Day 7, Tongue licks the competition as the teddy orgie continues

Today started with a major run disaster, well in my mind it was but anyone else would simply think it's your own fault, move on. After Saturday's 3 bears run washing was done in a hurry and as such my pride and joy running top, with flashy or static red light went into the washing machine and was now a  soggy mess with no battery to be found in the machine or cuffs. Good to see what is inside. I met Kim for our run adventure and was in a panic that the battery was stuck in the mechanics of the washing machine and then it would cost a bloody fortune and I would have to make like how did that happen? Where did that come from? But as we started on our 13km I pulled out my running hankie and there was the battery, how? I was so glad I put the other components on the radiator to dry off and when I got back made the light back up and how lucky am I but back to being flashy lady once again. Actually I mainly use it when I cycle to and from work but a small thing like a working light made my day.
We had a most excellent run today, weather was dry but cloudy and really windy in a few areas and me and the girl done good, we planned a sort of route with two short cuts if we are tired we can cut it short to 8 or 11km but didn't need them and went the whole hog carrying on making almost 13.5 km and over 1200 calories burnt. Ding dong, we did have a toot, but from a female friend, Kim saw a couple of people and we waved and I saw a guy from the gym in his car but he just waved, like a four year actually, but both feeling less like lard on legs today and Kim has already knocked off half a stone as I still wallow in self pity, oh woe is me nothing fits. I know that speed will pick up as weight goes down so better get going but as I am typing this I am eat chocolate popcorn.

From running I popped in the gym and had a fast paced arms and leg alternate weight session and then onto the power plates. I had a plan to do housework and a need to move the Hello Kitty, Yogi Bear and 101 Dalmatians orgy from the lounge. There is a reason they are on top of the drinks cupboard, Pongo loves to mother them then rip out their eyes and stuffing and Yogi is 23 years old and safe up there.

Not content with running and gyming I went Mother and doggie walking across the fields. Pongo because he needs it and Mother because she has lowered her cholesterol and it's part of her exercise plan and also to catch up on her holiday gossip as they have been away. All in all a top day and for a little while today I was second in the league table for Janathon, Tongue licks the competition.

Saw this today, in hardback and not a single printed sheet suggested by a non Orient fans

Totals
Running 13.40km
Gym 30mins
Dog walking 4km
Tooted up 1
Continued stuffed toy orgy 1

Day Six , odd shoes and a compromise rest day

 Day six and a strange day for me as I had a sports massage, went "up town" and am now in the same position as I was 24 hours ago, groundhog day comes to Serendipity.

Yesterday's planned binge ended with a couple of glasses of wine and some dog training. Yup I am so lazy whilst on the lap top on the floor and working my through the box set of Cougar Town, I was trying hard to get Pongo to fetch me a glass and some ice to have a tipple of an xmas present (thanks Chris). Now Pongo is an intelligent Dalmatian, but a little clumsy and also he couldn't open the freezer lid and my laziness fatigue, meant I only had one and went to bed. Felt bad as I let Kim down from running at 8am but did get up and have a swim, half an hours averagely fast pace, but as I had no goggles with me and the water at the pool is 100% chlorine, hospital disinfectant before heart surgery in that water, meant I could only do fast backstroke and breaststroke as I really didn't want to risk losing my sight.

The day carried on with a free sport massage, yes free, quite by chance I lucked into being offered one by my lovely yoga teacher who is doing a degree in something, OK so I stopped paying attention after the word free, but she needs 100 bodies to work on. Had a lovely hour and a quarter of discomfort but "for the greater good" (Hot Fuzz ). Rushed home and up town with the long suffering Mr T to view the Wallace Collection http://www.wallacecollection.org/visiting
Photo is Mike in a chain mail coat of armour from the armoury and not a knitted bed jacket. Visit was lovely and led to Pizza Express for two.

