My weekend alone

I was looking forward to a 4 day weekend with Graeme, but things never turn out as expected do they? He had to work late on Friday night and has done a 12 hour shift yesterday and another one today. The money will come in handy seeing as we have Bangalore to pay for, but I've had a weekend that's been mostly just Lincoln and me.

As I was supposed to do a 2 hour 15 minute walk yesterday, it seemed rude to go without the dog, so off we both trotted. I knew having Lincoln with me would ultimately slow me down so chose the hilliest trail type route I could to counteract the slower pace. The weather was awful, heavy rain at times, but it felt great to be out, especially with the dog who I haven't been able to walk apart from once last week, for months. It was as if we were off on a bonding session and I enjoyed the fact it was just him and me. At one point we stood at the top of a very steep bank and he looked at me as if I were insane when I signalled we were going down there. It was great fun as it turned out to be impossible to walk down and we ended up careering down at full speed. My foot felt good and the urge to run more was high. I didn't though... I'm still a week or so off that I think.

The walk was quite exhausting in parts, what with waist high grass and nettles, big steep climbs and steps. When I got home though I didn't feel shattered like I had on my first walk last week. Again I did just over 8 miles but this one was far more taxing (and far slower too.. Around 16 minutes slower).

Today I moved my deadlifts on and lifted heavier weight, and I also moved up the weight on the hamstring part of my supersets. The sauna still kills me, but it's a challenge I will beat (one of these days).

Cooking has also took up a lot of the weekend. Yesterday I made vegetable tacos (because I had no veggie mince) and both Graeme and I agreed they tasted far better than the pretendy meat version. I made a vegan lime cheesecake which my mam loved and Graeme couldn't put down. Apparently one piece was not enough ... and neither was two! :-)
Tonight I'm making vegetable bolognese and I'm even in the middle of making my own rice milk (it's organic... Woooo, get me!). I find I'm more and more interested in cooking now, especially as I'm able to control the nutrients in food much better when I make everything myself. I'm also finding that the more I eat my own offerings, the more and more I can't stand how salty shop bought stuff is. I'm even finding gravies I make myself a little too salty now. This still hasn't stopped me sweating so much during my walk that a salt residue is left on my face by my temples. I read recently this is a sign of being a heavy sweater (urghh!!) and salt residue on your top is another sign. I don't get the salt on my top...and I've tested it so I know! I don't know if this will improve the fitter I get, but at the moment it makes me worried about being inflicted with heat cramps again in India. I need to get that all sorted well in advance this time!

And I'm almost finished Scott Jureks' book. It's very good... I do like to read about people puking, collapsing and feeling like their foot (or something else) might drop off. Makes them seem (just a little bit) more human. :-)