Reasonably Fit

Well not quite nothing, I have been to my fitness class the last two Tuesdays, but apart from that, nothing . In  my last post  I was doing so well, fitting the run things in around all the other things. There is only one problem with that; it is very easy to let the other things get bigger and not quite manage to fit the run things in.  To start with, it felt good. I was giving my body a rest. Because maybe I had been pushing things a little too hard with all those fitting in bits here and there, and it felt like everywhere. And as I've said before, I'm not that person who can do everything; possibly I was trying too hard... The second week of nothing, though, I started to feel a bit scratchy. Now I couldn't fit things in and I was starting to resent it, and get grumpy. But the pattern of that first week off held for the second. There are lots of reasons why I couldn't quite get out there. We have a provisional move in date for the new house (yay!), whi...

and making opportunities... In the last few weeks, since I have been back at work, I have found that life has been incredibly busy - prepping classes, doing stuff for the house build, getting small people to all of their places, beginning my next uni paper, co-ordinating cricket things*... These are all things that I enjoy doing, they are all very satisfying, but they all take a lot of time! Having started again, again, with a burst of motivation, I have been wanting to keep things going, but to fit things in around all that stuff seemed almost impossible. Then I thought to myself that actually, the small people are not so small any more, they do not need me to be there all of the time, and things like sports practices are pretty boring really... A few weeks ago I decided to test my theory. The blue small person had three weeks of football trials of a Wednesday afternoon, for just over an hour, surely I could fit a sneaky 5km in there? So I put my gear in the car in the mo...

Spoiler alert: this is another introspective mental health one... As I was out running this evening, after a full-on day, feeling half-knackered before I even started, I actually asked myself out loud - "why am I even doing this?". Why was I trying to fit yet another thing into a crazy Monday? Why wasn't I at home leisurely making dinner? When was relaxing  even going to start? But then I thought about one of the events in my crazy day, which was intense, but very rewarding, and that reminded me.  Earlier today I spoke to one of my colleagues' classes. It is a Health class and they are looking at resilience in the face of challenging health circumstances. So I was speaking to them about my series of miscarriages before we managed to find the small people, and then my post-natal depression afterwards. Like I said, pretty intense, both for me, but I suspect also for the poor year 12s who had no idea what was about to drop on them.  One of my strategies fo...

I love summer! And this summer has been a particularly good one - hot weather, great family Christmas, fantastic, amazing holiday away ... I did manage to get to the little lookout! But just that amazing summer-ness can also be a bit of a downfall to the health and fitness regime. By the time you have a busy end-of-year, the crazy lead-up to Christmas, all of the food and drink of the Christmas period itself, a holiday where relaxing is in and routine is out, and the days at home where the small people are asking "what can we do today?", eating even vaguely sensibly and regular exercise just don't tend to be a happening thing - for me anyway. I admire those people who manage to keep a regime going through all of the other stuff, but I freely admit, I am not one of them. So this week, having added two weeks of my first ever flu onto the end of my excellent holiday, and now being back at work, I have finally started to get myself organised into something rese...

To goal, or not to goal, that is the question... I haven't made any New Year's resolutions this year, in fact, I generally don't. When I have, I have done like most people, and they have lasted about three weeks and then gotten all too hard. Most people find that's the case, but so many of us still do make resolutions - I wonder why? I think it might be because we like to have goals. I have written about goals, and how they help me to achieve things that I want or need to do. Having both small goals and bigger goals  allows me to work what I want and how I am likely to get there, as well as giving me something to measure against, which I personally need. So, goals are good, right? Well, no, not always.  Determined, or knackered? There are some problems with setting goals. The biggest one that I find is that when I achieve one, I am a bit lost until I find another one, particularly with the bigger ones. What if I don't want to do that thing ...

And what you drink - she writes while having a cider and some snacks after her run... When I began this blog, it was in response to reaching a weight threshold that I didn't really want to contemplate. In the meantime, I have been up and down over that threshold on a pretty much weekly basis - but I am not as bothered by that as I thought I would be. There are a couple of reasons for that: Firstly, although I haven't lost any weight at all, I am fitter and more in shape than I was when I started back into all of this. Where I struggled with with a 4-5km slow jog, I am now able to go out and run for an hour and a half to two hours, and although I am still definitely walking up the steeper hills, I feel good when I get in at the end of it, not knackered. I feel that I am healthier than I was as well - apart from the not-actually-asthma, and also not-bronchitis with a bit of not-laryngitis added in, that totally knocked me for a few weeks there, I haven't been s...

Anyone who knows me will know that this is not going to be a post about appearance - the right gear for me will never be 'what I want other people to see', because I generally couldn't care less, but what works for the activities I am doing. And that is why having the right gear is actually really important. Having said that, I'd better make a bit of a disclaimer, because about a month ago I was lucky enough to win a competition through the  Asics Roadtesters  NZ group and I have received some awesome gear from them. Anyway, with the  West Coaster  coming up, I have been going through all my gear trying to work out what will actually work best for me through the off-road half-marathon that I will be competing in (well, at least completing...). There are a couple of reasons that I need to think about this. If I get too hot, I faint. It's a blood pressure thing, but basically I have to wear stuff that breathes really well. I have a couple of favourite ru...