Sundays outfit. Do you like?

Predicted weather forecast for this Sundays 8km Run to raise money for MS awareness

• Showers
• Low of 9 degrees celsius
• High of 14.

May have to add my rain jacket to this mix.

Hurts so good.

Today was a double delight day. Physio and intervals on the treadmill - what more can I say. Today was Day 4 with Lisa and although it was still painful and I cringe at the thought of going through pain, I actually look forward to it. Alot more focus was placed on the area of impingement of the Peroneal Nerve. It is half way up the outer part of my lower leg and believe me when she is rubbing I can pinpoint with direct accuracy the area. There is pain, pain, pain - OMG you really need to stop NOW. I see stars of all varieties - nice little white ones, shooting stars and even ones that spin around my head like a carousel. But it is doing me good.

My next appointment she wants me to see her boss who is an ex-ironman himself several times over. She wants to see if he can come up with any other idea as to what is going on and what else I should be doing. He can also advise me on the type of runners I should be wearing. The pair I am wearing now is coming up to its used by date as I have had them since September last year. The tread on them is still okay but I feel they are losing their cushioning and this could definately be affecting my running gait. Every piece of information I get I willingly accept. Being a total amateur in this arena I need to learn as much as I can if I want to stay safe and injury free for many years to come. Good piece of information I recieved from Lisa is that I don't have to alter my running regime - the only thing she wants me to do is not run on uneven surfaces like down near the river. She wants me sticking to the road or flat surfaces in general. The uneven surface made my knee ache a bit as I stated on the previous post, so its road running for now.

After physio I headed to the gym for an interval training session on the treadmill. I have never done this before so it was very new and alot of hard work to boot. A friend of mine from DailyMile, Sandi, who is studying to be a personal trainer set me up this program. It was sets of 400m with 800m rest zones inbetween. She said I could do between 4/6 reps but I only lasted for 4. And I altered the times cause I still cant run too fast but I was happy with the speeds I achieved. Here is how it went:

• 5 min warm up
• 400m @ 11kph
• 800m @ 8.5kph
• 400m @ 11.5kph
• 800m @ 8.5kph
• 400m @ 12kph
• 800m @ 8.5kph
• 400m @ 12.5kph
• 800m @ 8.5kph
• cooldown

I was happy with the outcome. I was also okay'd by the physio to do squats on the Bosu Ball so long as they were not too bouncy - they had to be nicely controlled. So I did :

• 3 x 15 alternating squats on Bosu Ball
• 3 x 20 ab curls on Swiss Ball
• 2 x 20 oblique crunches
• Core strengthening exercises with swiss ball.

All in all it was an extremely eventful day. I do believe I am making progress. YAY for me.

River run.

Today was supposed to be a long bike ride, however the meteorologist last night stated that the rain which had been bestowed upon was not going to relent over the weekend. So, I sent my brother in law a text message cancelling our bike ride for the second Sunday in a row. However, when I woke up this morning I woke up to blue skies and not a single cloud anywhere. What are the weather forecasters trying to do to me? It was too late to try and re-organise the bike ride as we like to set off early, so I was left with only one thing to do. RUN.

The river run was looking set to be the destination of choice and I was excited to try out my knee. I have been diligent with my stretching and strengthening and was hoping that it would be working wonders on an open road run. On the treadmill it felt fine but that is a nice flat surface, uneven surfaces would highlight any issues. And it did.

I noticed that when the road or surface inclined to the left and my left side was on it I started to get a bit of knee pain, nothing major but I felt it. I noticed that I would roll my foot during striking the pavement more to the outer part of my foot causing my leg to bow at the knee. Even when I focused on foot strike and leg positioning my knee still felt a bit odd, however as soon as the road even up I felt fine - no knee pain.

At the 4km mark my lower leg started to go a bit numb again. I was inclined to stop and stretch my calf but it doesn't seem to help so I just slowed down and continued on my merry way. The remainder of the run was uneventful - the numbness didn't go away but it didn't get worse either, that's a bonus. I tried to finish strong as I always do and tried to up the momentum at every telegraph pole till I got to my car. When I finally reached my car I think I was running at a 4:30kpm pace. Boy, was I glad to see my baby Jeep Patriot.

