Keeping busy...

Hi hi, it's a been a while, there's been a lot going on, I won't go into all of it, it's just that time of year. 

Anyway, first of all I'm excited to say that I got my height re-measured and I am 174cm, which I will happily take, I knew that going from (even an imagined) 176cm to 171cm just wasn't right, especially when I'm constantly told how tall I look!

We just had health checks at work and I was stoked to be perfectly normal for blood sugar, cholesterol and waist measurement.  My blood pressure though was 144/75.  The 144 is a tad high, so I spoke to my sister and in the new year I'll go and get a proper check up and just keep an eye on that.  My blood pressure has always been pretty fine, so it was not the thing I thought I'd have to watch! Ahhh well you never can tell these things.

So what have I been up to... well last week Trainer Nate and I attended a Cross Fit session, you basically spend the warm up going through some weight moves with a PVC pipe before moving onto the WOD (Workout Of the Day).  We had to do 5 chin ups (OK I can't do them so I got two rings I had to lean back and do 5 rows up, 10 pushups (start with man pushups until you can't do them anymore), 15 full squats and a 100 metre run.  We had to repeat that as many times in 20 minutes as we could, of course Trainer Nate chose to do proper chin ups, still, when I started to over take him I was just mucking around but by the time I was almost a full lap ahead of him and saw him struggling on the push ups I started to heckle him out of pure confusion! Needless to say we finished the 20 minutes and I was ahead.  I beat my own trainer WTF!!!  Apparently I have more muscular endurance... whatever dude hahahahahahaha anyway even though I didn't go in even trying to beat anyone, I just try to finish the workout, he now insists on a re-match!  Oh did I mention there was another guy there, who also did the rings like me and who was apparently a cop, we both smashed him out of the water!  Anyway apparently Trainer Nate was waiting for me to die at the end so he could overtake me but I stayed strong, the closer it got to almost being over the stronger I seemed to get! :D

I'll keep you updated on the re-match I'm sure given some focus he'll kick my arse, maybe next time he'll try a little harder!

I have gone and scored myself a bike for a bit.  I rode it for the first time the other day and really enjoyed it.  The aim is to use it for shortish trips and I also want to add some swimming into my routine so it would be great to ride up to the pool, swim, and ride back a nice well rounded workout don't you think?

So my year of free boot camp is coming to it's end.  The new Booty Camper of the year will be announced shortly and I am on my final session of freebies... I had forgotten that I would need to start paying in the new year... dammit!  So I've had a think about it and a chat with Trainer Nate and I've decided that if I have to pay there are some new things I'd like to try.  I'll be keeping my Saturday Boot Camps up, and I'll keep sessions with Trainer Christian in there to keep things ticking over, then in addition to running, swimming and biking, I've got a whole host of things to try or do more of.  Cross fit, Kick boxing, Pole dancing, my aim will be to try a cycle 6-8 weeks of things out and see how I go with it, and at any point I can throw a cycle of boot camp back in.

I have also officially registered for my Certificates III and IV in Fitness, so I'll need to get some prac work in and might need to join a gym to try a couple of classes (for the experience) for a few months as well.  So PLENTY to keep me busy!  I've a whole schedule of fun runs and still plan on training for the half marathon as well!

So right now I'm pretty much maintaining.  But I see further changes in my appearance and my body, so I even though I haven't seen the figure 75 on the scales I'm not overly concerned with the scale weight, now I have a better understanding of body composition, I know that I much rather be strong and sleek with muscle than flabby and weigh a light weight!  So I'm putting the scales away for the rest of the year with a strong focus on maintaining over the Christmas break and utilising all the things I've learnt over the Christmas period.  I managed to lose weight last year I don't see why it would be difficult to maintain this year.  And then in the new year I will have lots of new exciting things to try, right now I'm enjoying myself, enjoying the way I look in clothes, still trying to get the chance to wear all the new things in my closet and enjoying feeling fit and healthy and well normal! :D

Have a great week everyone! 

Fitness Tests

Well with time off this round of Boot Camp testing came round unexpectedly.  Considering I only just got back into a couple of decent runs, and time off from all exercise I am happy to say I PB'd on all my tests.

