Black lace

Today I was really looking forward to getting home from work as a lovely dress had been delivered... a dress I hoped would be nice so I can take it to Leeds on Saturday (where Graeme and I are going to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary).
The dress was as nice as I had hoped, gorgeous black lace! I tried it on and felt great... that is, until I looked in the mirror! To my horror as I looked at my reflection, I was devastated to see I looked more like a transvestite than an elegant lady. My legs just looked very masculine and even my arms looked quite muscly. A while ago (maybe 9 or 10 years), I was known for my muscly arms in a previous job. The other women used to say I looked like Linda Hamilton off the Terminator. Believe it or not, that was meant as a compliment, and as such I took it that way. Not having bingo wings was something my previous work colleagues envied. Today I looked in the mirror and felt OK about my arms... but my calves were another matter. I put a pair of heels on and went back to the mirror, only to feel like I looked even more like a transvestite. The dress went back in the bag to take back to the shop!

I decided not to do any running or squats today as my foot was not feeling right. After a yoga position on Monday where I had to bend my toes and then put my full weight on them, they had felt a little tender however had felt OK by the time I was due to do my intervals. This morning it was back feeling a little niggly so I emailed Shaun and William to tell them I was having a day off. I got an email back saying I was doing well knowing when to take a break as runners are notorious for trying to run through it. I definitely did the right thing as already my foot is back feeling totally fine, and as tomorrow is another rest day I will most certainly feel back to normal by Friday. I have also discovered that if my calves are tight this can make my foot achy... stretch the calves and it feels fine! I feel so very lucky that I seem to have the situation under control.

Tonight I got an email from Shaun about the secondary exercises I am to do on a Wednesday and Sunday. I didn't realise there were so many variations of "Bent over row" and how they work different parts of your back.
Slowly but surely my weekly training schedule is getting longer and longer and I love it! As soon as my rebounder comes I will be doing 10 minutes 6 times a week on that, which Shaun called "Invisible training"... I LIKE it! My biggest issue with my training at the moment has to be the core exercises. I find Monday too difficult a time to do them as I can't seem to fit them in... especially as I now go to yoga (and have to leave the house by 6.30pm). Getting in from work, running for an hour, having a shower and driving down to the yoga class probably means I will have to drop this session, but at least I will still get it done on a Friday!

I've been thinking about doing the Bangalore Ultra for a charity... after all, it will be my biggest challenge yet! I have decided I am going to run it for Hearing Dogs (my very first race... Great North Run, was ran for them). I'm not going to get in touch with them yet however, as I need to make sure I get a place on the 75K. They still haven't opened registrations, so I'm still waiting to enter and still waiting to pay the money for the trip there... I don't want to pay for it only to find (for whatever reason) I can't get a place at the race!

I had my first go in the sauna with the head hole blocked up today. I covered it with tin foil and the difference in the heat was phenomenal. I managed 20 minutes which really surprised me. I almost put something on Facebook about it and then had a rethink. Since being injured I have watched peoples status updates and the things that people write about, for the world to read. It seems like a lot of bragging from some people, and I have to admit that pre-injury I was probably one of those people who bragged about how achy I was because of how much training I had done. I now think twice before putting something on a status or a forum. Who wants to hear me bragging about how much weight I can or can't lift or what I do in training? Not many people I would guess. That is why I write my blog, because I can say how I'm feeling and not be concerned what people think as I'm doing this purely for my own benefit. Believe it or not, I actually do read back... sometimes it's great to see how far I've come and other times I can feel disappointed to see that things didn't happen as soon as I'd hoped, and therefore that could occur again. One thing I have read quite a few times is my experience at Marrakesh. I can look back at that now (after recording it in so much detail), and KNOW that the same situation won't happen again. I won't make the same mistakes!