Finale wrap-up

Welcome to Brisvegas! The weather on Friday afternoon and on Saturday was perfect; quite a change from Round 1 finale in Melbourne. I must say that by Friday night I was absolutely wrecked though. I did the red-eye that left Perth at 1.30am Friday morning (was meant to be 12.30am but was delayed, gee that was fun waiting around Perth's boring domestic airport at that hour), so I got into Brisbane at about 8am. The hotel room wasn't ready until 2pm, so I walked around Brisbane all day - down into the city, across the bridge to Southbank, along Southbank to the Goodwill Bridge and then through the Botanic gardens. Very pretty - but I was tired!! I grabbed about half an hour's sleep before going in to the Hilton to help pack gift bags for a couple of hours. A not-very-quiet dinner with the Perth Crew and then an early night for me.



Saturday morning: workout time. I had heaps of fun helping to register people and matching up a few faces to usernames, before it was time to get sweaty. I did advanced and I really felt like I kept up better than I did in Melbourne - possibly because there were very few sit-ups!! My number one goal for Round 3 is going to be do a damn full sit-up.

It was just really fun and uplifting; such a good vibe around the group.



Saturday night: party time. I need to get some better photos off other people's cameras, but this is me and the absolutely gorgeous and inspiring Noala Gotsis (aka Tink on the forums). She's a Perth girl and just so lovely, I can't wait to see her hit her goal weight this round because I KNOW she's going to do it.

Overall it was such a huge weekend but so much fun. The winners - and everybody I met - inspired me so much, and I can't wait to hit Round 3 hard.

Fired up for Round 3

I'm sorry, my poor neglected blog.

What have I been up to? Working! New job, trying to establish that routine, not just for me, but for the whole family. Business trip to Sydney. Chicken pox for each of the three children.

Somewhere in there - actually, the day of my flight to Sydney - I managed to run my first half-marathon. Official finishing time was 2:05.34. I am absolutely stoked with that time!

What is next? I have signed up for Round 3 of the 12WBT. This time, I am doing Lean and Strong. I've met my running goal, I can put that on the backburner for a while. I have a couple of 10km runs lined up, but L&S is my focus this time.

Before that I have the City to Surf half-marathon in 12 days, and the finale party weekend in Brisbane THIS WEEKEND! I'll see some of you there :D

A challenge for next week

Awesome personal trainer and fellow 12WBT Ambassador Michelle Bryant set us Perth women (& men, I believe there is one male crew member and then a few husbands/partners who sometimes tag along) a challenge this week: burn 1000 calories every day. This was actually the catalyst to my brain-spew. Ugh. I couldn't do it!!

Once I was looking at things a bit more rationally I thought, okay, I really can't do it this week, but NEXT week my kids are going to be away for at least half the week. It's school holidays here and they're going to stay down at the beach with my in-laws to give my mum a break from watching them all the time while I work. So this is my challenge for next week, starting on Sunday with City to Surf hill training.

Everything I've read suggests that when training for a long race, you should peak distance-wise two weeks before the event, and do shorter distances from there on in. With that in mind, I did 16km last weekend, I'll aim for 19km this weekend and 22km the one after (the lake I run around is approximately 3km around), and then taper. With the kids away, though, I'll actually be able to go to the gym and mix things up a bit. Maybe some classes ... can't do the morning ones as I work early, but with no kids there's no reason not to do a 5.30pm class. And some swimming, I've missed swimming. I have size 10 bathers that FIT!! The 14s were gaping a bit, heh.

Only four weeks of this round left; in five weeks I'll be getting ready to go to Brisbane for finale. I'm still undecided about Round 3; while I've reached my goal weight I have definitely NOT reached my toning/strength goals. Hmmm.

Day 1

Goodbye 'girly' hand-held weights (2kg?! Pfft.), hello, stealing my other half's dumbbells and barbell, hehe. Though he did request I put the dumbbells back to the 15kg that was on there before instead of my pissy 5kg. He can't run 14km, though :P

Day 1, Lean and Strong program. I did 84 push-ups today, 48 of them on my toes (not all at once, as part of supersets). I did my fitness test as well: 3.27 for my 1km, it bloody well burned though!

I think I'll be sore in the morning.

Round 2 - are you ready?

I wasn't originally going to do Round 2. I thought one round was enough; let's be honest - I'm a cheapskate!! But the last few weeks of Round 1, where I stuffed up, brought home to me that I do still need to be accountable. I need the support, and I need the virtual butt-kicking :P

Plus, my strength, and in particular my core, has a LONG way to go, and the gym and/or personal training sessions aren't feasible for me at the moment - so 12WBT it is.

My goals for this round:

- lose the last 3 and a bit kilos to get to my original goal weight. Re-assess this goal based on how I feel. It was always a bit of a stab in the dark as it's been so long since I was a shape I was happy with.
- run a half-marathon
- go hard in strength training
- get beyond stage 1 in the abs part of the fitness test! Oh God, I will throw a party the day I can do a full sit-up.

My back will thank me. It is better since I am carrying less weight around, but it still really bothers me sometimes, and I know I need that strong core to support my back. I've had three large babies - the girls were 4.3kg each, Alastair was a piddly little 3.1kg - and my abs still have a good one-inch gap, almost three years after my youngest was born.