I had hoped to push the beep test to an 8.1 but managed a 7.7 up from a 7.5 I think, I went and checked my last report here and it was a 7.5 but I think Trainer Nate said it was 7.3.  Either way I'm encouraged that I'll reach 8.1 on the next go round.  So I did over 4 minutes on the plank and really concentrated on form I did close almost 4 minutes last time but I know my butt was higher than it should have been.  Trainer Nate even commented that it was good form, so it counts so much more then when you know you've done it right.  I maxed our 5 minute cut off for the wall squat, and did 55 girl push ups and 36 man pushups each in a minute, beating each one by 1 pushup each, frankly though I just don't see how I can do that much better in the girl pushups!  And I think it was 15cm on the flexibility, I'm not sure if that is up or down but I'm not overly fussed on that one, I'd say that's pretty fine.

So I struggled a little getting back into the swing of things, my first two sessions back saw severe DOM's and I struggled with getting out for my runs, but this week has been good and all I can do on my Sunday fun run is my best.  I need to try to knock it out in an hour because I'm supposed to be somewhere by 10ish, so extra motivation, it starts at 8.30am. :D 

We lucked out with the rain holding off until our fitness tests were over but now it's bucketing down, I don't think the next group were so lucky!

I desperately want to buy all the new clothes appearing in Target at the moment, but the bank account has run dry.  I'm using the extra impetus to push those last few kilos so that I can sit closer to a size 10, where I'm a pretty comfortable size 12 right now, although more a 10 in pants and skirts, I never thought I'd be able to say that! Actually I used to say I'll never be a size 10 if I could just be a comfortable 14-16 it would be all good.... my how I've exceeded even my own expectations, and why shouldn't we! :D

Once this fun run is done on the weekend, I am finished my fun runs for the year.  I will be sitting down and having a good look at the half marathon for next year and which fun runs will facilitate good development for that (aside from redoing the ones I want to beat my times in! :D)  And then I need to look at building somewhat of a training program for the half I need too work on both speed and endurance, but I have plenty of time to do both!  I guess I need to look at whether I should take seperate periods of times where I work on each by themselves, or whether I can work it all in together, and how I shake things up and keep it interesting!  I love love love my imapmyrun app on my iphone, it even goes so far as to tell me what my min, max and average speeds and paces are, and when I go online, I can see some lap breakdowns as well, last night's was funny as my slowest speed was 2.24 km and that's when I slowed down to fix my headphones on my iphone.... for 20 seconds or so, hysterical!  Must remember that when I feel like stopping! :D

Hope you are all doing well, the year is coming to a swift close, and I hope many of you have exceeded your goals for the year!

Birthday and Dexa follow up!

Hi all!  Yesterday was my 38th birthday!  Yep I am THAT old, but I look hot! hahahahahaha.  I've been asked a couple of times how I felt about turning 38 to be honest with you it doesn't bother me, I feel like this birthday is truly a rebirth, a stepping stone for the wonderful life I have ahead of me.  And I had such a lovely day, a multitude of birthday wishes, a pedicure, lunch out, some window shopping and boot camp in the evening to finish it off!

Tomorrow there are more celebrations with family and friends lunch and then out in the evening in my hot new outfit! :D

Today I had a follow up dexa scan.  In 2 months I have basically I lost 3.3kg's of fat, gained 1kg of muscle.  My bodyfat percentage has gone from 26.4% to 23.0%!  Which I am stoked about!  So total weight today was 78.7kg's and my range has gone up a couple of hundred grams due to my muscle increase to 75.8 - 76.7kg (last scan it was 75.6 - 76.5kg).  So the plan is to aim for the 75kg mark and then maintain that, and have another scan in 6 months to make sure I am on track.  In the meantime I will have to play around with calories and exercise to work out my maintenance level.

So I had hoped for 24% body fat so I was just over the moon at 23%.  And to gain a kg of muscle in 2 months is just awesome considering I've got muscle to give away! :D  Trainer Nate has taken to calling me skiinny b*tch or beef cake! hahahahaha

So my girlfriend is coming down from the coast and she is coming to training with me in the morning to see what I go through every week!  She does exercise herself, but it will be interesting to see how she finds this, and as we've never trained together (even though we've known each other for 31 years!) it should be fun, you know in that sick exercisey way! :D

So I'll be back later on in the weekend with pictures from tomorrow! Have a great long weekend!