Having size 9 and not thin like a clowns extra wide hoofs I struggle to get shoes to fit me and when I saw this I just had to share that Cinderella was now on her way to the ball. This became a reccurring theme as when we walked down Lombard Street we found another solo Cinderella clue, size 6  Dorothy Perkins, so if you lost it at the weekend and it looked pretty new and in good condition it's still there.
Oh and one last photo as I have never noticed this at Bank station

Totals for a rest day
Swim, half an hour fast
Dog walkies, 23 mins, cold and in trainers
Lazing about being pulled poked and prodded 1 1/4 hours
Odd shoes 2
Pizza Express salad and a latta 1

Day 5, broken bra, football waterlogged pitch and how does a slimming patch work? Stick over your mouth ?

I am so good and got up at 6:15 am to go running with my two super run buddies. I should have guessed it wasn't going to be my day when I couldn't get my bra to do up and when I finally struggled my ever increasing mass into a 34 the whole thing goes "tits up" (that's a technical term, or so Mr T always tells me) when there was a ping and an overspill of boobs. I had to go back up to sleeping hubby, find an even tighter bra, harness myself up and wake him to use his foot on my back and clip up the second shock absorber of the day. I am hoping to fix the original bra as it's my special Olympic one and holds special memories as well as my crown jewels. Even as I left home we had escape catty episode which turned into the two evil, I mean jet black cats escaping into the darkness, I almost had one back and the second made a dash across the porch and gone in 60 seconds, so here I am at 6:45 in the dark and light rain trying to quietly call "here pussy pussy". I texted my runners to say wait for me, woke hubby again and said the little angels have escaped in the dark and at last drive a few miles to meet up with the run girlies.  

Cats as Kittens last year

So yay the trio are reunited after a spell of illness, both adult/children and Christmas New Year festivities. We see ourself as Nell McAndrew x3, but call ourselves the 3 bears not just because I usually have porridge after our Saturday morning run but Jackie is the tiny Baby Bear in height but is so very slim, Kim is the the pretty Mummy Bear with lovely blonde hair and stops us from running in the road and is our run mummy. I am Daddy Bear, I'd like to think because as we run we chat the whole time and the stories are so funny I often laugh like Sid James/Jonathan Ross but in reality it's because I am the biggest, possible from weight (I wished) but also I am the oldest and most reckless of the bears. So after making everyone late I am on a mission to finish this run, which didn't go unnoticed by the other bears. Very disappointed as no toot ups and the only funny thing was as we came to a huge road sign for Lakeside which is 40 foot by 60 foot tall with a roundabout on it. As car headlights came up behind us it made huge 40 foot shadows so it looked liked 3 giants were running toward us for 5 seconds at a time. My phone said we did 8.08 km but Mummy Bear, using the same Endomondo app said we did 8.20 km which I preferred, but both said we ran slow and if it was a school report would be a "could do better and need to try harder", but hey caught up on all the gossip and it makes running such fun with such good friends. I intended to go home but as I had my gym pass in the car went in and had a hard bike session for half an hour followed by the power plates, a cool down on my legs and loads of arm pulls.


The day went downhill with the removal of Christmas from "Serendipity". I love it but everyone else here hates it so away it was packed for another 11 months, small sniff and sob and then it was a big lunch as I had a secret drink planned with the football boys, but with the current turn of luck we arrived at the ground and found that half an hour earlier the ref has said the pitch was waterlogged, looked fine to me, but no non league and now I was stuffed on an unnecessary fluid absorbing lunch, what else to do,nothing, went home and to bed for an hour. Walk the dog, watched Man U vs West Ham, eat crap left over nibbles and have a bottle of wine whilst thinking about if I will run tomorrow at 8, or gym/swim or open a second bottle of wine to ease the Big Brother and Splash! pain.

Todays Totals, One broken bra
Running 8.20km, thanks Kim I am using your results
Bike 30 mins fast and hard but only 13 kms
Powerplates 15 mins
Doggy walking 25 mins
Scared into a small stress incontinence leakage by a huge shadow of oneself running towards me, one

Day 4, Cake Skittles, driving

Today was a strange and unrepeatable day maybe as I woke up 4 or 5 times in the night but tried hard to go back to sleep and then didn't get up till 8.00. Maybe the refilling of the skittle dispenser was on my mind, yummy, yummy yum yum.

