The key to sticking to a training plan...

... is to read it properly.

After the 4-mile run on Sunday, I was sure that the schedule for this week was 2 miles today, 3 on Thursday and 5 on Sunday. After I had run the 2 miles this morning, I actually looked at the schedule and it was 3 miles today, 4 on Thursday and 5 on Sunday. Oops.

And no, I didn't make up the mile I missed.

Got an e-mail from the Exbury Gardens 10k race organiser today, confirming receipt of my application and telling me my race pack will be sent to me nearer the time. I am now officially a race entrant. And officially terrified.

Today...

• Rob, Ben and I re-arranged the contents of the shed and moved the patio furniture into it from the garage;
  
  
• I waited in for the man to come round and clear the garage of a van load of stuff we didn't want, including Rob's old bike (which the man promised would go to a good home, not just onto the tip), then I tidied up what was left in the garage and swept it out;
  
  
• Rob and Ben went into Southampton to get a banker's draft for Ben's deposit on his new flat;
  
  
• I practised Clair de Lune on the piano for almost an hour (and it doesn't really sound any better, but I'll keep working on it);
  
  
• Rob and Ben picked up the keys for Ben's flat, and bought a bed for it;
  
  
• I hoovered (sorry Ben, vacuumed, as I used a Dyson) the smallest bedroom, which yesterday was fitted with office furniture, then moved all the office-related stuff into there from the spare room for Rob to set it all up (computers, wires, folders, paperwork etc);
  
  
• Rob and Ben washed both the cars;
  
  
• Once they had finished washing the cars and the risk of bringing dirt into the house was diminished, I mopped the kitchen floor and Ben vacuumed the lounge;
  
  
• I talked to Small Jen on the phone for an hour;
  
  
• I did two loads of washing;
  
  
• I mapped out a 4-mile run for Sara and me to run tomorrow morning.
  
  All before 3pm.

After that I was quite lazy - it took me till 8pm to do two more loads of washing, another half-hour on Clair de Lune and clean all the bathrooms. Slacker.

Exbury Gardens 10k

Sara and I have entered the Exbury Gardens 10k, which is on 9 March. She asked if I wanted to do the Winchester 10k on 24 February, but 10km is twice as far as I've ever run in one go, so I thought it was a bit too soon. Actually I think this one is too soon as well, but I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go. The race website says it's a fast and flat course - but flat to me and flat to a proper runner might be totally different things, so I think we'll go and run the route once before the day. They are limiting entrants to 250, so there's a very good chance I'll come dead last, but we'll see. I went round to Sara's this morning and we ran 5km from her house - which is much hillier than the area around my house, she can come to me next weekend!

I have got myself a training plan from the Runner's World website and have been following it for the last 2 weeks - it's three runs a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, increasing the distance gradually, then on the other days I can either rest or do some other form of exercise. I've been doing a long weights session on Mondays and Fridays and a shorter weights session with some cardio on Wednesdays, then having a rest day on Saturday. I know I'm going to find it really hard to double my distance over the next few weeks - today's run was 3 miles, next Sunday's should be 4 and the Sunday after that should be 5 according to my training plan, getting up to 7 miles (further than the course distance of 6.2) by the week before the race - but I'll try my best.

And... Breathe

Crazy week at work this last week. We had a load of people here, first in London then in Southampton, for a few meetings, plus there was an event in London on Wednesday that I had to go to, which involved getting up at 5.15am. I enjoyed the week, though - better than not having enough to do. But I do have a lot to catch up on next week now.

My New Year's list of jobs to be done is now reliant on other people doing stuff before I can complete it. We will finally be having our bathroom spotlights fitted early next week, after someone came round on Friday to skim the ceiling. He also took out the radiator screws, replacing them with shorter ones that didn't come through the office wall, so now I can get Peter in to fit the furniture in the office. And when that's been done, I'll get the carpet cleaner round to do the lounge, stairs and landing, and I'll also need to get the man with a van round again to clear out the garage, so we can put a bike rack up for Rob and all his new bike paraphernalia. He cycles into work now and has spent a lot of money kitting himself out properly: bike, for starters, plus windproof clothing and padded shorts, water bottle, lights, helmet, paniers, gloves, waterproof overshoes... I had no idea there was so much involved!