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!

Building a bridge....

So guess how much trouble Trainer Nate is in.... I seriously wanted to give him a couple of head bashes last night!  He was telling us this story on Wednesday about a fight he was watching where this guy just sat on the other guy and punched him like 300 times and the guy just took it... that's the kind of thing I was imagining last night!  BUT at the same time I have to accept my own personal responsibility, I knew from the beginning and I didn't push to get him to double check. 

WTF you are all saying, well we discovered that along with not being able to count, Trainer Nate, can't measure! :P  He had been measuring the beep test length incorrectly, which seems fair seeing he just takes 20 steps instead of using a tape measure.... so basically all my beep test results since the February have been false :(  (See it's all still about learning what you are willing to let yourself believe and what you are willing to face up to! :P)

Those extra three and a half extra feet don't seem like much until you are trying to beat that damn beep and you feel that the return shuttle is on a slope!  I'm whinging I know I'll build a bridge in a minute and get over it.

So the results sit like this:

Beep test: 11 (really going from last real test 5.5) ------------- 6.5 smaller improvement than I'd hoped (gonna try again in two weeks and aim to hit 7.1)
Pushups one minute: 54 ----- 53 (girl pushups - once you get over 50 it's a bit whatever! :D)
Wall sit: 315 secs ----------- 330 (5 mins 30 secs)
Plank: 140 secs ------------- 201 (3 mins 21 secs - last time was a bit pitiful, if I remember correctly my previous best is around the 3 min mark so I think this is a PB)
Flexibility: 16 --------------- tbc (I think I might have gone a little backwards on this but then again this was the first time he used a proper tape measure and not a guestimate on the paper pad - yep that's another dig at you dude because I can!)
Pushups one minute: 28 ----- 33 (guy pushups :D)

So no use whinging a lot about it really the beep test stuff goes back on the goals list I'd eventually like to build up to a 10, but have a way to go. 

Yes I admit it was somewhat demoralizing, only because it was such a huge drop and we all felt it almost immediately.  See sometimes this is why I like my smaller incremental improvements, I don't question those! hehehehe  BUT at the end of the day it's a mistake right!?  We are all human and it does not take away from the achievements I've made including the City 2 Surf, the fantastic dexa scan results, or how good I feel in my clothes right! :D

So I'm having a little sulk and tomorrow it's back to Balmoral and a busy weekend ahead with my nephews birthday lunch and a friends birthday dinner! 

Have a great weekend folks!

City 2 Surf 2010

So today was the big day, and I come to the end of it with a huge great big tick!  

The City 2 Surf!  A major end goal for me this year, here I am with my girls and our medals, red and sweaty faced, but totally proud because we did it, we got to the end.

Initially I was sure what to expect, when Trainer Nate said he wanted me to run it all, I really didn't focus on speed, but a couple of weeks ago, just before my trip to the snow I ran a 14km training run in around 1:45, so I figured that was a good goal. 

We didn't end up running the whole race together, because one of my main aims was to run the whole thing, I pulled away from the girls slightly on heartbreak hill when they paused to walk.  But in the last kilometre with me in their sights they caught me and we hammered it home, grabbing hands and raising them with a cheer as we crossed the finish line together, and the bonus as we grabbed hands I spied Trainer Nate to the right of us cheering us on! (He started in a group behind us but quickly overtook us to finish the race in 68:30).  Our finishing time 1:38:and tbc seconds (will check the paper tomorrow).

Here we are with him, dubbed by him the Smurfettes after registering in the blue group, we went so far as to have t-shirts printed and then on the back we paid hommage to Trainer Nate, with our slogan "We love to hate, Trainer Nate".  Hehehehe He loved it!  Oh and that's not my bare arse in the photo it's a pink bum bag! hahahaha

So lots of big ticks for me, run the whole race, TICK, finish in under 1:45, TICK! Simply finish TICK! Do it for my mum, TICK! Make trainer proud, TICK!

