Another good week's holiday

It’s now Monday night and I’m back at work again tomorrow. The week since my last post has been just great and has flown by. I only turned the computer on a couple of times the whole of the last week for quick email checks, and at one stage I even went 4 days without turning it on at all - miraculous, and actually quite refreshing! There is much reading and catching up to do though, which I hope to get through over the course of the week.

Apart from the last couple of days the weather has been spectacular and I’ve been making the most of it. Every day I’ve been out and about either with the family or just with Isabel while Jodie and Tyler have been resting. Isabel loves the playground equipment at the parks now, as well as splashing around down at the beach (just wet feet for now until it warms up)...not to mention being strapped to my chest to help me out on trips to the shops!

I think I’ve made a breakthrough with my weight. Previously I’d steadily lost about 10kg over a year or so, but more recently I’ve been stuck on 95kg for well over a year now. Today I found that I’ve dropped a couple of kg over the last couple of weeks. Being out of my normal routine and running around all over the place means that I’ve skipped a lot of my usual between meal snacks. I think that switching the training around and getting into the cycling and swimming has contributed to it as well. I’m going to try to stick to a better eating plan and keep the exercise mixed up.

All my exercise over the last week has been during Isabel’s afternoon sleeps which are usually around midday.

Cycling
I went for 2 rides, both for over an hour. Thursday’s ride was up along the beaches and out to Settlement Point, before heading back via Clifton and the Industrial Estate with a couple of diversions. The 2nd one was yesterday, where I did a Lake Cathie return trip via Lighthouse Beach. I thought I was going so well until I started heading home and realise how much wind assistance I’d received on the way down, and what a grind I was faced with to get back. Took me an extra 15 minutes into the wind!

Swimming
Whilst Friday was a great day for a swim and I did about 45 minutes swimming and 10 minutes water running, today was not quite as pleasant outside. It was windy and cloudy with a few drops of rain, but nice and cosy in the heated pool! Today was 50 minutes swimming and 10 minutes water running. I’m feeling more comfortable each session, and the breaks are getting shorter after each lap, with a couple more continuous 100m each time. I did 500m breaststroke in the middle of the session today, and after that I found my freestyle was really relaxed and I was breathing well on both sides.

Running
With my alternate training I haven’t felt as bad about not running for the last week and a half. My calf hasn’t complained at all while on the bike or during the water running. I’m thinking of holding off for another week before giving the calf a test run. There’s nothing immediately pressing as far as events or goals, so I’d rather take the extra time to give it a good chance to heal. The kids, cycling and swimming are keeping me occupied for the moment anyway! If all goes well then that gives me 3 months to do some training for a decent tilt at the Central Coast Half which in turn will help me build some fitness to kick off the Canberra Marathon training.

Once I’m back into running I would like to continue to cycle at least once a week, and swim for 2-3 sessions a week.

Here are the photos

A 1km Run...and the rest

Well life is certainly busy at home at the moment and the weather is just great to be on holidays. I didn’t quite get around to the photos until now! Thanks to everyone for the kind comments.

Jodie and Tyler came home last Thursday afternoon. Everyone is well, although I think that everything happening as well as some more teeth coming through disrupted Isabel a bit. Happily she is better now that Mum is back and a degree of routine is restored. She has not been lacking attention, is fascinated by the new baby in her house and is happy to give him lots of kisses.

I neglected to mention that Tyler arrived weighing 4.17kg and was 53cm long. He’s sleeping fairly well and doesn’t complain too much at all – just the usual cries for food, a clean nappy and a cuddle.

I’ve finally got some photos together from the weekend. There's Tyler sleeping, awake, and one of Isabel heading in for a sloppy kiss!!


Running is on hold
Running is a bit of a problem at the moment, although not due to the obvious reasons. Another item I left out of my last post was that on my run to Flynn’s the other Friday I had some tightness in my right calf at around 2km, which gradually escalated to be fairly painful with each footfall by the end of the run.

I completely forgot about it until I ducked out Thursday morning for a run. I made it a total of 1km, at which point I felt a sudden pain in the same spot and ended up walking home as the pain continued with each step. It feels like a muscular strain (certainly can’t be an overuse injury!) so I’m giving it a chance for some rest and see how it pulls up after another week or two. So in the meantime cycling and swimming might be the go to maintain some fitness, then I’ll test it out next week. I'm not too concerned for now as the Central Coast Half is still over 3 months away.


Sunday Cycle
It was a beautiful day on Sunday, so while Jodie and Tyler were resting I took Isabel for a picnic down at Flynns Beach. Later while Isabel was sleeping I went for a cycle. It was 50 minutes around the beaches and Lighthouse area, causing no problem for the calf. I’m aiming a couple more rides over the next week while I’m on holidays.

Monday Swim
It’s been over 10 years since I’ve taken on an Olympic Pool. I decided it was time to change that and headed down for some late morning laps. All up I did 40 minutes of laps followed by 10 minutes of water running. Each lap was a bit tough at first, but later in the session the end of the pool seemed to be approaching a bit quicker and with less of a struggle! I’ve no idea how many laps I did and mixed in a few breaststroke laps. It was a good time of day to get back into it, as I shared the slow lane with no more than 2 others at any time.
I enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to soon being at the stage where I don’t have to stop after every lap, so I plan on getting down there once or twice a week from now on.

