Behold!

On Sunday, most likely with help from ventolin, cough syrup and immodium if the week's trend continues, I'll be covering 21.1km on foot. Yay!! It'll probably take me close to four hours (see above, plus the 20-odd extra kgs I'll be hauling around) but you know what?

Last Christmas I couldn't walk Noddie to school without pain. I had to think about every single step I took. Now, if I can walk/run a half marathon, then I will do so, wheeze and cough be damned. Especially one where the finish is in a great big cool stadium with 10000 of my closest friends, including The Mighty Emma, YAY! Team Stupidly Determined races together again!! and I get a medal!
The Spousal Unit and I had lunch today with a non-sporty friend. When I spoke of my plans for the weekend, she got a very funny look on her face

I mentioned this to the Spousal Unit later: she thinks I'm mad, doesn't she? Do you think I'm mad? Well, quoth he, you've always been a bit mad...nothing wrong with being a bit mad.
I *heart* the Spousal Unit.
I've made up a playlist for Sunday with three hours 59 minutes of music. My goal is to only hear any of it once. But if not... behold the field! I'm just soooo taken with that!
More anon, caution-tossers!

ermergerd

ermergerd it's been more than a month since I put pen to paper (as it were). I'm plugging away at more fitness/less lard, with more success at the former, but that'll do for the moment. My main focus is to Keep At It no matter what. I'm not getting discouraged becuase I haven't done what I planned, instead doing what I can - taking into account we're still quite a tired sad household - I can't believe it's only ten weeks since J's dad died - and Noddie has been busy being startlingly impressive all over the place (apologies to my effbee friends for the slightly sickening succession of Proud Mum posts). The leadup to taking two whole weeks off  was MENTAL - including the insane dance teacher's impossible costume demands!

yes I made these, figjam eh? and I can apply false eyelashes and eyeliner wings like a BOSS me stressed? hahahahahahaaaaaaaa

- and now we're nearly through eisteddfodd week, involving 13 performances in 3 towns (2 solos, 2 duos and 2 troupes, so "only" six costumes thank ****). We worked out we've covered more than 1500km this week! Noddie loves dancing and works very hard at it, so even though it's an alien and faintly disturbing world to me, I'm happy to be the least crap Dance Mum I can be (I'll never be good at it. Song and dance makes me want to poke myself in the eye with a pencil).  I'm walking when I can, (ahem) 'running' when I can, and taking great pleasure in being able to run up the many many stairs in dance theatres. I couldn't do that a few months ago - thank you glutes for coming to the party at last, and thank you 10000 reps of physio exercises! I'm resigned to a slow melbourne half marathon in a few weeks, but far more focused on how wonderful it is to be able to just say, oh well, walk/running 21.1km will take me over 3 hours at the moment when last Christmas my goal was to walk 2km without soreness. It's all good!

more anon, divas!

onya bike, Noddie

I am such an idiot.
What do I think about and worry about and get upset about? My health and fitness!! And what do I prioritise? My work and the housework and the family and every other bloody thing and not what's important. Certainly family and work have to come first when they need to come first , but acting as though fitness is the unimportant afterthought, when to me it clearly isn't, makes no sense at all!

Oy karamba. (sound of LBTEPA smacking head).
And another blinding flash of illumination: my main weakness is my core and glutes, I need to ramp up my cardiovascular fitness, I can't really walk/run every day....and I have a bike that isn't on its trainer....
well it is now.
More anon, pedal-pushers!

of mice and men

The entire story of the last few months could be 'life got in the way of my best laid plans'. But it never used to, even when things were super-challenging, so it's my doing really. I have to keep working at it, just chipping away at making exercise an always-do/who-I-am thing rather than a negotiable priority. I'll work it out. I'm a bit peeved becuase my lower back has taken to spasming and shrieking at me, which is unpleasant. I'm hammering the roller and stretching and if it hasn't come good by next week I'll go back to the cranky and disapproving yet extremely good physio.
I've pondered the 'do the open water swim without a wetsuit and be sneered at running up the finish chute as my unconstrained lard flops about' - this DID happen last year (I DO have togs on, in case that gave the wrong impression!) - and have come to the conclusion that I must focus on the 30 min of enjoyable swimming not the 90sec of humiliation at the end. I can't get my wetsuit back as the person to whom I have lent it is a) training for her first ironman b) afraid of water and c) also doing the event. meh.
Then again, I could lash out for a ticket to Brisbane instead to see my footy team, who this season have made me very very happy with their best performance in many a long year....hmmm... hot blokes in tight shorts and a reasonably likely win? Hmmm.....