So let's have a little recap this year:

1. I did my first ever fun run
2. I participated in the Mother's Day Classic
3. I completed (and ran the entire) City 2 Surf
4. I joined a running group
5. I reached 100 pounds (over 45kg's) lost
6. I've bought clothes in sizes 12 AND 10!
7. I appeared in a magazine
8. I have another magazine appearance pending
9. I had a dexa scan with great results
10. I had my dream trip to the snow!

I mean wow that's a phenomenal year!  Now I need to look forward to some new goals.  The things I have left to do are reach 50kg's lost and that's not far off, go horse-riding again (cause I can), try indoor rock climbing (because why not?) but what else now what do I face?

Possibly a half marathon?  Work on increasing my running speed. Get to my goal weight (or happy body shape), learn how to maintain!  Look at doing my Cert III and IV (even if it is just for me).  Lots of things still to do or aspire to! The sky really is the limit right?

A busy week, and more PB's....

So let's see it's been a pretty good week.  I had my Hypoxi sessions, Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week, I get there early and try to do a 25-30 min run (Friday I only got 10 minutes but went hard keeping it over 9km/hr and getting a few minutes in at 10km/hr (I can't run at speed for long periods of time but it's all about building up right?!).  Also the skirt thing they put on you comes in different sizes (which I did not realise) and I went down a skirt thing already, today is my 6th session the half way point I think I get measurements done on Wednesday before the start of the 7th session to see how I'm travelling.

GOAL......

..... well kind of!  You see when you are 130kg double figures is usually the main goal, and when you've been in triple figures for years, the idea of anything under that is a real wow!  So I had chosen 85kg because I thought is was a doable figure, far enough under triple figures to be maintainable but not unrealistic.

Of course by the time I managed to get out of triple figures I was already re-assessing my goal.  I had garnered developed enough belief that I could go further so I re-assessed my goal.  

But today is still worth celebrating for reaching my inital goal, and right dead-on the noggin!  85kg exactly on the scale this morning, which marks a suitable brand new beginning for that which I have planned over the next few weeks.

So let's look back for a little comparison they are so much fun! :D

Weight: 130 kg - 85kg = LTD 45kg

which equates to 99 pounds or 35% of my body weight

BMI: 42.0 - Morbidly Obese - 27.4 - Overweight (only 8kg away from a healthy BMI!)

I've lost over 140cm from bust, waist, hips, thigh and arm.

So pretty great stats if I do say so myself. 

Another 6 weeks, and more improvements

Can you believe it's been six weeks again already!!  Despite missing a week and a half (of work out only 2 boot camp sessions) from being sick I still managed improvements on all my tests including an additional one we all threw in for the heck of it.

So my trainer said mainly he was only interested in the beep test and push ups, he did throw a 12 out there for the beep test but it was just too much, I was very close to vomiting! ;D  11 is still good right! hehehehe

Six weeks ago: ------------- Six weeks on

Beep test: 10.1 --------------- 11
Pushups one minute: 47----- 54 (girl pushups)
Wall sit: 181 secs ----------- 315 (5 mins 15 secs)
Plank: 187 secs ------------- 240 (4 mins)
Flexibility: 16 --------------- tbc

Pushups one minute: 0 ----- 28 (guy pushups - this one is new!) 

Have an opportunity to try out something new, will be blogging more about it later, need to check it all out first and once I know what's involved I'll be sharing.  Trainer Nate feels it will really help me push on to my goal quicker and it's being incorporated into my current regime so we will see. 

Might just keep doing the beep test and man push ups and find some other way to measure improvements, the rest seem to be becoming a little redundant and it's hard to push the plank and wall sit over the 5 minute mark without blowing the session out by the time we do everything else and warm up and cool down, on top of with both my trainers have found the wall sit to be pretty redundant.  

Any way, hope you are all having a good week and that exciting doors and opportunities are also opening for you as the seem to be for me at the moment!

Over the 42 mark....

Now that I've hit over 42kg lost (that's 93.3 pounds!) I decided it was time for a new photo, I've kept it casual but my top is a $7 bargain buy from K-mart hehehehe I love the sale racks these days as there is often stuff I can find that fits.

While the scale weight has been slower of late, I'm still losing cm's I notice it in my clothes, in fact I had to go out and buy new pants in 12's my 14's were just feeling too loose! (Drama! hahahaah NOT!).