Bon Voyage!

Just wanted to wish a very happy holiday to my Mum & Dad, who have left today for Bangkok, the first leg of their tour of Australasia. The schedule goes something like this: Bangkok, Blue Mountains, Sydney, touring all over New Zealand, Melbourne, Adelaide, Cairns, Singapore, home. They'll be away for 7 weeks - well, if you're going to go all that way, you might as well do it right :). Have a fantastic time Mum & Dad!

It's STILL not finished, but...

... at this rate I'll have long given up on this blog by the time it is, so I've decided to post a picture of the en-suite bathroom now. It's not like we can't use it; we're really pleased with what's been done so far and it does function perfectly well. There are just some finishing touches left to do: the electrician needs to fit spotlights into the ceiling and fix the shaving mirror to the wall, but we've hit a snag with that and without boring you senseless, it doesn't look like it's going to get resolved any time soon.

So here it is, and as I said we're very pleased with it. The shower is great, although you can't see it on the picture - it's set back on the right. We've got double doors on the front of the shower, so they don't come out so far into the room as the old single door and it feels more spacious. Which is great, because even as en-suite bathrooms go, ours is quite small...

What I actually wanted to show you, though, was this, which must have been done before Christmas but which we didn't notice until yesterday morning when we cleared out the contents of the smallest bedroom (Rob's office) to decorate it in preparation for the furniture being delivered and fitted this week. It's quite difficult to get a sense of scale, but what you're looking at are two screws protruding about an inch through the wall in the office, the other side of which corresponds exactly to where the radiator has been fixed to the wall in the en-suite. Now the wall separating the en-suite from the office is at least 3 inches thick, so I dread to think what size screws they've used - the radiator isn't even mounted on the wall; it sits on the ground at the bottom so the top screws only serve to hold it in place a bit better.

We called the bathroom company as soon as we noticed, but of course Tony the project manager doesn't work on a Saturday, so Rob left a strongly worded message asking him to ensure that his first phone call on Monday morning would be to us. I was going to say I can't believe they've done it, but all things considered - it was an 8-day job that was originally due to start on 19 November and next weekend will be 19 January, plus they've had our money since the end of October so there's no incentive for them to do a good job or finish on time - I'm actually not all that surprised. We'll wait and see what Tony has to say for himself tomorrow - probably a whole lot of waffle, which is his usual answer to any question I ask him. I got so sick of it on Friday that I banged the receiver on my desk a few times while on the phone to him, then told him to call me back when I was less angry at him.

The good news, though, is that we did get the office painted - we did two coats of pale blue on the walls yesterday then painted the door frame, door and skirting boards white this morning. I'll work from home on Friday so I can be here for when Peter comes and fits the office furniture - assuming, of course, that there are no screws poking through the wall by then...

UPDATE MONDAY 19:00: Tony didn't call back. All day.

So Far So Good

Monday: Spinach & ricotta ravioli with tomato & mascarpone sauce
Tuesday: Chunky vegetable soup (from a can: I had to go out and didn't have much time to cook)
Wednesday: Potato, red onion and feta frittata
Thursday: Sweet & sour three bean hotpot - I made far too much so we're having it tomorrow as well

Not really missing meat at all so far. Got a load of new recipes for next week.

A Veggie's Life for Me

Rob and I are vegetarian from today. That is to say, Rob is going veggie; I'm going back to being veggie. I was vegetarian just before and during university but gave it up when I had to start cooking for a meat-eater; it was just too much work to make two separate meals. This time it was Rob's idea - I had never expected him to suggest it, I have to admit - so I said I was happy to go back to being vegetarian if he wanted to do it. We don't actually eat vast amounts of meat anyway - we hardly ever eat red meat at home, and usually just have chicken - but I'll miss tuna and, on the rare occasion we have it, a lovely fillet steak. We've got loads of really great-looking vegetarian recipes, though, and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

We're mainly doing it for the health benefits, although all the reasons I had for being a vegetarian last time round are still valid: it takes twice the amount of land to feed a meat-eater than a vegetarian; millions of acres of forest are cut down every year for grazing cows, which turns to wasteland once the grass has been eaten; then there's the huge international problem of over-fishing...