We have a Son!!

After an incredibly intense night I’m overjoyed to say that our son came into the world at 6.58am today, Tuesday the 15th of August. His name is Tyler and he is a beautiful and healthy baby.

Jodie started getting pains 3pm Monday, we arrived at the hospital around midnight, they nearly sent us home at 1am following irregular contractions, before they really kicked in and instead we headed for the birthing room around 2am. The labour did not go entirely to plan and for a while it took a turn for the worse before getting back on track. I can’t adequately describe it, other than to say it was quite an overwhelming experience.

Tyler had a great temperament on his birthday, sleeping peacefully for much of the time after a traumatic start to the day. There’s simply nothing like the feeling of your contented baby sleeping in your arms, looking into his eyes for the first time and giving him his first bath and seeing him peacefully floating in the warm water.

Now that he’s been cleaned up I hope to get a nice photo of him tomorrow to post. It’s been 39 hours since I had any sleep, so that is what I need now. I doubt I’ve done justice to the experience, but what an amazing day!!

Getting closer

Well the due date came and went yesterday. We had a false start on Friday night that lasted about 12 hours resulting in little sleep and a visit to the hospital but little else. However it seems things may be progressing as I write, so there may be a new arrival soon!!

I watched the TV coverage of the City to Surf wishing I was there, but knowing there’s always next year! Depending on how things go tonight I may or may not get to read some reports of the day.

I had to miss a couple of planned runs over the last week. What I did get around to were a couple of quick runs. Last Wednesday was 6km through the middle of the Lighthouse area, over to Harry’s Lookout then back home. Friday was another 6km return trip over to Flynns Beach.

No news means more work for me

No baby news at the moment and no further indications over the last couple of weeks, so we’re just playing the waiting game. Jodie’s in a fair amount of discomfort so I’m trying to take care of as much as I can around the place outside of work which doesn’t leave any spare time. It’ll be a relief to have a couple of weeks’ holiday when the baby does arrive - I think I’ll need it, although I’m sure I won’t get much rest!

In the running department:

Funny how I skip a day here, then a couple there and all of a sudden I’ve only done two runs since this time last week. Probably not surprising though, as there’s been plenty of rain over the last week and I’m not in the mood for cold, wet runs at the moment! Over the last week there have been some very heavy downpours, a few isolated thunderstorms, and even a brief hailstorm that came out of nowhere! I managed to find breaks in the downpours for both of these runs.


Friday 7km

Tackled a few hills with this run that took me down around Flynns Beach.

Sunday 14km

This was a couple of loops with a pit stop back home in the middle. The first was a standard route around the back of Waniora to Hamlyn Drive, followed by an Emerald Downs / Lighthouse Beach loop.

Hot and Cold

Saturday Afternoon 5km

This was a quick half hour at my first opportunity: 4pm. The only word to describe the first couple of km is sluggish, but after that I was ok. It was an hour and a half after largish, late lunch and I could really feel I was carrying some extra weight compared to first thing in the morning!!
So I trotted along Bangalay Rd through the middle of the Lighthouse area, down to Shelly Beach and home.


Sunday Midday 11km

Again I couldn’t do a morning run, but this time I was mentally prepared for a slow start so it didn’t bother me. In fact it was a spectacular spring like afternoon, and it was just enjoyable to be outside.

Whilst this wasn’t really a long run, I boiled down some of the long run advice from dinner the other night and stopped back home after 40 minutes to check that everything was ok and to grab a much needed drink. After that I didn’t really feel like going too much further, so I just went out for another 20 minutes or so.

Then seeing as it was such a nice day we all ventured out after I had some lunch and a quick shower.


Tuesday Intervals - 6km

After the weekend it was so refreshing to be out again before the sun was up. It’s been a couple of weeks since I did anything quick(ish), so I decided to do some 1 minute efforts. All up I did 8 intervals, each with around a minute jog recovery.

I miss these faster sessions given that at the moment I’m mostly plodding along. I’m planning to start another program in September to prepare for the Central Coast Half, so I’m sure by then I’ll be really keen for some of the more intense sessions.


I definitely feel fresher when running at dawn. There seems to be less resistance, it’s cooler, there are fewer cars about and it’s great to see the start of a new day. Sometimes at the start of the runs in the middle of the day I feel a bit more like I would be approaching the 10km mark of a dawn run in terms of fatigue. They seem to be becoming a little more convenient at times though, so it might just be a matter of acclimatising to them as it’s not much good to write off training for the whole day just because I can’t get out first thing in the morning. Besides, it has to be good mental conditioning to be pushing through that extra fatigue, and should prepare me better for when summer arrives, so there are advantages.


No hint of any early arrivals yet. Any spare time I have at the moment is being used to get the place organised for an extra person around the house. I was washing some of Isabel's newborn clothes and it was just amazing how small they seem now and how much she's grown in the year. She’s walking everywhere now so the time has also come to seriously baby proof the house!