Now that's it night and reviewing how my body feels, I can safely say that my legs hurt - muscular wise that is. I have lost that conditioning in my lower limbs of running every second day due to my knee. I need to ask the physio if I can get back into running on a regular basis without fear of doing further damage.

So I ran my 7km in 39min and felt happy with that. It's 3 minutes slower than my usual pace but I need to look after that knee. There is plenty of time to get back to my 36 minutes and better. I am not at all concerned.

"Free yourself" has touched down in Aus.

When my husband walked in after work with a brown parcel under his arm I must admit I became extremely excited. Was this the parcel I had been waiting for from fellow blogger Patrick Mahoney? It sure was - I have never recieved a parcel from the States before, let alone a shirt which I recieved for free. How cool is that!!!!! I especially love what the logo on the shirt stands for. I guess you can interpret it in many different ways, whichever way suits you.

For me it symbolises allowing yourself to just be you. Letting go of old habits, renewing and resurfacing old dreams and allowing them to flourish. I could not let the opportunity go by without wearing the shirt and knowing that whom ever read those words would somehow get from it whatever it was that they needed. And I must admit Patrick, as I walked around I was getting alot of eyes staring at those two words. VERY COOL.

As a bit of a Welcome to Australia gesture I wore it everywhere I went today. Mum, Taillah and I decided to go to the shops for some retail therapy:

And a bit of morning tea with a well deserved coffee:

When we got home Mum and I decided to cook it a beautiful meal:
Not sure who enjoyed it more:
My mum has got to be the most incredible cook and we always enjoy
eating the feasts that mum lays before us, what do you think?

So all in all "Free Yourself" had an eventful day. It was spoilt rotten with food, enjoyed a spot of shopping and got to spend time with it's new family. I am very excited to have my shirt and look forward to wearing it on alot of occasions. Thankyou so much Patrick. I really appreciate it.

Another gold medal performance.

Today was designated as a swim day with Sharon, Susan, myself and Tracy. What another great swim was to be had by all - these woman are on FIRE. That is the only way I can describe their performances in the pool. Susan swam a whopping 1.5k with a sore neck and all, Sharon replicated her stellar performance from last week and swam 1.5k with a new and improved session, and Tracy swam a magnificent 1.3k. All of this from someone who just prior to jumping in the water looked at my session for her and was like "Hey, you added 100m more". My session was 500m for her and she pumped out an extra 800m. My friends are made of steel - they so totally rock.

I think it's amazing how we question our ability before taking on a new venture. I know I do everytime I increase a session or set a new goal. It's like an inbuilt protective mechanism to maybe not allow you to get to carried away for fear of failure. Maybe that little bit of self doubt makes you push and strive harder for that which you once thought was impossible. Maybe that little bit of self doubt makes you get a bit narky and annoyed with yourself so you go all out to prove yourself wrong. Whatever it is, it seems to work. Once you do it once - there is no need to doubt yourself on that goal ever again - YOU HAVE DONE IT. No-one, absolutely no-one can take that from you, all that is left is to keep doing it until you feel ready to go bigger. To have total faith in your abilities leaves the world wide open for anything your heart desires. Today was a perfect example of woman seeking to obtain just that - and they kicked butt.

Today Tracy my gold medal performance is for you:
You rocked it. Your motivation to keep chipping away in the pool was inspiring.

On a side note I thought I would add my session to the post for those who like to see:

• 500m Fr/s Warm up.
• 10 x 100m Medley
• 10 x 50m kick with flippers Fr/s up, Bk/s down
• 5 x 200m F/s, first 25m sighting end of pool.
• 100m Br/s cool down.

I felt very strong in the pool. Nothing hurt apart from my butt from the squats I did in the gym yesterday. What a great day.

Lovely weather - for ducks.

Rain, rain and more rain is all I can see from every point of the horizon. Thick, dark clouds filled with loads of water and the promise of more to come, and no getting out for a run or ride in the open air. Nevermind, first things first - PHYSIO Day 3 and then to think about what I should do. What can I say, physio still hurts but on a good note, Lisa can feel some movement (Good movement) on the outer part of my knee. This means the knot I have is weakening and the muscles are finally giving way. Thats not to say it has come easily, God only knows I have the bruises to show as my badge of bravery, but there is light at the end of the tunnel now, albeit its the size of a grain of rice, but it's light.