More anon, flyboys!

....just quickly

ok so now the excitement has subsided and we are back into Real Life, boooo, The Plan for the res of the year Is This
- swim the Hazelwood Pond 1.5k swim with my friend on 5th Sept. This will involve actually going to the pool in the intervening time, a novel concept these days. I can do it
- Melbourne marathon half
- no full marathon - can't do it physically in the time, and even if I was about 3 months ahead of where I actually am, domestic imperatives dictate that I don't have available time to lay down super-long training walk/runs. Not upset by this. I'm not doing underdone sufferfests. Nor is endurance sport either my job or my highest duty.
- Sussan half marathon in December,if the date fits with the aforementioned domestic imperatives.
- Sub-goal - get to a reliable 2km of non-stop running so I can do the mini-triathlons our club runs every spring and summer. I'd love to drop a few kg on the way but if that happens it'll be a bonus.
Here we go!
I pinched this from the MIghty Tea. Thanks darl!
More anon, bling-chasers!

How did it go?

How did it go? I absolutely effing SMASHED IT. I was FIERCE. I went as hard as this heavy weak body could go, ALL THE WAY. It felt MAGIC. I did not falter. I stuck to the plan, and concentrated, the whole three and a half hours. That's more than half an hour faster than I was expecting, I'll have you know, and I wasn't wearing a watch so it was just go go go and then the best feeling ever at the end! I was so happy, all the way! There were hardly any times I wished I had another hobby :) When I was coming up the (mercifully short) finish chute, (for I was well and truly had it), I was laughing and laughing - such elation! Oh my goodness I love that feeling!
And let me tell you, the shower you have after racing  for several hours and then driving 300km home (ewww) is the best shower ever.

In like Flynn

Here at Chateau LBTEPA we are moving from utterly shocked to mourning J's dad, and getting on with all the house-sorting and what-will-we-do-with-the-dog -ing stuff. Thank goodness there's no hurry.
I had a brilliant walk on the trail on Friday. I think I've conquered my shoe issues - touching wood - I'm finding nutri-grain a good pre-long-workout breakfast that doesn't fight with the gels (don't shudder!),  and I was certainly faster than I expected!
Just to cover all my bases, and to make sure that I won't be doing a 600km round trip 'for the satisfaction of finishing', I rang the race organisers asking to confirm that even if it does take me 4.5 hours to finish 21.2km, there will be a) a finish line and b) a medal for me. They rang back this morning, answering in the affirmative to both.
Ack! As my dear friend the Mighty Emma would say, ohshitohshitohshit we're all going to die! 
Oh who am I tricking? I am so looking forward to this! I know it'll be hard work, that I am quite underdone, and there will be times when I will feel embarrassed and hopeless and ashamed of my weight and my pace. These times will be fleeting! I will be focussed on the fact that last December my goal was to walk Noddie to school, 1km from my house! Now I'm sooking about being too slow over 21.1km! I am so lucky!

I was going to put another photo up because this one makes me look fat, but then I remembered a conversation I had with the Spousal Unit on the weekend. I said, you know what? Last summer I was fat and weak and broken and depressed. Now I'm strong and getting stronger, and happy, and fat. Can't grizzle about that!
More anon, stompers!

I think I will

You know what? I looked up the cutoff time for the half marathon I was planning to do in a couple of weeks' time....and there isn't one.  

I've paid, I can walk 21.1km, they have to wait. Then I get bling. I think I'll do it .

 

 see? Niiiiice bling.......

More anon, gluttons for punishment!

