Nearly the weekend

Yay for Friday, how glad am I that it has finally arrived?! Feels like its been a hard week, I'm sure partly due to the stress of looking after 'Chop Shop' (what Mr H has taken to calling Dolly after her op) and also because its been a crap week to have been stuck in the office as the weather has been truely glorious. My weekend doesn't really feel like I'm going to have much of an opportunity to relax which is a shame, but I'm sure I can sneak in at least one lie in and one afternoon snooze in the hammock.

Yesterday didn't pan out quite as expected, at 11.50am I got back to my desk after a meeting expecting just to review my emails and then head over to the gym. There was a message from Mr H entitled 'Call me URGENTLY'. Turns out that our builder had arranged to have the scafolding taken down and had 'forgotten' to tell us. Obviously our main concern was Dolly and making sure she didn't split open through all the barking that would have occured with all the crashing around. So we jumped in the car and made the hour trip home to find all the scaffolding gone and Dolly still complete :) Glad she was ok, but still really pissed with the builder!

As I missed my gym session my eating pattern got a bit messed up. An hour or so before my run I ended up having a slice of wholemeal toast about 3pm with almond butter on as my pre-run fuel.

Reviewing my run last night, it was good - but not great. It was one of those occasions where I really struggled to find my rhythm. Possibly because I was running a new route (which had some crazy hills), but I also don't think that Mathcore contributes to a good pace as a result my heart rate often tipped over 180 and I had to slow down significantly to get it back under control. I'm sure next time will be better. This is the route I took along with the altitude graph:

Just past 2 miles where my route intersects with Stoney Lane is where the mother of all hills begins. You have a downhill stretch just before then, lulling you into a false sense of security then out of the ground rises a monster. I managed to run up to house number 30. Not sure really how far that is, but it gives me something to aim to beat! My heart rate was well over 180 by the time I got to house number 30 and even though I walked the rest of the way up the hill my heart rate had only dropped down to 179 by the top.

It was a pretty good time of the day to be running (I left the house shortly after 5.30pm - so its unlikely to happen any other days than weekends or working from home days), the sun was at a good level in the sky to not be beating down on me (or giving me any dodgy tan lines like Sundays run), there weren't many other people on the pavements and the country roads (with no pavements) were quiet enough to get down without meeting many cars. That all said, the one major downside to running at this time of the evening was that I was in learner driver hell. There was one guy out with his instructor that I kept running into, at times I'd be running faster than he was moving along the road and having to run for my life as he suddenly screeched round a corner without seeing that I was crossing the road. He must have caused me to stop about 5 or 6 times (which on reflection I should have just gone because he was so slow!). I must rememeber next time I do this route to try and avoid hours when learners are out, I think just pushing it back 30 minutes (so leaving between 6-6.30pm) would probably avoid them.

Onto my review of yesterday...

1. Drink 2 litres of Water a Day check
2. Eat 5 Fruit/Veg a day check - Banana, Orange, Apple, Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Baby Spinach, Rocket
3. Do Jane Fonda Abs workout every day check
4. Do Squats, Ballet Squats, Single Leg Lunges, Butt Raises, Thigh Master (!), Calf Raises, Push
Ups every day (at least 20 of each) check - added a few more bits and pieces and increased reps. 5. Run 2 Evenings in the Week. check - 1/2 completed
6. Exercise at least 5 times. check - 3/5 completed with an evening run earning me 588 calories
7. Plan Food for the day. semi-check - had an unplanned piece of wholemeal toast with almond butter as a pre-run snack.
8. Run up every flight of stairs I come across. check

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I got a little distracted writing this up this first thing and I had a meeting most of the day and then skipped off from work early! So its now 20:30 and I'm just finishing my post!

I was working in London today and as a result my food has been far from great, but here goes!

Breakfast: 200ml Skimmed Milk Protein Shake, 30g Jumbo Oats, 1 tsp Cadburys Cocoa Powder (bleurgh!), 2 tsp Sweetener, 150ml Semi-Skimmed Milk, 150ml Berocca

Lunch: Bacon and Tomato Roll (382 calories) & 9Bar (277 calories)

Mid Afternoon Snack: Honeydew Melon

Dinner: 2 x Sloppy Joe Wraps with Grated Cheese

Pud: PBGB

So yeah, not great huh! I've taken today as an unplanned rest day as I had the shakes earlier and I think after 3 days in a row of hard work I deserve a little break. Back on it tomorrow with a run in the morning and then from 11.30am I'm helping a friend move house. I plan on wearing my HRM just to see how much moving furniture pays off!

In other news, I booked my ticket for Ascot Ladies Day this evening squeeee!