Walking in the Rain

I had a busy weekend, with visitors from Melbourne, a cookware party on Friday night and dinner with Team Black to celebrate the Biggest Loser Challenge and the 40th birthday of our trainer, Krissi. Instead of heading to the gym on Saturday morning, I ended up going for a long walk with my brother and his family. Jim and Debbie are also participating in the Global Corporate Challenge, so they were happy to collect steps with me.

Being from Melbourne, my visitors weren't expecting the icy cold wind, so I made sure they were well rugged up. Fortunately for them, it wasn't as bitterly cold as it was last Wednesday. Mind you, it started raining as soon as we headed out. As it was only a light drizzle we decided to venture down to the lake anyway. My three nephews took a football with them, and had a few kicks with Jim along the way. By the time we reached the lake the rain was heavier, so we headed for the cafe at the bike hire kiosk and enjoyed a coffee while we waited for it to ease.

We walked around the lake towards the Captain Cook Memorial. I have gone past it a number of times, but it was good to spend a bit of time checking it out. On my bike adventures with Leonie I'd discovered a children's playground that looked like a fortified castle. We had no idea if it would appeal to the boys but we thought we'd check it out anyway. It ended up being pretty cool, with tunnels for them to crawl through and ladders to climb. Without the rain it would have been a lot more fun. Once they'd had enough, we fed the ducks before returning to town. All up, we walked about 7 kms, which was a pretty good effort.

Last night I joined Team Black for dinner. We had a lovely evening. We'd contributed to a parachute jump for Krissi's birthday. She jumped that morning, and had the DVD to share with us after dinner. Her excitement was terrific to see.

The next big challenge for the team is City to Surf. I'm having second thoughts about doing it. I'll have to make up my mind soon. I'm not sure if it's really a goal of mine or if I'm doing it for all the wrong reasons (eg peer pressure). Anyway, I'll give it some serious thought over the next week and make a decision. It's not just whether to run or not. I have to think about whether I'm going to stay in Sydney or not. Apparently the ACT Cross Country Club takes a bus up there.

It looks as though the group is going to up the ante on the training we're doing though. Next year, some of us are going to train for a small triathlon - something along the lines of a 300 m swim, 5 k run and 12 k bike ride. It will mean three training sessions a week, one in each discipline. I'm keen to give this a go, so keen in fact that I headed out and bought myself swimming goggles today. I've worked out where I am going to go swimming. There's a club near my place with a pool and gym. I don't care about the gym as I'm happy at Fernwood, but the pool is much less crowded than the city pool. All I have to do is join the club and get myself there!

I also bought myself a yoga mat today - a pretty purple one. I thought I'd miss next week's class, due to travelling for work, but the work trip fell through again. I was secretly pleased about that, as I have visitors arriving from Melbourne mid-week, and it looked as though I'd be away for part of their stay.

This week, I have running training on Tuesday and personal training on Thursday. Last week, Leanne was sick, so my pt session was cancelled. I didn't make it to the gym in the morning on my own. I'm going to try to get there more often this week. That's the plan!

I am planning to get myself back on the straight and narrow as far as my eating and exercising is going. I was looking at the before and after photos from the Biggest Loser Challenge today and there is such a difference in how I look. I realised that I don't want to waste all that effort. I'll have to set myself another 12 week challenge for my health and fitness.

Funnily enough, even though I'm not getting myself out there to exercise I'm still thinking like a runner. I just have to make sure I behave like one.

Oh, something unexpectedly nice happened last week. I joined a work challenge in my last job - all sorts of different activities for points, like eating fruit and drinking water. They let me continue to participate after I left work so I've been sending through my lists each week. Apparently I won the monthly prize for June. It was for the most activities. I got a certificate and the prize was a pack that included a skipping rope, some hand weights and some hand presses. Pretty cool really.