JKM

In answer to the question posed by the redoubtable Cilla, to whit: so? How did it go? The short answer is - well! which could also be accurately written well.....
I had about ten days feeling really well after the everlasting chest infection and started to build a routine of early rising and daily exercise..and then....
my sinuses started acting up...I couldn't believe it...I felt beside myself and frantic. I was poking around at the chemist looking for a magic potion or a new head or something, anything, when the chemist, one of the ironman finishers at our tri club (I know this but he doesn't know me) suggested a whiz-bang nasal douche that 'always worked for him'. Apparently it's isotonic or hyperbaric or mesiolithic or something, I can't remember and I don't care - it's the bees' rollerskates! Three days and my schnoz was as cooperative a schnoz as one could wish for!  This could really be a game changer.  I was able to whiz off to a regional health conference and walk before work and at lunchtime and go to the gym and think about rearranging life to revolve around exercise again. And then......
Four days after that (Wednesday of last week) my father-in-law died, very suddenly. He's been very frail for a while, but this was one of those shocking nice day with the family, out to dinner with friends, drop in his tracks on the way to bed and be found 14 hours later by the meals on wheels lady five minutes before the Spousal Unit and Noddie arrived to have lunch with him situations. Not unexpected, but shocking.
We decided we'd still go on our  weekend road trip that we'd organised months ago, on the principle that we could feel miserable just as well driving around the state as at home. I think it was a good idea, but it was three nights away from home, then two nights in our own bed before leaving for Melbourne again for the the funeral. Funerals are very tiring to organise and attend, I find. But I delivered a ripper euplogy even if I do say so myself.
Now we are home again, and in three days I'll be back at work after what's felt like being dumped by a huge wave onto an unfamiliar beach.
The Run Melbourne Half I planned for two weeks' time isn't happening. Nothing that hasn't been about keeping everyone going has been happening. Just Keep Moving has been the LBTEPA way. Keep the washing going, make sure there's food, answer the phone. The self-care standards I've set have been fairly low - drink heaps of water, get to the gym a couple of times and go for the odd walk. This of course has implications for my planned marathon later in the year - 42km is a long way even when you're walking, and I don't do underdone sufferfests. In a week or so, when life and sleep and exercise settle down, I'll have a think and set some goals. Stay tuned......
More anon, staggerers!

Once more, with gusto

Once more cleared for action, on the morrow at dark o'clock our heroine will embark on the next section of her path back to fitness. So there.

The things you find on g00g1e images...I might have to change the name of my blog!

More anon, full-forwards!

trap for young players

ahem. This post describes a hot contender for the stupidest thing I have ever done.
working out is good, yes?
pushing through things is good, yes?
learn from me, young grasshoppers - do not, I repeat do not, go to the gym and work out when you have a chest infection, lest you should strain the chest wall with the effort of breathing, and feel so sick and sore with chest pain that you go to the hospital where they think you might be having a heart attack but of course you aren't so you feel like a complete dill.

But my blood pressure is down from the other week! Yay! It wasn't me, it was the bug!
More anon, beepers!

rhetorical

how am I supposed to exercise and lose weight and get strong and train for this bloody marathon when my chest hurts so much all the time and wakes me up?But I have a plan....

thinking, but not too much

 The LBTEPA train got rather hesitantly back on track on the weekend. I walked for over 2 hours, reasonably quickly; no running though, the lungs wouldn't stand it in the cold air.  My current challenge is to not live the next 6 weeks (until the half marathon I intended/have paid/was well on track to do before I got sick) all at once in my head. I can't write off walking on July 26th yet - but I will be able to tell quite soon whether it'll be worth the weekend away/train ticket/accommodation to have a crack at it. My call now, based on current progress, would be 'no', which is massively disappointing and a huge worry concerning my planned November marathon. See how it works? I have to live in the future a little bit, but too much time there and I'm all sad and discouraged. LBTEPA the tightrope walker.
I'm continuing the gym workouts. The pitilessly accurate mirrors are, alas, still there, as are the startled looks from people I haven't seen for a couple of years. But no matter - it's the price I pay to get stronger. It is what it is. I don't have to like it. On my first visit the chickybabe who wrote my program spouted now let me know if there are any exercises you don't like and we'll change them, the most important thing is that you enjoy yourself. 
No it isn't, quoth I sternly, the most important thing is that I do it. She looked puzzled, but the feeble notions of gym staff are not my problem.

