Bike to work Friday

That really doesn't have any ring to it does it, anyway I did ride to work today and I managed a new PB on my step challenge - 17000 steps! Plus I did 28km of riding. Turns out a clean up day at work really has me moving around a lot. 

One issue on my ride this morning was my glasses. I think I need some help with this one. I had the same trouble on Tuesday nights run. I am fine while I am riding along, but put a traffic light up and I have to stop and I can't see! 

Also, I massively overdressed this morning. Hence the very sweaty face! I wore a cotton t-shirt with a wicking long sleeve shirt, then my fluro vest. I think just the long sleeve one will be enough for my next ride. Or I may consider arm warmers?

It was a good day, clocking up 659 on the way to work and a round 600 on the way home. It was really tough riding in the dark on the way home so I may have to set an alarm to make sure I am leaving work by 4pm so I get home before dark!

Although this was the beautiful view that I came home to at the top of my street, that is the bridge on the right! I love this city.

Longest commute

Today I flew to Melbourne, an 800km journey or 75 minute flight, for the day. I have not done a one day trip in quite some time. I woke up at 5am and didn't arrive at my "place of work" until 9am. I will then had to leave before 3 to have any chance of making it home before 7pm. Needless to say, there was no workout time built in there. I also found myself crazy hungry, so had to try to stay really hydrated to curb those hunger pains but they did get the better of me around 11:45am so I caved and grabbed a delicious salmon and avocado sandwich.

Washing it down with a very high calorie but full of delicious goodness Emma and Toms juice. I am usually a karmarama girl and I don't usually stray because I indulge in these juices quite infrequently ($4.50 and 188 calories, they aren't cheap no matter how you look at it) so I tend to go with what I know and love. The extreme C definitely surprised me though, it was so tasty and filling! I drank half with lunch and saved the rest for my 2pm slump.

The half a juice didn't quite hit the 3pm slump, so a sweet little treat was on hand to save the day! Salted caramel, oh goodness these are so good!

Tomorrow it is back on my bike to get a good workout in before working all weekend, feel free to "Booo"! I would, even though I got myself into it by volunteering to go to the meeting. In reality it will be super interesting, I just wish it wasn't on the weekend...

When weather gets in the way

Tonight I was crazy excited about my first interval training session with NRG running club. I had my outfit laid out (light coloured tops for running at night) and my pants that definitely weren't see-through. Then this happened:

 

It is really really hard to take a photo of rain at night but it was absolutely pouring. I sat in our landing for around 15 minutes waiting for it to clear enough for me to run to the car but by then the walkway had flooded, awesome. 

I was all primed and ready to hit those sprints even with a little drizzle, with my lovely fluro bike riding jacket but walking through a downpour was not on my list of acceptable weather conditions for running:

I guess you will need to wait until next week to hear about my adventures in running intervals! 

Walking challenge

For the next 4 months this will be my new best friend! 

 

I am participating in the global corporate challenge and day 1 didn't go so well with only 6678 steps (my aim was 10,000). Considering I was working from home and did no exercise on day 1 that actually wasn't too bad!

Although I have done much better after that first day! I have hit my 10,000 steps every day and on the weekend I managed 15,000 and 13,500. It does go to show though, I am really sedentary in my day to day work days. I drive to work and get lunch from our canteen and I really don't move around all that much? In order to get to the 10k steps I will need to make sure I get a 20-30 minute walk in even on my rest days! 

Anyone else doing the global corporate challenge? 

Thursday check in!

What a week! I managed to do a massive workout on Sunday, in the morning it was a 10km fun run starting at Manly Beach and up a mammoth hill and then ending back in Manly. Worst part was when my Nike+ told me 10km completed but I still couldn't see the finish line. I got there in the end though. 

My pace wasn't exactly anything to write home about although it is a starting point!  It is also a lot better than I thought I would do! Part of my goals this year were to improve my 10km time and get it under 1 hour. My next 10k race is in July and I am still 17 mins away from that goal. So, I joined a running club! I did some research and found a great club who have a beginners run on a Tuesday and hill runs on Wednesday, other runs on Thursday, Saturday, some Sundays, and finally sprints and strength on Monday. I think I can figure out some days to join at least a few of those sessions to help improve my speed! 

After the 10k on Sunday it was a delicious hearty breakfast to refuel! My gosh those eggs were the best I had ever tasted! Probably because I was do hungry but I'll take it! 

After breakfast and because I am a glutton for punishment, I headed over to play a game of OzTag. I was more than a little weary on the legs but otherwise had a good game! 

 

Weight loss this week is steady, it is the time of the month when I usually gain so I am crazy excited that I am steady! 

Feeling under the weather

In my job I am unable to visit a hospital if I am unwell with a potentially infectious disease. A wicked case of gastro definitely falls into that category and that was me on Monday this week. I had flown down to Melbourne and then spent the majority of the day in bed in the hotel. By around 7pm I was able to stomach some dinner, but not a lot of it. 

I then woke up the next day feeling pretty darned good, not quite 100%, but at least 85%! I was still a little bit quesy on Tuesday and Wednesday but by Thursday I was back in the gym to smash it out! 

I am down 200g on my weigh in, taking me to an awesome total of 4kg lost! Which means I was able to add another paper clip to my motivational chain at my desk at work! 

Friday was meant to be ride to work day but I think the way I am sleeping was why I woke up with an awful headache so instead I went for an afternoon walk! 

Planning to Race

So I want to do a personal best time this year for the City to Surf, it is on the 11th August, giving me around 3 months of training before I have to run 14km. 

You see I'm not much of a runner, more a walker. I like to take in the sights, if I am running I am just trying not to pass out!

For the first month I am just going to aim for 3 runs per week, gradually increasing my Saturday long run starting with a Sunday fun run of 10kms this week. I needed somewhere to start my training.

Another thing I plan on doing is joining up with a group called NRG - because goodness knows I am awful at motivating myself to both go for a run and go any faster than what feels completely comfortable. So I will start out with them next Tuesday on their slow poke run and then I hope to be able to meet a two very simple running goals that I have set myself:

- Run 10km in under an hour
- Run the City to Surf (14km) in under 90 minutes

 I have a 10km race coming up on Sunday that will be a good starting point and hopefully get me moving with my running! I am also going to be sure to incorporate sprints into my weekly workouts, apparently they make you faster?

There are some great tracks around our house that will make for some fun training! 

Chia seed Summer Oats

I have had a lot of 12WBT people talking about my delicious oats recipe lately so I thought I would write it down here. I originally posted about this on my main blog Licorice and Olives over a year ago and the original recipe appears on Yummy Life, however I have changed it up slightly to give it a better texture I think.

1/3 cup rolled oats (not instant oats)
2 tablespoons greek plain yoghurt
1/3 cup lite milk
1 tablespoon raspberry jam
1 teaspoon of chia seeds
8-9 frozen (or fresh) raspberries

It is definitely not the most photographic of foods, but the chia seeds really help keeping you full right through to lunch!