You’re On Your Own Foolish Humans

Today started well, the cat decided to join us on our jog (run, walk, run averaged out becomes a jog surely). And it seemed like a wise decision since his ‘winter coat’ has him a good kilogram heavier than he should be. On the word from JP (jogging partner) we set off up the drive. The cat jogged alongside us for five full steps before veering off into the shrubbery and hiding for the duration… “you’re on your own foolish humans!”

Again we decided to go before eating breakfast. I’m still undecided if this is a good thing or not. We’re not full of food making us feel sick, but we’ve not fuelled our bodies with anything either. Except a lot of water to start out with. So for the first two run periods my legs felt like dead weight. We also took a different path this time. Through Hodgkins Ridge. There are two ways to tackle Hodgkins – you can do the entire nature reserve around the base and up the hill, or you can simply skirt the base along the west side. JP assured me that there would be less hills than our normal running route. So it took 18.5mins, and heart rate 182, as I was facing the steep incline along the east side, before I exclaimed with my first expletive. Making it down the other side, in a barely controlled goat-like run down the hill, saw me performing myfirst ever ‘spit’ into the bush. I detest spitting, it’s unnecessary… except I just discovered that sometimes it actually is necessary. JP assures me that it means I’m a real athlete now.

This route though really was nice. It’s the route we do our walking excercise on so today we simply saw it all go past us faster. So fast that I only had a few seconds to enjoy the ducks at the stream and not notice that we were coming up on the Beagle house that backs onto the hidden path. So when said long-legged Beagle leapt at the fence and let out a bellowing bark right at my head I think my heart skipped a beat. And I let out a startled and extremely loud expletive number 2.

I found a rhythm on this run though. JP actually jogged beside me (often hard to do on the paths around here being as narrow as they are) and matching him stride for stride I found my breathing relax as I fell into a rhythm. Then he overtook me and it was back to gasping again where, on our return, the cat appeared out of the shrubbery, jogged down the drive with us, then sat staring up at us until JP grabbed his tummy fur to show me how fat he was. The cat mistook that for a tummy rub, fell over on his side and smiled slyly at us in tummy rubbing heaven.

Oh, it’s good to be a cat.

Day Four

Not feeling confident to increase the jog phase this morning we stuck with the week 1 program of 3 mins walk, 2 mins jogging, for 30 minutes. Unfortunately the timer on the iTouch wasn’t keeping up with my stop watch so we were getting alerts at strange times. I think we walked for four minutes about half way through but got back on track after that.

I’m finding it very interesting the way my body responds to the different inclines. We have to do this program over very hilly terrain simply because of where we live. So there are long uphill stretches followed by long downhill stretches with only a couple of flat sections. The valleys and peaks though are very distinct as it swaps from incline to decline and I can actually feel my body adjust over a matter of about 10 seconds at each change. And it’s not just my body shifting it’s weight backwards and forwards but different muscles and groups taking over… and allowing the other strained and groaning muscles to ease off! Of course my acute awareness of them is more to do with protesting body parts than anatomical or scientific knowledge.

My jogging partner also advised that he would let me know, according to the downloaded program on his iTouch, when to start and stop jogging. Unless of course, I suggested, my stopping involved passing out. Does that count? We decided it did.

Today we had breakfast before we headed out but I found it didn’t make a whole lot of difference to last week. I still felt dizzy about half way through, and again felt like throwing up during the last jogging phase. Interestingly though the last really steep uphill section had my heart rate up as high as when I’m jogging. And all those open fireplaces that are in the area because it is about 3 degrees colder out here than in the city and it’s a nice warm snuggly thing to curl up in front of (I’ve nearly convinced myself here)… so I’m speaking on behalf of joggers everywhere – we really, really hate them. Or is it just me because a lungful of smoke as I’m struggling uphill is enough to just about do me in.

Heart rate average today was 151 with a max of 190. And the pedometer says I took 4069 steps.

Cleaning is good for the soul…

Today we have been cleaning our house. Not just getting rid of dirt and dust but really cleaning. As in clearing away the toxins and chemical buildup. It was easy, all that wes needed was a few new products, none of which came from the cleaning isle in the supermarket either…

vinegar, tea tree oil, eucalyptus oil, bi-carb soda, lemons… and a bit of elbow grease.

And it didn’t take much longer either. The only extra time I had to spend on the bathrooms involved spraying vinegar on the tiles in the shower recess and leaving it for 15 minutes.

What’s even better is that there’s no streaky residue that the chemical cleaners leave behind. All tile, metal and glass surfaces are gleaming, my bathrooms smell divine, and my body rejoices that it has a few less chemicals in this world to contend with.

We are even painting the bathrooms with environmentally friendly paint.