A daily gobful of this and I'm sorted!

More anon, sluggers!

me and fred

Yesterday ate itself in the office- now that the Spousal Unit isn't working, I am am seeing more clients and doing more hours, and I had got a fair way behind with auditable (if that's a word) stuff after being knocked around by the everlasting lurgi, now thankfully in abeyance. Then, becuase my second major priority is family,  I had committed myself to picking up a kid in another town so Noddie could practise her new duo etc etc, so the day was pretty cactus. BUT because I've reinstated health as a major priority (three is manageable, do you think?), I hacked out 20 minutes from somewhere in the late afternoon before we headed off to Friday night at my father-in-law's.
I did feet and ankle strengthening, plus balance and agility AKA TAP PRACTICE!!! TAPPING IS SO MUCH FUN!!! I have to tell you, darls, I am just thrilled to bits with my newly-constructed ability to hop. 10,000,000 reps of glute strengthening exercises are boring but by crikey they are effective. I may have my theraband bronzed.

The Spousal Unit sometimes helps me practise

Off to the gym again now. I've even bought some new workout pants. Where will this end?

More anon, knock-hop-steppers!

on it

Went to gym didn't die didn't cry. Hate the mirrors. The end.

don't

In the spirit of 'if you can't be a good example be a dire warning', LBTEPA's press department has released the following sms from LBTEPA to her dear friend the Mighty Emma.

Nothing like 1st trip to gym in 18m for a reality check bp25 points higher both systolic and diastolic :( :( feeling so ashamed and overwhelmed far more work to do than I realised sat in car and cried nothing for it but to press on I know but wow who knew you could fuck things up so badly in 3 yrs of sloth

The gym people insisted on taking my blood pressure because they needed to know if I was going to have a heart attack. They had a new machine with a very big cuff. They told me that if my blood pressure had been two points higher I would have needed a doctor's letter to start using the gym. I was deeply, deeply shocked and upset. I went home very soon after that. I've been teary all day.
So learn from me, little ones.....
Watch where you're walking. Don't injure yourself on a fucking piece of concrete 3cm high. Be more assertive with your medical professionals. Don't take months and months to get diagnosed and treated. Don't spend eight months with a wanker of a physio who clearly hasn't a clue. Don't have family crises. Stay focused on your health. DO NOT WAVER. Don't get distracted. Don't get sad. Don't get overwhelmed. Don't neglect your fitness. Find a way. DO NOT GIVE UP. Don't get sick all the time. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT comfort eat and drink. Don't gain 20kg.
And whatever you do, don't kid yourself.  Or you'll find yourself sitting in your car crying and wishing you could rewind everything and do it all properly so you didn't have to face such a daunting task.
And now? We press on, for that is the LBTEPA way. We are dauntless! It says so in the sidebar! We stop eating frozen lunches and rice crackers and stop drinking wine during the week (yes, I'm kidding myself, again, already) and stop drinking coffee and walk every morning and go back to the gym (scheduled for 6am Thursday). Even though we just want it all to go away. For things are how they are, and no point wasting energy wanting a time machine.
Onward!

More anon, strivers!

things afoot

many, many things are afoot here at the LBTEPA Institute of Physical Perfection, including LBTEPA herself, after an extremely discouraging (and, no doubt, utterly de-conditioning) two weeks of chest infection. I will not describe what I was coughing up.
But enough of that.
Tomorrow morning I am fronting up at the gym for a new programme. I keep forgetting to cancel my membership so I might as well use the bloody thing. I am quite prepared for the following
- intense feelings of shame
- wanting to punch the lithe and quite likely clueless young thing writing my programme in the face
- wanting to cry and run away
- resisting the 'encouragement' to get weighed (I know I'm fat), have my 'biological age'  measured (it told me last time that I shouldn't be buying green bananas), and my blood pressure taken  - how fun to have you ignore my statement that the normal cuff won't fit and then have to go and get the lardarse one out of the cupboard with a disgusted/pitying look on your face.
- an argument about refusing to do gym cardio. My physio and I have appropriate cardio sorted.
- having to ask several times for what I want, which is this:
1. 5 or 6 upper body exercises designed to strengthen my swimming
2. a core/glute workout that does not hurt my knees or aggravate my achilles
Now I may be being a bit negative as I had a big weekend in the big smoke with my dear little Noddie, and I'm quite tired. Maybe it will all go wonderfully! I hope so....but if it doesn't, I'll go anyway. I'm not giving up.
 