I have kept up with my activities, no running but half an hour in the gym on the bikes doing a tricky little programme including massive hills and a few dips. This was followed by hour and a half in yoga and a doggy walk with Mr. T and Pongo, but diet still pending.
I have only been going to yoga for about 6 weeks but can already feel I am more stretchy a technical term. "It gives me an enormous sense of well-being" (Parklife) and although I am like a tennis ball rolling around the back of the class partly as I have no balance and also I struggle to follow instructions. I already know about the balance from the amount of timesI fall off my bike, trip up nothing or roll off the swissball and didn't need yoga to prove to me that I am not balanced. When I got back home the lovely Jemma (middle daughter) and Liam were packed and ready for their journey back home to Devon after having a lovely holidays break with us. This was after some eggy bread a few tears and hugs from siblings. The day went downhill as we went to the local police station, waited 45 minutes hearing the re-enactment of a fight between neigbours several times, each time more scary and dramatic than the last, it was like a live Jeremy Kyle. We got our turn at the hatch only to be told we need the IMEI number from his lost phone and that he had to report it to a Metropolitan Police station as it was lost in London. Following that let down we took Amber to drive our car at the cardrome, a small private road set up with hill starts and corners and parking for learners to practise on.

This was her first try after only 4.5 hours of lessons and she did really well and we all came away happy. After chinese and Nandos yesterday the kitchen felt sad and lonely but I stuck with the chicken theme and made fajitas. I tried hard but I'd been nibbling all day, yoghurt raisins, haribos, can't even remember what else and now I have had a massive hot chocolate topped with cream and a huge chunk of christmas cake which isn't getting smaller. In my defence I did walk the dog but a rubbish 2 km doesn't equal the amount of cake I ate!

Go away naughty cake

Day 3 and it's a double eating out sort of day, but I did double train, who am I kidding!

Oooowh...er... go away evil food! If only I had food will power but next week is the start of the diet so at the moment it's eat as much as you can. Saying this I did have a double training day, shame I filled myself with double calories too!!!!

is it on or off?

The day started excellently with a banana and Jemma,  Liam, Mike and I hit the gym for an hour or so of weights, powerplates, bike and cross trainer. Then it was shower and down to Nandos for a beautiful butterfly chicken breast, OK so I had peas and half chips, half coleslaw but no dessert or wine, small goal achieved and not that bad. The was still reasonably good as all I had all afternoon was some coffee and a small chocolate biscuit. After hubby working all afternoon and quite a few chores but mainly fighting or breaking up fighting of 2 daughters, one fraping me to say she's number one child the other blocking me I was secretly looking forward to going for a run. I am not a night time runner. I work till 7 a few times a week and come in, eat, flop watch TV. Once it's dark I go into hibernation, but with my excellent run buddy awaiting my arrival together with the added confidence of  the super bright Ron Hill flashy light on blink I was ready to roam. I hope no one had an epileptic fit behind me as it was flashing on double time. We both felt like it was a fast run but in fact we were 4 minutes slower than yesterday, although we went anticlockwise, won't be doing that again if it's a slower route! There were a few highs of doing a nighttime run, the first being we got tooted up, now I just waved and hoped it was for us but in the dark we obviously looked thinner, younger and back to our pre-christmas and New Year binge self.

Another bonus was we could see in people's houses as it was too early for curtains closed, but we saw a huge, like 18 stone topless man sitting in Christmas pajama bottoms watching the box. We toyed with going back for a photo but felt we just couldn't share this large amount of whiteness with the world. Only other excitement apart from my moaning the whole way was I nearly got run over, as you will realise this is an almost daily occurrence. I would like to think I am mega focused, but just not in running. I am always walking in the road or walls, cupboards even door frames and sometime I can blame this on as being on my phone, but not always.

