it belongs.  Then Monica and I did a 2.5hr hike up stairs and mountains and the like, so Monday was always going to be interesting, and yes, I do think I overdid it - but man - it was such BEAUTIFUL weather and sparkling sunny crispy days that you just HAVE to get out into.  Anyway, I have a new favourite spot.  It is a lovely little sun trap on a trail about ten minutes from home.  It overlooks a valley and you could literally be in the middle of nowhere, but it is five minutes from suburbia. 

The only thing about my new favourite spot is being a sun trap, I think the local serpents might also favour it, so need to be specially careful.

Life at the Oir Tee Aye continues to amuse, except today I have a horrid horrid experience, and one that may hinder my new found love of beetroot smoothies.  You can get a beetroot, carrot, celery and parsley juice made up on the spot, or you can buy an already made up one.  I have had such a longing for them, I have been buying two every morning.  I love them.  Correction.  I LOVED them.  Todays offering looked odd from the get go.  I opened the lid and there was like stringy membranes from the lid to the bottle.  Odd.  But I persevered.  I took a deep swig of my new favourite drink.  Well, you know the consistency of a juice.  It is viscous and watery and JUICY.  What I had in my mouth had the consistency of a blood clot.  It was like a took a swig and a whole lot more that was joined on to it made its way into my mouth.  A blood clot is the only thing I can think of to describe it.  It was truly horrible.  Both bottles went in the bin and I did a bit of half vomity carry on and had to have some chocolate to forget the sensation.  Urrrghhh.  Yucky poo poo.  So my love affair with juiced vegetables is well and truly over.  I couldn't even face my punnet of tomatoes this morning after the previous red food had been so revolting.  I am going to have to find a new gimmick and given that this is North Sydney, that probably won't be hard.....

Secret Squirrel

I wasn't all that thrilled when I realised my name could be googled and anyone could read my waffle here.  Especially when my name is all over official govt letters.  And I was taking the piss a bit of a certain Oir Tee Aye.  But I think I have fixed that now.  So I can get right back down to poking fun at them again.

Actually, I have been very very surprised by the sorts of people I am now working with.  I don't think I have seen one cardigan, let alone a grey one.  For the most part, everyone is lovely, committed to their jobs and are pretty relaxed whilst trying to juggle some real challenges.  I say 'for the most part' because there is an exception to every rule - isn't there, people who sent out the Kiki letters? 

So anyway, today I ran 11km!!!  And I didn't feel like my leg was attached around the wrong way which was sort of how it was feeling before.  The last few weeks I haven't stopped running, but certainly my normal 6.5km night time run felt like a freaking marathon because nothing was working right or in the right place.  Today felt so much better.  Not only was I manipulated and prodded and pushed back into shape, I also have my hips strapped up.  It looks very glamorous, I can tell you.  But it is "meant" to be holding them in the right place. It just looks like a home made tummy tuck.

The achilles did get sore and so did the hip, but I stopped and had a stretch and a listen to the birdies in the forest and it was ok.  I now have a fantastic optimistic feeling that everything is going to be ok.  All last week, because I was afraid I was going to end up the size of a house with no running, I ate more vegetables than I think I ever have in my life.  I have discovered beetroot, celery, parsley and carrot juice and there is a juice bar in the basement of our building.  So I am having two of them a day.  I think I am now addicted.  And for morning tea a punnet of little romatherapy tomatoes.  I am eating really well at night too and NO DRINKING.  Well, until last night when I found Johns stash of crunchies and despite having to climb up on a barstool and hang on to the top of the fridge, I managed to scale all obstacles and stuff two in my mouth. Well, it WAS Friday. 
So all in all, feeling much better about the possibility of maybe being able to train for something.  Chris in work showed me where the shower and lockers were and said I could come on a lunchtime run with him next week, so I am going to bring some stuff in and leave it there, so if I am having a quiet day (it does seem unlikely, but you never know) then I can sneak some exercise in during the day which would be FAB.  So on a scale of Madonna to Roseanne Barr I think I can say I am feeling lots more positive.

My physio is a genius

Went to see him about the dodgy hip.  He can "find" the strangest things, not sure what he was looking for, but he did mention "the vortex" - anyway he found a spot on my thigh and manipulated it until whatever was misbehaving was released.  He appeared to be putting my pelvis back in place with what looked like a seatbelt.  He did some other stuff and made me pull my knee up to my chest.  First time I did it before he did anything, it hurt on the hip.  The last time he got me to do it after doing all this manipulation, it wasn't sore.  Genius!!  Anyway, the hip is not fixed but the bits and pieces that were tight and making everything in the wrong place appear to be back where they should be (there is a spot on your bum cheek called your piriformis - he had a go at that - amazing the difference it made once "released".)  Anyway I think I need a good sports masseuse to do this sort of thing when I get tight and sore before it sends everything skew whiff. 
The plan going forward is to get my bum muscles working better and I have exercises for that, and stretches for the hip.  The only thing I shouldn't be doing is running down steep hills (think Mitchells Pass) otherwise I am good to do as much as I want.  Happy days.  Going to test it out right now!!!  One happy camper.

Trains

Those intercity trains should really have an overhead locker for people to put their bags in.  And perhaps a drinks cart after 5pm.  It would be great for Commuters (who now deserve a Capital C, as they demand a new respect from me, putting up with pushing and shoving and other peoples smelly breath and people taking both elbow rests and people kicking the back of your seat).