Photo of me and Dan

Woo hoo!!!!!!!!

Very exciting news!!! Dan's asked me to marry him!! I'm going to be skipping down the isle on 17th May 2008 - still can't quite belive it.

I'm sure it's becuase I've dropped two dress sizes and am a lot fitter and leaner (or he's just slightly insane) so it's certainly motivation to continue with all the good things Trail has started.

Here we are being all mushy...




Yippee skippee! Yippee skippee! Yippee skippeee!!!!
:)

Yello!!

So, I seem to be somewhat back to normal. Went for the first run in weeks today after two colds in as many weeks. Managed to go for 2.5 miles, which seemed a lot harder than the last time, but a long way from impossible.

I reckon I was feeling about 7 on the exertion scale and perhaps 7.5 for the last half mile so it's not too bad and it's a whole lot better than I did on the Scafell trip at the weekend.

Right, off to watch my garden grow.

Short but sweet....

Well, we've just had the final Trail weekend - wild camping in the Lakes.

I umm-ed and argh-ed about whether or not to go despite viral chesty cough thing and gammy toe and finally thought "Sod it. Life's too short" type thing, packed my bags and drove up to the Lakes to join Claire, Graham, Darren, Roger (mountain leader) Steve and Richard for what promised to be an excellent weekend.

Sadly, on the way up to the camp, the chest thing totally got the better of me. I just couldn't get enough air in to be anything but a drag on the whole group. When Roger had to take my rucksack off me it sunk in that I was going to have to give up and head back to the safety of the car.

I'm utterly gutted at missing out on the camping and to have been so close to Scafell Pike for the second time without making it to the summit. But, I thoroughly enjoyed what little time I spent with the team up there and Steve and Richard seem to have got as much out of the Fitness Academy as me.

Anyway, there's still another month until the official 6-months is up so this won't be the last you'll hear of me....

Mont Saleve - finally....

Ok, so here's the long awaited vid from Mont Saleve. Sorry it's taken me so long to get it on here!

Oh dear...

I really am getting a bit pants about keeping this up to date! I've got some great vids from the Alp, which was BRILLIANT and from Geneva generally. I've certainly never been to a city with quite such an incredible backdrop (although Arusha would have to come pretty close if not equal).

Here's a taster of what's to come when I finally get round to downloading all the other photos and vids:



Good news is that there's another Trail weekend in the diary. Bad news is that it's the last one! We're off wild camping in the Lakes and I have to admit to be enormously excited about it. Fingers crossed the weather will hold for another couple of weeks...

Ok, time to fess up....

Right, well, the reason for my long silence before yesterday's Alpine excitement is that I basically had a week that can only be described as shamefully lazy and beerful.

I was in an utter stomp at not having lost a single pound and, in fact, having put a couple on after my mammoth efforts on the running and climbing fronts the week before. Humph!

Still, all it took was a weekend sorting out my garden to get me back into form and some very encouraging words from forum members on my favourite sites: Trail and the Fell Runner Association.

So, I've decided that I'm focusing on the wrong things here. I've locked my scales in a cupboard and will resist those utterly demoralising monsters for now. Instead, I'm going to focus on building up my fitness and concentrate on more relevant goals like my resting heart rate. I'm also going to work harder on my running and climbing - the things that really keep me in shape for mountain exploits.

So, I ran 2.5 miles on Monday night and 3 last night. I'm horrified at how quickly I've lost some of my form and am resolute to get back to being able to do 5 miles in an hour as quickly as possible.

Tonight is climbing night so fingers crossed I won't have gone too far back on that in the two weeks since I last went.

Moral of the story - when you feel demoralised, maybe it's because you're setting the wrong goals. Have a think about what your REAL motivation is and re-align your goals accordingly.