Had a Happy Christmas

I ran for the first time since the Mince Pie run - and I'm not feeling better for the break, indicating successful over indulgence over the last few days. My Dad's got great choice in beer, my middle sister makes great ginger puddings, my brother in law cooks fantastic pork, my Mum's mince pies & Christmas cake are the best, my other brother in law aided and abetted the beer drinking and even the sight of my littlest sister looking decidedly svelte didn't halt my calorie intake! So it's not my fault. OK, it is. A little bit.

I had to cancel all runs last week due to ice & snow. It was too snowy in Northumberland so my running shoes stayed in the suitcase & I scrounged a pair of walking boots from Mum. It's great having walking addicts as parents as there's always spare kit!

Walking was required between our lodgings at a pub and my parents' home - only about 10mins, but a slippy operation on ice and compressed snow.

Middle sister & I escaped for a brief moon/snowlit stroll on Christmas Day in a vain attempt to create more food space.

We did a more substantial walk on Boxing Day, heading down to the Tyne and the east along its south bank. My older nephews used this as an opportunity to try out their new wooden swords - very impressed that they restricted hits to dragons and other such monsters and not each other - or youngest nephew who joined us in a rucksack. Nieces headed back earlier with their Dad as it certainly wasn't very warm. As you can see in Husband's photo, the light, snow, mist and landscape all made for a memorable walk.

And more walking yesterday at a lake close to Belsay - just with Husband, Mum & Dad. The snow and frozen lake made everything monochrome - our colour photos could easily be black & white! Lots of swans & canada geese hung out on the only non frozen bit of the lake, competing quite viciously for vistiors' bread!

Top 40 update

Done:
2. Follow a crochet pattern - done with R's booties (very easy one though)
3. Crochet something wearable that isn't a scarf - done with R's booties
5. Make some homemade Christmas presents - done! Pity my female relatives!
10. Finished a George Elliot Novel - finished Mill on the Floss
17. Used my wii fit lots
26. Fixed a puncture all on my own (almost!)
33. Great South Run - done
35. A non-running WRN event - as the Mince Pie Run was more of a ginger balance/walk - and was much more about the mulled wine & mince pies, I figure it counts!
39. Slept in our tent

Failed:
6. Make something from foraged food - my sloe cheese was a disaster - so back to the drawing board

WIP
21. I've bought a water butt - haven't fitted it yet though
22. Loft insulation- you wouldn't believe how long clearing it out is taking!
25. Bought the paint for redecorating living room

9/40 - hmmm, plenty to be getting on with! I guess I won't need any more resolutions this year!

The Mince Pie Run

10 uf us braved the ice and cold today & ventured across the icefields of Bishopstoke for the Eastleigh WRN Mince Pie Run. Very slidy & icy so we mostly walked, fitting ina few jaunty runs where the conditions allowed. And as you can see from our shoes, a little muddy!

Back to mine for mince pies & mulled wine - expertly served by Husband - in our very warm dining room.

It was great to get the different runners in the different time groups together. And Husband was able to put names to faces at last!

Ice and mood enhancement

I haven't been feeling too good this week - been getting very anxious about a kazillion things that don't merit a high level of anxiousness. So it was great to get out for a pedal today in the Forest - and what a day. Blue skies, sunshine, little wind - crisp and icy. We were joined by Goldfish and did the route I think of as Kitty's route from Milkham. Lots of frozen puddles to crunch through. I'm not very brave with ice (or many other things) but managed to do a few - loved the sound of the ice breaking like glass. And as you can see in the photo, some of the ice wasn't crunchable! The boys whizzed past 3 deer really close to the trail - but at my sedate pace, I spotted them & we stared at each other for a bit before my camera scared them off. The ice meant that I didn't get as wet as last time - so although it was very cold, I stayed quite cozy in my layers. I am really appreciating my merino wool base layer and I put a pair of thermal leggings under therma cycling tights.

The ride did the trick with my mood and I feel much more relaxed now. I had been hoping that the treadmill last night would work - but no. It was a short but quite satisfying session with a nice solid 20mins of intervals. Husband should have been swimming but the pool was shut due to having been vomited in!

Just cycle commuting on Thursday, made a little more challenging by lugging 2 bottles of liqueur in my panniers.

Not to plan

I haven't exercised quite as much as I hoped this evening. Body Combat didn't happen - the services of the previous instructor were discontinued last week and a very apologetic gym manager explained that he'd messed up with sorting out a replacement for tonight. Irritating, but these things happen. I've got mixed feelings about the change - liked the instructor, but also love her replacement. So by the time I got to exercise, I just had 25 mins - 20 on the cross trianer and 6 on the stepper.

And no pedalling today as I had to go to Portsmouth for work. None yesterday as I went to London. I did walk to & from the station in freezing weather.

Very proud of the Beginners - they completed their 30 minutes last night with aplomb. More important than my pride, I hope that they are all feeling suitably proud of themselves.
Running was good on Monday too - with one of the Beginners doing her first WRN 5K.
All good!

Sunshine in Noss Mayo

I'm starting to feel Christmassy - despite the sunshine. We enjoyed this weird sun thing this weekend in Devon with the Fabulous In Laws.

Husband's legs withstood a 5ish mile walk near the intriguing named village of Noss Mayo on Saturday - loved the coast views from NT stretch called The Warren. Woodland with creek views through the trees, then up & over a hill back to the car. He was suffering afterwards though - shuffling when we popped into Dartmouth to see the Candlelit Christmas thing (great Irish band).

I got to do my favourite beach hut run this morning with my Fabulous Mother In Law. Nearly couldn't as I'd managed to leave my running tights at home - but despite being a svelte size 8, FMIL managed to find a pair of shorts my bum would squeeze into. I'm hoping that I haven't stretched them too much! We tried a variation that avoided the worst hill and involved some downwards steps - interesting, but I prefer the original.

Gym on Friday - new machines! All very impressive - individual TV screens and ipod docks - but its going to take me a while to adjust - wasted about 10mins faffing about.

Christmas party on Wed did involve a little dancing, but offset any benefit by feeling too delicate on Thursday to do anything except wii. Pedalled 3 days this week as I had 2 trips to Portsmouth. Running was fine on Mon & Tue - but low numbers which I'm attributing to Christmas!

My first puncture repair

Heavy rain through the week meant that choice of bike ride this weekend was restricted to Forest tracks - unless we wanted to spend hours ploughing through bog. Chose a route we haven't done for a while - another Kitty creation which combines classic forest fire tracks with a stretch of "proper" bridle way just south of Brockenhurst. The river you can see in the pic is normally a Husband-ridable-ford - even he didn't fancy it today. Several mushy bits but as it was New Forest silt as opposed to central Hamphire clay, it wasn't too claggy.
Big news is that I fixed my first puncture, with a little supervision. And it was a back wheel one. And I patched it rather than just swap the inner tube. Another Top 40 thing to tick off my list.
No deer, but some pretty birds at the beginning - loads of bluetits and a couple of nuthatches, and a v.handsome fox in the carpark at the end.

Other exercise this week - I tried tempo running with J on Monday. This consists of running faster than's comfortable. The benchmark is speech - normal steady runs have normal steady conversation. Tempo running means mono syllables - but not as fast as sprinting. We did it as a pyramid - after warming up & a steady paced start, we did 1 min at tempo followed by 1 min at steady pace. Then 2 mins at tempo, then 3. Decided that would do for now, so repeated 3, then did 2, finally 1. It went OK & we did the 5km in under 30 mins.
Cycled to work Mon-Thurs, but had a day off on Friday so heaved around 60L boxes of books instead.