Sping in my step

The weekend has been just lovely with some great highs, and a couple of self inflicted lows.

Friday night was the first meeting of my new book group. I know a couple of the girls but most of us were meeting for the first time. They seem like a really great bunch and I think I'd like to be proper friends with a couple of them! That makes me feel like a proper try hard. But when you're in a new city and trying to make new friends it's not that often you meet someone that you get on with but also someone that you feel like you kinda 'get' each others sense of humour etc. And so I've just fired off a couple of friend request on Facebook. Okay, now I sound like stalker.

It was a good night but the food my friend, who was hosting, made was not good at all. Her prawn risotto was totally tasteless and ugh, it was so stodgy - and not hot enough! Oh dear. We all ate it (I was starving) but I felt quite bad for her. She pulled it out the bag though with an amazing pudding. Some strawberry mille feuille creation. If I was being totally focused, I shouldn't have had any - but... I did. When you're at someone's home I find it really hard to say no. And on this occasion I wanted something tasty after the disaster that was the risotto. I also drank the best part of half a bottle of rum.

I had a long lie on Saturday and woke up to a very foggy, dull day. That's right Britain, while the rest of you were basking in the sunshine I didn't have it so good, which kinda pissed all over my plan to go for a long bike ride. After tidying round a bit and generally faffing, I eventually talked myself in going to the supermarket on my bike, a round trip of just over 4 miles. While at the shops I got a couple of very excellent holiday outfits which I shall post pics of later. I came home, made a fish pie, blogged -and then sat on my backside for the rest of the night. This is where it went a bit wrong. I was a bit bored and as I have come to realise this is quite the danger time for me. I had eaten all the right thing during the day but the next thing I knew I had helped myself to a bowl of vanilla ice cream smothered in my own banana jam/sauce. What a combination. It was insane. I bloody loved it. I then proceeded to demolish half a big bag of assorted mints. Suffice to say after all that sugar, I felt totally horrendous. I went to bed annoyed with myself. What happened to The Plan? I promised myself that if it was sunny I would go for a run in the morning.

I woke up to a gorgeous Sunday morning. The sun was shining; I got my trainers on. I headed off to a big park near me that I just discovered the other day - and this meant running up a rather large hill. Off I went. I got up the hill. I felt good! I kept on going. I felt even better. I realised the route I was taking meant there was only one way home - up a very long and very big hill. Oh well, nothing else for it. I kept going. I felt good. I got to the hill. I started running up it. I kept on going. I got to the top and I ran all the way home. I felt fricking amazing. 37 minutes and 5.7km of running without stopping! I was so excited. I can't stop thinking about it.

It was the perfect way to bring my thoughts together. Running in the springtime sun, through a park, along a riverside; it was beautiful. And it was the ideal way for me to realise how my fitness has improved. I think that's the longest run I've done in about a year and the fact that I managed to trot up two big hills without any problems has made me realise all the gym work is paying off. In the past few weeks I've done a lot of 1 min sprint/1 min walk on the treadmill for 20 mins at a time and my base running time is 10.2kmph. I remember when it used to be 8.4kmph. Now THAT feels good.

I got home, showered, had some brekkie, drove to Tesco, realised I had forgotten my purse, drove home, got my purse, went to Asda (closer), shopped, came home, wrestled with the washing line, shoved some mackerel down my face, went to meet my friend at a beer garden where I had a couple of rums but mostly stuck to diet coke.

TB joined us later but it was really nice to invited out by one of my new pals and to head off and meet her on my own, in my new city, doing ma thing... The evening wore on and we ended up heading out for food. There was talk of heading to the chippy but I'm glad to say I managed to steer it away from that and we went for Thai in the end. I had a pretty spicy jungle curry which was really nice - and not a bad choice at all.

This morning I had another excellent workout. 12 mins of running at 10.2 and then 8 minutes of sprint/walking and other cardio resulting in 40 mins in total - and some good resistance too. Fish pie tonight and  The Plan is in full flow.