Milestones, goals, and keeping on....

So where are we at, lots of little milestones happening at the moment, I've broken the 70's meaning I've lost more than 50kg's, did I write that in another blog I don't think I looked back far enough.

We had our fitness tests again, this was the 2nd time we've done the beep test properly measured, last time I psyched myself out a bit, so this time I was aiming for 7.1 and reached 7.5 so I was pleased with that effort and hope to see past 8.1 on the next one.

I finished Hypoxi again and lost 5kg and 26.5 cm's.  I have my dexa scan on Friday so I will be very curious to see the results as it will be almost 2 months to the day.  Aside from my trainer quite hammering us, I've picked up the extra session with Trainer Christian where we did sessions using an olympic barbell, so I am expecting to have gained some muscle but I just don't know what that means for my fat loss, so I'm nervous but excited to see the results.

I went clothes shopping today with some girlfriends, this was a whole new experience for me as when I was fat I hated going clothes shopping with other people especially slimmer friends!  The shops they would go into never had my size and well really I was embarrassed.  But today it was so much fun and I had no qualms in letting the girls come in the change room with me and they were totally great!  I ended up getting a dress I've been eyeing off for about 6 or so weeks, and a ring in I tried on at the 11th hour that will be my evening outfit for my birthday next week!

I'm on leave for a week and have started clearing out some stuff, some cupboards with crap that needed clearing (magazines from 2006! what was I thinking... straight into the recycle bin!) I weeded out my book collection, I've bagged up the clothes that are all too big that have been in the back room, and put them on the balcony, I need to get them in the car and off to charity.  Tonight I went through my wardrobe again and filled another bag as well!  It feels good to get the stuff out of the house, creating space for the new things to come! :D

My girlfriend I've known since I was 7 is coming down next weekend, she is coming to my Saturday bootcamp with me so we will see how good her training has been for her! :D 

So this is the plan, I keep training till next week.  Then I'm basically being ordered to take a fortnight rest EEEK!!!!! Then I'll have one month to get back into training for 10km Sydney Olympic Park run.  So my break period will be interesting as I cope with resting and focus on keeping my eating on track.  The expectation from my trainers aside from some well deserved recovery is some muscle loss which I can well afford especially if my dexa scan shows an increase.  If I play it all right I should be able to meet my final weight goal.  So then playing maintenance until Christmas will be a good way to end the year!  One hopes! :D

Oh and another goal I'm adding in for next year is to do the Harbour Bridge climb with my sister!  She refuses to do any fun runs with me but has said she'd like to do the climb!

It's Sunday today and I just have to say it's been just a gloriously beautiful day!  Enjoy your week!

Running and more running....

Yesterday was the 9km Blackmores Bridge Run.  We signed up as a team to raise money for Ovarian Cancer, one of our group members is currently battling the disease, a little shy, we did it from the perspective of her dog, Artie and called it Running for Artie.  We aimed to raise $5,000 between us and on the morning of our run yesterday we surpassed our target amount. :D

Isn't Artie adorable?  The day started cloudy but while waiting to start the sun snuck out.  Trainer Nate and his brother Trainer Heath ran with us, but they didn't run for themselves, they spent the time running between the group members, and encouraging them on so as to hit any targets we had set for ourselves, (like me, aiming for under an hour) and my girl Nat (to simply run all the way her first fun run!).  I even saw Trainer Nate encouraging complete strangers, just hyped to be there and be involved.

Despite having run 14km in August, I really struggled, Trainer Nate identified that I've been over training and once this week is done (last week of Hypoxi) I'm being ordered to take some rest time.

But even despite my struggles and pratically needing to be pushed and pulled down the last kilometre particularly after discovering what we thought was the finish line finding that it wasn't and me nearly both spontaneously about to burst into tears and vomit at the same time, managed to cross the finish line in the time of 54:22.  Beating both the hour I hoped for and my 8km Mother's Day Classic Time of 56:09.  Estimating that I was running on average almost 10km an hour (holy ****!!!!)

This has spurred me on for the 10km run in November at Sydney Olympic Park knowing that with some rest and better training I will likely have a better race day and be well aimed to do it in an hour or hopefully less. It's supposed to be a relatively flat course so fingers crossed.

I suppose after reading about how you can have bad race days it was a good experience and further understanding of how hard I can be on myself, see I achieved my goals but I was disappointed, I suppose I was thinking if I'd been in the right frame of mind I could have done better, so I suppose I need to suck it up and get over myself!  hehehehe

All of us finished under the hour which was awesome, most of us around that 54 minute mark, the others were only 15 or so seconds ahead of me, with Trainer Nate and Trainer Heath both almost physically pushing me over the finish line to both come in one second after me!  

