Monday 13 February 2012

Winter wonderings

January in a nutshell: work, training (track, road and cross-country running, spinning, and road cycling, interval and endurance swimming, weights/conditioning, yoga/pilates/tai-chi), cross country race. Coffee. Sister’s birthday (and amazing carrot cake), baking, meetings. Trip to London. Trying (mostly in vain) to see my friends. I have mainly done nothing else, and nothing exciting.

Cross country race was actually quite fun – part of the West Midlands Cross-country League, racing for Stratford-upon-Avon Athletics Club…. Didn’t embarrass myself either, came 104 out of something like 235 women :)


Mid Womens XC Lge 059


For the sister’s birthday I was on cake duty as our parents were away, so I rustled up a cheeky carrot cake, bloody delicious it was too, even if I do say so myself.

3/52 B is for Baking


Took a trip to London with my mum, to meet a new arrival for some family friends…..


February so far: work, training (track, road and cross-country running, spinning, and road cycling, interval and endurance swimming, weights/conditioning, yoga/pilates/tai-chi), trail race (Hell in the Middle – the big, mean, hilly, arse-kicking brother of Hell down South), more baking.

Hell in the Middle was fun, but bloody cold. It was -8.4’C when I left my house that morning, and I’m pretty sure it didn’t get anywhere near going over freezing whilst we were running. 10-12 miles (that’s the only distance guideline they give!), cross-country, trail running in Cannock Chase. A lot of it is along the single-track mountain bike courses, which was proper ankle-breaking territory because the muddy ruts had frozen solid. I saw at least 5 people go arse over tit, or just flat on their bums because of the ice….. very, very icy, although probably good for me in the long run, as it meant I was running a little cautiously. On the plus side, I didn’t wipe one of my contact lenses out this time, so I could actually see where I was running! Whoop! Finished 15th out of 235 women, 199 out of >1000 overall. Pretty pleased with that all things considered :)

I also started a 52-week project; realised I wasn’t really using my camera much, and although I didn’t want to commit to a 365 again just yet, I wanted to do something….. it’s nice to be back taking photos more often too. Breaks up the monotony of work and training.

On the most exciting note – I am off to Salt Lake City on Saturday for a week’s conference (Ocean Sciences 2012), and then I have a week of PLAYING IN THE SNOW!!!!! I am SO EXCITED about this as I didn’t end up going skiing/snowboarding last year, and I miss my annual snow-fix. I’ll still have a lot of work to do whilst I’m there (booooo), but very excited about it nonetheless. Obviously I will have loads of photos to post afterwards.

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