I also got myself a pair of skinny jeans, whilst I always thought I'd never buy a pair I didn't realise they are the best jeans to wear with knee high boots!  Don't mock me about it OK..... I never had knee high boots before either! :D  I have a new dress too I may take a photo of it later in the week!

Another 6 weeks and a New PB!

Wowzers can you believe it's been six weeks again already!?

We tested again this morning and boy am I over the moon with my beep test. 

Here are my results:

Six weeks ago: ------------- Six weeks on

Beep test: 7.3 --------------- 10.1
Pushups one minute: 45----- 47
Wall sit: 174 secs ----------- 181
Plank: 181 secs ------------- 187
Flexibility: 14 --------------- 16

Further stats...

Just a few more stats I discovered.

First of all I managed to raise $743 which I was very pleased with thought I'd be lucky to get $200.

Secondly I discovered I can print out a certificate, yeah me! hehehehehe

My positions were as follows:

673 out of 1002 (total)

438 out of 692 (women)

178 out of 343 (age cat 30-39)

So I was really really pleased with those results, kinda hovering just above the middle but certainly nowhere near to last! :D

Now it's time to get to training for the City 2 Surf.

The Mother's Day Classic

It's been a weeks of ups and downs.  I leave the downs to my own surmising, but apparently saying goodbye to things in your life means you start running the best you ever have!

So Friday night I had the best run ever, I totally hit a zone it was after work (interestingly enough I was only going to walk and decided to run at the last minute) the sun was setting, my ipod was loud, I didn't have to stop at any of the lights, or crossings everything was green for me to go, I ran all three hills in this route and even looped around at the end to keep going because I didn't want to stop.  It felt great!  

Then Saturday morning I had my monthly jogging club run, I decided to take it a little easy because I had the Mother's Day Classic to run still I only came in about 25 secs slower than last months run, so I'm confident if I'd actually pushed I would have beat my time.  

Back to the 80's!!

Another major milestone!  Not only have I cracked my 40kg mark I've weighed in this morning at 88.8kg!  So not only have I hit the 80's I've truly crashed into them!  No eeking in at 89.9kg (which would still have been just as exciting!) but smash bang, 888.... hahahahha suppose I should be grateful it's not 666 then again! LOL  Measurements are coming along swimmingly very close to being out of triple figures on bust and hips!  Not long now, NOW that will be weird! :D 

So this is an exciting occasion for me, it's been well and truly over 15 years since I've been this light.  So it's weird, exciting and wonderful all at the same time! 

One Year Anniversary

It's been a celebratory weekend.  I started it off with a new PB on my 3.4km run beating last months time of 23:31 with a 22.20!

This weekend is the one year anniversary of the start of my journey.  And what a journey it's been.

Last week and this weekend I did some shopping!  It's so hard to stop!  But come on everyone needs two pairs of jeans right?  One to wear and one in the wash.... that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!

Personal Best's (PB's)

Last month I found this running group called Westie's Joggers, let me tell you they are a super lovely bunch of folks.  They do a variety of runs, once a month they have a 10km and a 3.4km.  These runs are handicapped, meaning the faster runners are timed to go later so that everyone finishes around a similar time.  You can walk the 3.4km too, a bunch of ladies head off and do it together it's very sweet!

So I decided to go try it out last month because I was looking for a 3kish run to practice running the whole way.  Your time gets recorded so it's great to keep track of and they give your your real time minus the handicap as well.  Last month my aim was to run the whole 3.4km course irrespective of the time, which I achieved.  My time was 25:52, which I was pretty pleased with anyway.  Seeing I met my aim of running the entire course, I had to set a new goal, I wanted to better my time, based on some of my running since then I was simply aiming to get it under 25 minutes, although any time betterment (hehehehehe is that a word) would be acceptable.  

Imagine my surprise when I blew my time completely out of the water by over 2 minutes, finishing today in 23:31.  This had the handicapper telling me my handicap would be increased next month, this seemed to upset some people, but frankly I don't care when I start it's about when I finish! :D 

So what do I set for next month?  I think I'll keep it pretty realistic, it's unlikely I can keep doing that big a drop every time, so the aim will be to get it under 23 mins.  What's your goal for the next month?