I've booked my next dexa scan in for the 1st October, so with a second lot of Hypoxi done and having gone into the 70's I will be curious to see what the comparison results are from the August one.

I've started to think about maintenance and to look at a goal for that I've asked Trainer Nate if it's realistic to look at training for a half marathon while working on maintenance and he thinks it's a good goal to aim for.

I also want to redo the Menai fun run that I did at the beginning of the year, a very hilly 8km course, it was my first one and I was lucky to run half of it, so I'd love to give it another crack and see what my improvement on it is.  And then of course, I will likely attempt the Mother's Day Classic again in a bid to run the entire course (which  by then should be easy peasy) and totally smash my time.  These I imagine will make good training events for a half marathon.

So goals achieved and more goals to come and aim for a good bid to help me keep maintenance on track.  A good way to start off another year seeing it's my birthday next week, I've achieved so much since my last birthday and am excited about the prospects that lay ahead!

No rest for the wicked....

Trucking along, still learning, figuring stuff out and letting stuff go hahahahaha it's such an ongoing process!

Last night went to Trainer Christian, this is what he made us do.  He started by explaining the three moves he wanted us to do.  He paired us up with an olympic barbell which weighs about 20kg's.  Then showed us that the moves were a squat with the bar on our chest, a squat and press up, and a press up from the chest, using our legs as needed.  Our aim was this 100 reps of each. WTF, that's the look on all our faces.  This was the plan, one person started and did as many reps as they could, when they could do no more they dropped the bar and went for a shortish jog while the next person started.  So the more reps you could get out the less runs you had to do.  We could do them in any order.  My partner and I decided the squat and press was the worst and we'd get that out of the way followed by the press and then pump out the squats, unfortunately by the time we finished the squat press she could barely lift the bar, so she went onto squats and I went straight into presses, my arms were dead by the end I tell you and then lucky her by the time she finished her squats Trainer Christian took pity on her (so unlike him) and gave her a smaller bar.  Bugger that will teach me!

You'd think that would be it wouldn't you but guess what.... it wasn't.  After that he had one more thing instore for us, partnering us up slightly differently in pairs we had a rowing competition.  10 x 100 meters, with 15secs of rest in which we swapped with our partner so each of us doing 500 meters each in total.  Then the average would be checked and a winner announced! EEEEKK!!!  I have difficulty getting out of the stirrups in a hurry but my partner was great and helped me, when he got on the rower he rowed so hard, it started to hop across the room! hahahhahahhaha It was like death but guess what me and my partner won! hahahahahahhahaha woohoo!  VOMIT! hahahahahhahaha

OK that was it finally, stretch and then the next hour spent trying to get my arms to stop shaking and back to stop burning.  God there's something so incredible about it you want to die when you are doing it, but you feel so awesome when you are done.

The rest of the week is Boot camp and Hypoxi followed by the 9km bridge run on Sunday.  No rest for the wicked! With only 4kg's left to goal I really want to try to knock it out rather than stretch it out.  And Hypoxi definitely seems to help out there, so watch out birthday here I come, you might not be a significant number but it's definitely a re-birth of the new, better and healthier me. :D

Letting the past go....

Wow, what a couple of weeks it's been for me.  So many things have started clicking in my head it's almost a little overwhelming, but exciting too.

On the weekend I finally weighed in in the 70's, this has been like such an unbelievable pipe dream for me, in fact I don't recall the 70's I just remember being in high school and being about 80+kg and going to Weight Watchers with my mum and having them tell me I should weigh like 63kg's and thinking that it was all so hard.  Of course my body composition is VERY different these days, I must pull out some pictures from that time and compare them to now, just to see the differences.  I know I was softer that's for sure, and I remember size 14, I don't ever remember size 12 or 10's, not that that means much with sizing's these days! hehehehehe

Speaking of school I had my 20 year high school reunion on Saturday night.  Now high school was a bit up and down for me, I was never one of the popular girls, but I was friends with someone I considered popular.  I always felt like one of those girls who sat on the fringe of a couple of groups but never really fit in per se.  And mostly was ignored by the boys or teased.... I didn't start this high school till Year 8 so I didn't have the primary school connections and there were times some of the other girls were pretty mean, leaving banana peels and their rubbish in my school bag, general high school jinx.  Or just being general cows as girls can sometimes be in high school, having said that I was no princess I did my own share of ignoring and bitching, I could say it was self defence.... actually I am happy to say I am not one of those people who wishes they could go back and relive their high school years because they were the best times of their lives. 