Lisa my physio is really cool. She is always asking me if I am okay while she is massaging my leg - I wonder if all my sweating, grimacing and weird giggles of pain are a sign of my distress....mmmm I wonder. Maybe it's the beads of sweat on my upper lip and my cold clammy hands - either way Lisa keeps rubbing and when it gets too much to bear she stops. After all the rubbing I get a heat pack to place on the area she has worked on the most, today it was my lower leg. Ahhhhh bliss.

So while I was sitting there contemplating about what I should do today, I decided to reactivate my gym membership. With all this rain about I need to still get a run in. It's not that I mind riding my indoor trainer but I could see myself getting a bit bored and wanting something else. And after reading one of my fellow bloggers posts about weight training "To gym or not to gym" and saying that I stay clear due to having had some bad experiences, I decided today was as good a day as any to just get back in there and take the bull by the horns. Thankyou Patrick.

So I went home and got dressed : What do you think? Do I look the part?

Anyway, when I got to the gym I must admit I was very nervous. I made a B line straight for the treadmill that was set up in the darkest corner of the gym and I hopped on. I caught the eye of a trainer and asked if they could assist me in getting the thing up and running. She gladly obliged and we got to talking about things. Anyway, she took an interest in my goals and said that when I finished on the treadmill (3km later), to go get her and she would show me some exercises to strengthen my legs using the Bosu Ball. Oh my lord, that semi-circular rubber thing is hard going.

Talk about looking unco-ordinated, a newborn giraffe has more co-ordination. She had me doing squats, and squat jumps and this exercise which I have no idea what its called but you are swapping feet from side to side keeping your centre of gravity low. She then moved me to a bench and I had to jump onto the bench with both feet leaving the floor at the same time. Sounds easy but its amazing how easily you lose co-ordination and faith in yourself. Took me about 4 jumps before I mastered it and then she had me doing 360 degree lunges with a 7kg dumb bell in each hand. What a day I have had today - I am stuffed. I LOVE IT.

I will definately be back next week, the next two days are booked with swimming and training a friend. Bring on winter strength training - I am ready.

Bit the bullet - surprisingly, I felt good.

After feeling dodgy yesterday and waking up to a "stiff as a board" neck this morning,rainy skies and children with head colds I decided I had two choices. The first was to sit around and mope and feel sorry for myself or get on my trainer like I said I would, and just DO IT. So I just did it - got the kids all sorted out, did my regular stretching and strengthening, tidied up the house as I wanted no distractions and set myself the task of riding the trainer for an hour. The stretching I did previously made my legs feel wonderfully ready to start spinning. Usually they feel a bit tight and fatigued after only 10 minutes of pedalling, but this morning they felt great.

This inturn had a wonderful "Pay it forward" effect on the rest of my body. The more I pedalled the more invigorated I felt. The hour flew by without really realising it, even the kids were like "What the? Have you finished already?". Maybe the monotonous hum of the trainer as I plodded along made them fall asleep. I can't blame them really for getting bored. I, on the other hand, got alot out of today.

Realisation: I got it together today when it was so much easier to give in. This has made me feel extremely empowered and I trust me even more than I did before. I know my thoughts will never let me down, so when push comes to shove in the days ahead that will be harder than I can even imagine - I know I will be STRONG and push through anything.

I remember when I was younger and a competitive swimmer I thrived on the coach pushing me and making me try harder than most of the other kids my age in the squad. I moved up from the junior squad to senior squad in less than a year and I think it was because I had a bit of grunt in me. You would never have thought so, I was the smallest and skinniest but I was all for making my coach happy and I loved the feeling of being good and accomplishing something others thought I couldn't. Looks can be deceiving.

Now I know that I can achieve anything I set my mind too, even when I don't feel all that great. Now I know I am strong and everyday I am getting stronger - especially when I am faced with days like today. I should bite the bullet more often - it's amazing what you will learn