Please allow me to introduce myself...

Wow! I can't believe that I haven't updated my blog in 3 weeks now. In the 5 years since this blog was 'born', the only other time(s) I have gone so long without an update has been when I've been high on a mountain somewhere well away from modern technology.

I wish I had been on a mountain.

I have been instead swamped by a work-related tsunami. Basically until this weekend, I worked for 28 days straight. Lots of long days and nights working until midnight & beyond. Throw in lots of adrenaline, cortisol (the 'fight' hormone in the 'fight or flight response'), nowhere near enough sleep and tonnes of coffee & my poor body has been taking a beating (mentally & physically). It has been, by far, the most difficult period of my working life to date.

So here is a quick recap of the last 3 weeks:

Week 1 (Mon 6 - Sun 12):
Wednesday & Friday were 60mins pilates with Carly.

Saturday morning I headed out for my first walk/shuffle in quite a few weeks (6 x 1min).

Sunday morning saw only my second ride in 4 weeks; 2 hours out & back with R along the Northern Road. I was worried about how much fitness I had lost after 4 weeks of very little training. But I was really pleased with the ride; in fact it turned out to my fastest ever ride over that course. Even R commented on how much faster I was! There is something to be said for working late, doing no exercise & getting no sleep ;-) 51km. Av. 24.9k/h

Week 2 (Mon 13 - Sun 19):
Monday, Wednesday & Saturdays - walk/shuffles

Thursday - a solid strength session in the gym

Friday - my first Spinervals DVD. For those who haven't had the 'pleasure' (and I use that word loosely), Spinervals is a series of bike windtrainer sessions on DVD lead by "Coach Troy" who has a rather annoying North American habit - apologies to any North American readers - of saying "good jawb" all the freaking time. I am however willing to ignore the annoyance factor given that the vid kicked my ar$e. I honestly have never worked harder on the windtrainer before, nor have I felt like I was going to throw up due to my friend lactic acid on the windtrainer before. Now I am strangely looking forward to doing another one. Yes, I am a sadistic ;-) 52mins 22.7km including 3 x 20 lunges.

Week 3 (Mon 20 - Sun 26):
Monday - massage + return to swim squad after 5 weeks off. Remind me never to take so long out of the pool again. I've lost fitness but (more importantly) technique & my 'feel' for the water. I felt like I was spinning my 'wheels' the whole time. Hopefully it will come back quickly. 2.5km

Tuesday & Saturday - walk/shuffle

Sunday - long ride. 2.5 hours out & back along the Northern Road by myself. This one felt a bit harder than my last ride - not particularly surprising given it was only my 3rd ride in 6 weeks - but the average pace revealed that the last (fast) ride wasn't a fluke. 63.3km. 2:33. 24.8k/h av.

The next phase in my project at work starts tomorrow but I will (hopefully) take a lesser role in it which will (hopefully) mean less hours at work & a return to a decent training load. It was 17 weeks today until my next BHAG goal. I have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks but I'm looking forward to getting back into it :-)

MTD:
Swim - 2.5km
Bike - 137km

Race of the season...

apparently.... :-D

Edit: bugger. The link appears to be ok when I click on it. Go to

http://forums.transitions.org.au/index.php?showforum=2

and scroll down the threads until you find the one called "Race of the Season - Mango vs Mrs Mango". At the moment (Thursday PM), the thread is still on the first page...

Zero, zip, nada

Have been sick since Sunday & on antibiotics (as well as my first ever Ventolin puffer) since Tuesday so no exercise at all since my ride last Sunday.

Throw in working until midnight on Wednesday & Thursday, until 10pm on Saturday and spending all day in the gym today doing my final practical assessment for my Cert IV (PT) and to say it's been a $hit week is probably an understatement.

There has been some upsides; I have booked flights to Queenstown in December to attend a PT mentorship and managed to include an extra day whilst I'm there to squeeze in some ice climbing :-)) I am also only a few written assessments away from (finally) being a PT so there has been a faint glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel..

Anyhoo, had better get back to it. A couple of hours work before I can sleep...