Hahahahahaha look what came up when I g00g1ed 'perseverance' - an old watering hole from uni days! Classic!
More anon, iron pumpers!

not the usual

for the first time in twelve years I didn't walk on Mother's day. My dad is in hospital in Melbourne so my Mum is up there, and I've been so sick with the latest lurgi (?maybe actually the 'flu? goddamn painful and debilitating ) that I have barely been out of bed let alone out of the house in the wind and rain for the last three days. I've been so sick I didn't really care I couldn't walk this morning, although I did have a bit of a cry when I got out of the shower and got dressed and then had to go back tp bed for another 2 hours instead of heading out.
But I'll walk again. I'll run again, and ride my bike and lift weights and swim and be well. Today we watched Crackerjack and Flying Down to Rio and Noddie painted my nails and I read my new book. It's been a really nice day
Happy Mother's Day to you!

the usual

This is more a set of must-remember-this-for-next-week thoughts than a 'proper' blog post. Good thing it's my blog and that's what it's for, eh? As seems so frequent these days, I slide off the path of good habits at regular intervals, and then veer back on, off, on, off.....how to write an engaging and inspiring blog from that? I dunno. Possibly can't be done?
Life at Chez LBTEPA has chugged on - working quite long hours (for me) coaching the Spousal Unit into the role of House Husband Extraordinaire, getting every single jolly lurgi going around... the usual! My five faithful readers will be p[leased to note that I'm definitely not going back to the old hysterical 'oh woe, this means I'll never get back to being an athlete again and will be fat and broken forever'... posts, although I have definitely been there in my head, lots of times. The scales are my enemy because they mess with my head a bit but I have thought hard about it all and they do serve a purpose so they are staying.
I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately and had come to the conclusion that I hadn't really forgiven my ex-friend re Goofy, because I hadn't told her so. So I did. A lot of things were said that I'd wanted to say, unfortunately by text becuase that's how it unfolded. At her end there was a lot of justifying and more of the self-deluded BS she obviously indulged in to make it all right for herself. She has totally reshaped the whole thing in her mind to me forgetting she told me about it. There is no font big enough for the HA! I have for that. It was all very dramatic and unsettling but now it's closed at last. I won't be contacting her again, and I don't feel even the slightest bit ambivalent now. 
*patient sigh from one of the five faithful readers* : LBTEPA, this is an exercise blog - what have you been up to?
I'm back to the bike a bit more now (me, the trainer and 27 years of Ironman Kona - what could be nicer?), not much swim, a little bit of running -  20sec every crossroad or corner now, and every 3 min on my long walks. Up to 22km now! Woot! We've had such a lovely spell of autumn weather. It's a huge pleasure to walk beside the river.

This week's veering-back will include tracking food, more roller, getting-done-what-I-can-while-the-lurgi-bites, and lots of water. See- the usual!
More anon, suncatchers!

phew

well that was a week
father-in-law bad fall + heart attack + poor nursing care ...but home soon
spousal unit rushed to hospital yesterday morning with elevated bp and abdominal pain - turned out to be kidney stones but maybe, just maybe he'll start looking after his hypertension and blood sugar better? I hope so...the ambo said I should make him take his medication, and when I told Noddie this she said but Mummy, you try - you try and try!
Le sigh
Anyway he's home and in no pain and the f-i-l is on the mend
I've used exercise as stress management and logged my food and set little limits, like you can't have a bikkie until you've hung out the washing. I haven't gained any weight and I did all my core work and weights which I think are the building blocks for remaining injury free.
I've got some more complicated things to say about injury and weight but I'm still quite tired so if I wrote them now they'd sound like whingeing. I'll get onto it later
In the meantime, I am just grateful that J is better and we live in a place where we can ring the ambulance and get looked after so well soeasily.
More anon, smilers!