Not that it was all bad, I had some great friends and some really fun times, I just never felt I really fit in.  So to go back looking great guns, to see some of the mean girls had put on weight (I know it's mean but we are human right) and to get comments from guys that wouldn't give you the time of day at school, that you look great and well done, well it was well worth it! Mostly it was worth reconnecting with a couple of lost girlfriends and trying to recognise the majority of the guys who now with receeding hairlines and beards looked nothing like their high school boyish days!

So for me I'm able to let some ghost's rest and leave my school days pretty much behind me.  Which goes well with some of the other things that have come up for me over the last couple of weeks, including figuring out what I really DON'T want in a relationship and how realising being happy in me and my life is going to really be key in finding the right relationship more than anything else.

I've started doing some clearing out at home and have plans for a big spring clean, I really need to let go of some "stuff" and make a clear path for all the new positive things coming into my life. :D

In the meantime, I'm prepping for my upcoming birthday with the goal of hitting the 70's before then already ticked off! :D

PS As you can see from the pic I went with my hot blue top again seeing I loved it so much, doesn't pop as much with a faded spray tan, dressed down with jeans.... still felt pretty good managed to keep the shoes on for about half the night, had a lot of people say thank god when I took them off as they hadn't remembered me so tall.... hahahahha

Running for Artie

http://www.everydayhero.com.au/running_for_artie

Artie is the crazy little cavoodle whose owner is one of the 1200 women in Australia who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year.  His owner is the cousin of one my boot camp girlfriends.  We all know how pervasive cancer is in our lives, and once touched by it, it seems every time you turn around someone else you know is being touched by it.

A group of us have banded together to do the Blackmore's 9km bridge run on the 19th September, we are raising money for this cause, so if you are interested in helping us raise money and awareness for this cause, please click the link and donate!

Thanks for your time!

Embrace it.....

Wow hey, who knew what a weekend could change? How you feel about yourself, how far you've come, how ready you are to really get out there and meet Mr Right???   My girl Alex had her birthday on the weekend and we've been looking forward to it for weeks. A couple of weeks ago I went into Crossroads with the intent of buying a red top I'd seen but I didn't like it once it was on, the lady told me to try this blue strapless top on.... I almost didn't first of all strapless hahahahah right and blue, the only blue stuff I have in my wardrobe are my jeans! hehehehehe but I tried it on anyway and wow I loved it. I grabbed the skirt to go with it, and then even went and bought stillettos, two pairs actually the first my wardrobe have ever seen! :D

My girls were then insistent we all get spray tans (another new experience for me!) and I saw myself a colour I've never been before (my European heritage leaves me white, burnt or peeling!)

Anyway I'd had a tough week, trying to process a few things in my personal life, and I really wanted to try to engage in an effort to tighten up that gap I have in my head between how I look and how I think I look! (I think a couple of glasses of wine helped with that as well! hahahaha)

So here I am in my outfit all glitzed up for a girls night out, and no pantyhose (eek what would mother think!) I just can't explain it, I'm not and never have been a big party girl, clubs and the like they haven't really been my thing.... but I have so much fun with these girls and feel good and confident doing it, and I think even if it's just for a short period of time I should embrace these experiences and all that they give me along with the memories (the ones that I can remember when I'm not half sloshed! :D)

Even Trainer Nate and Trainer Heath came along to enjoy the frivolity, see Trainer Nate with all his Smurfettes. He's like our big brother keeping a watchful eye on all of us, watching us blossom and embrace change.

I admit recovery is hard hahahahahaha I am a few years older than everyone else, but I'm not doing it every weekend, just special occassions. Admittedly I'm so enamoured with my blue top I'm considering wearing it to my School reunion on Saturday dressed down with jeans..... but stillettos of course!

It's a big change from that 130kg girl and only 15 months ago. Currently I can't weigh myself because the batteries have died in my Wii Fit and I keep forgetting to buy batteries, so I'm waiting to see how my Hypoxi results turn out, especially as I've noticed clothes changes again after only one week of Hypoxi. I put on my grey dress that I bought last time I did Hypoxi and I mean I loved it but it was snug (figured I'd get more wear out of it). This morning I put it on and I could move it around the hip area, and then one of the girls at work commented that the dress was already starting to get a little loose! So I guess it wasn't in my head after all! So I say weight schmait right now as long as cm's keep going down I'm doing damn OK!

That's it for today I think, my girl Ros and I are off to Trainer Christian tonight and we are both still struggling to recover from Saturday night, methinks it won't be pretty, and then we follow it up with Trainer Nate tomorrow night, we are such gluttons for punishment.... but I just know the boys love it! :D