Life is good and the day ended with me having a shower and coming down to a huge amount of Chinese take away, which I tried so hard to just pick at but still had seconds and am now looking at a small Drambuie to wash the flavours out of my mouth, most people would brush their teeth. Hey looky looky Celebrity Big Bro is on, let's try again for a better food day tomorrow!

Here is today's route
http://www.runningfreeonline.com/act/951458/subView/Map


Totals today
Run 49 mins, 7 and a bit km
Cross trainer 15 mins
Power plates 15 mins
Weights 30 mins 
One fat topless man, almost run-over and yes, one again, broken diet again 

Day Two and things are looking up, if you don't mention the Pie and Mash

Come on and take me out

Oh yes, awake before the alarm and up and wedged into my shock absorber bra, not a great advert for them as I have a Christmas over-spillage on the top, bottom and sides of the overstretched elastic. Old leggings, top that is too tight and belly looking like a burst sausage skin covered in my extra baggy but now slim fit Ron Hill top. I drove downhill to join the my run buddy and away we run for a short route reconnaissance in the hope of a car tooting and not to say "oi lard ass you've well bulked up over the holiday". In our minds we were two babes cruising Essex at a fast pace impressing all who can focus on us at our supersonic speed, in reality a great catch up chat spoilt by some out of breath running. We both had a lot of news to catch up on and a warm cafe would have been much nicer but alas the diet and health freak in us said get out and just do it, no not sponsored by Nike (they withdrew their sponsorship following the scandal of  the jelly belly expose pulling up the run tights).

Nice

Feeling extra tennis ball shaped I went into the gym for half an hour on the spinning bikes and went powering off, also this was slowed down by playing backgammon and mah jong and singing out of tune to my ipod. Still not content I went on to the power plates and had another 15 minutes on arms weights and abs but also a good leg stretch so was happy with my effort. This effort however lulled me into a false sense of  "I've burnt off a million calories, what can I have to eat". I did have a large Daddy bear bowl of porridge  but this was followed at 2 o'clock by two pies, no mash and liquor as I was out shopping with Hubby, Devon daughter and her boyfriend and they led me back to the dark side so diet lasted all of one evening and a morning. This was a positive trip as I managed to retrieve son's lost coat from a club he recently visited, well he lost the ticket for the cloakroom and they wouldn't give him his coat back. "How can we identify this coat madam"? "I'm his Mum I have written his name on the label and the washing instructions", club owner says "Is it Chris G"? I am such a good Mummy to a 23 year old!

Home again

So swings and roundabouts, returned coat and sexy new wellies for me, well the flooding is getting worse. This has been followed by a cheese tea and a found open bottle of wine in the garden, must be from Christmas Eve as we had a little "do" and wine, beer and cider were by the back door keeping cool, nice finding Mike and lovely and cool to wash down the syrup pudding Jemma is making. Time to go for a doggy walk with Pongo in the new wellies!

Totals today
Run 45 mins, 7km
Cycling 30 mins
Power plates 15 mins
Dog walking 35 mins in the rain and wind
Lost coat retrieval and diet broken

Ohw er Is it the 1st today?????

Getting close

Yikes almost failed before I started as it was a slow start but sure it will build up, anyway who wants to peak too soon? OK so the truth, I have a hangover and a slow start is the best I could manage. Mike and I went to the gym for a big swim but it turned into maybe half an hour at a push swim but a lovely sauna/steam/jacuzzi. We did however go on a long dog walk of about 3 km. The walk was across the field/swamp at the present, not just to see other's misery, let's add a few photos of a flooded house but also to act as a reconnaissance as this is my favourite 9-10km run route and recently there it has been a mud bath/washout and I don't do dirty or wet running but miss the joy of touching the gate at locksmiths cottage and turning around to run back.

Oh dear

Totals Day 1
   
Run  0 km
Swimming 30 Minutes
Dog walking 2.75km 34mins