We're still eating dairy products - we're not that committed :). Plus Rob has decided to go tee-total. I hardly ever drink, but I would still like the option if the occasion presents itself, so I'm not going with him on this one.

It only took 6 months...

...but the bathroom is now tidy. Just the two spare bedrooms, office and den to go now - today's job is at least one of the bedrooms, if not both. I need to do them this weekend, if possible, because it's back to work on Monday and I'll be less inclined to do them after working all week. Ben's going to be living in one of the bedrooms from next Saturday, so it will be nice if he can actually see his bed.

My uncool hobby strikes again

Remember I said I was going to start an embroidery of the new house, to add to my collection? Well, I finished it ages ago, around the beginning of November. My Mum had the frame at her house, so the plan was to take the finished article up to them at Christmas and get my Dad to frame it. 20 minutes into the journey from hell (Rob describes it better than I do), having already been diverted off the usual road because of an accident, I realised I'd left it at home. So I brought the frame back with me and framed it myself this evening. I hope I didn't do too bad a job of it - the back doesn't look as good as when Dad does it, but who's going to see the back when it's hanging on the wall??

Anyway, here's the subject matter: -


And here's my interpretation, with a lot of help on the pattern from Mum (i.e. she drew it!!): -

Operation Ship-Shape

Happy New Year! We took Chinese and Thai food round to Adrian and Sara's last night, then played a charades-style game called Masquerade that Rob won - just. It was really difficult! It wasn't just a case of mime the title of a well-known TV show or film - it wasn't even a case of mime a well-known phrase. These were just sentences, that made only grammatical sense - Rob had '101 ways to cook a halibut' and I had 'A frog getting legless in France', for goodness' sake! It was good fun, though - we'll look out for it next time we're shopping.

Having spent more than half of December away from home, and the rest of the days preparing for Florida and/or Christmas, the house was left in a fair old state, and it was all waiting for me when we got back yesterday :). This is what it looked like the day we left for Christmas, and it looked even worse this morning, if you can believe it. All the space you see on the floor in the living room was covered in bags we brought back from our travels. And it didn't stop there: there was laundry still in the dryer and pizza boxes in the kitchen from 2 weeks ago, the dining room was filled with wrapping paper and other Christmas-related stuff, all the bedrooms upstairs were a mess (but two of them have never actually been tidy since we moved in) - I was actually quite looking forward to being able to start getting it all in order again. I did the living room, dining room and kitchen today, and made a start on the enormous pile (actually two piles) of ironing that's built up since the beginning of December. Tomorrow I'll make a start on the upstairs.

I also have a list of other projects, some larger than others, that need doing at some point, including: -

• Re-decorate downstairs cloakroom, including new toilet and sink and new flooring, as we took the old carpet up a few weeks ago when the radiator leaked all over it
  
  
• Sort out main bathroom - there are toiletries on every surface and loads of empty cupboards
  
  
• Finally get round to sorting out the two spare bedrooms and putting away all the clutter
  
  
• Sort out the office - this is subject to our getting furniture for it. We ordered it ages ago from the same guy who furnished the company's office in Chilworth and he told us it would arrive around the end of November, but we haven't heard from him since...
  
  
• Take car to garage to sort out dubious sound to exhaust
  
  
• Fix broken slats on our bed
  
  
• Get living room carpet cleaned
  
  
• Clean or replace carpet on stairs and landing - another radiator-related incident
  
  
• Clearly the most important at the moment: get plumber to sort out central heating system
  

Good job I've got the rest of the week off to make a start on the list... :)