Run, you stupid bird!

Not me, different stupid bird! Went out for a run the other morning having told husband to prod me with a stick if the alarm didn't seem to wake me. He grunted "alarm" at me and I hauled myself up. It was 6am and it was still pretty much dark! I get the feeling running in the wintertime is going to take some serious willpower.

Anyway, I went out and the sun was just coming up. It was nice, it really was. I ran along a road which goes between a golf course and some fields where sheep, goats and horses are kept. There were rabbits grazing (is that what you call what rabbits do? Or nibbling?) and plenty of birds around. Then a large male pheasant wandered out of the hedge right in front of me. It took one look at the vision of loveliness that is me in my running gear (stretchy lycra crop trousers from Asda, knock-off Calvin Klein t-shirt now 5 sizes too big but I like it, and VERY red face) pounding towards it and it took fright. Naturally. But instead of either going back where it had just come from or indeed FLYING AWAY (cos it's a bird) it started to run away. Up the path in front of me. I kept going. Pheasant kept running. Straight ahead. It was obviously panicking that I was chasing it and was too dim to turn left. Or right. Or fly. Eventually it ran through a gap in the hedge and disappeared from sight, but only because the path turned a corner and the gap was therefore straight ahead. I suspect that if the gap hadn't been right in front of the bird's nose , I mean beak, it would have missed it and be running still. I will make no comment whatsover on the fact that the pheasant was male and any implications that may or may not have for its ability to find anything which is not right in front of it.

Dick Whittington eat your heart out

We had a little skirmish with Second Born last night. Nothing out of the ordinary, just him having a strop because we wouldn't let him go back out to play after 7.00pm (he needs a good half hour to wind down on a school night and then it's time to start getting ready for bed etc). He expressed his unutterable (is that a word? If not, it should be) contempt for this by throwing his training shoes across the living room. He was, not surprisingly, asked to leave the room, go upstairs and reconsider whether this was appropriate behaviour. He duly stomped off, arms folded, brow furrowed.

His elder brother meanwhile capitalised on this by being extra-nice and obedient and helpful, thus ensuring he got to stay downstairs for an extra half hour. No sound from Second Born. I sent First Born up to get ready and after a suitable period of time had elapsed, went upstairs to chivvy them through the last throes of teeth-brushing etc before story time. Discovered Second Born sitting on his bed, in his pyjamas, studiously ignoring me. In front of him on the bed were (1) his cuddly rat puppet, Ratty Guy, (2) £1.25, (3) a couple of unidentifiable pieces of plastic tat.

I was intrigued, but not going to be drawn in. I ignored him. Eventually, he asked "Do you have a cloth?"

Me: A cloth? Why?
Him: To wrap my stuff up in, I am leaving home.
Me: Oh. Are you going in your pyjamas?
Him: No, I am going to sleep first and go in the morning.
Me: Oh, okay. Wouldn't you rather borrow a rucksack? There will be more room in that for your food and stuff
Him: I don't need food. I am going to live outside and just come back in when I need food.
Me: Hmmm, don't think the rules allow that......pretty sure once you tie up your belongings in a cloth on a stick and leave, you're not allowed to come back in for chicken nuggets. I think I read that somewhere.
Him: (Silence)

I got First Born into bed and read the next bit of Harry Potter. As husband and I were giving goodnight hugs and putting out the light, a small exasperated voice said "Oh, ALRIGHT, I'll stay......"

Pay as you go calories

I went out early (ish) on Sunday morning for a run, intending to be out for about 40 minutes. I had no fixed idea of where I was going to go so I just set off down some lanes near the house to see where they took me. It was lovely out - really quiet and peaceful with only the sound of the rabbits running for their lives away from the awful red puffing thing thundering towards them.

I like to pretend I am a real runner by wearing a heart rate monitor when I am out. I don't do anything clever with it like interval training or trying to actually keep my heart rate in the recommended zone (that would be fruitless anyway: one of the first things I had to do with it was to turn off the sound as the anguished beeping it emitted every time my heart rate exceeded the recommended level was distracting me. Constantly). No, I use it primarily for two things: checking how long I have been running for ("Only 10 minutes???? You have to be kidding me, I am DYING here!") and monitoring how many calories I am burning ("Only 50????? You have to be kidding me!" etc.) It was whilst doing the second of these things that I idly watched how many calories were being burned and, particularly, how much running I had to do to burn off 30 calories.

When I am pottering about in the kitchen (which I do a lot) sometimes I just have to eat something......anything, and what I tend to eat is black sesame rice cakes. They are quite tasty and only have 27 calories per cake. It occurred to me, watching that calorie count on the HRM crawl past 27 calories as I struggled along the road, that if I was told that I could only have a rice cake if I earned the calories for it first, I probably wouldn't bother. It just wouldn't seem worth the effort. But because there is no-one doing that when I am mooching about making the kids' packed lunches, I just go ahead and eat one. Or five. Without even thinking about it. And that's when I realised that what all of us who find weight control so hard really need is pay-as-you-go calories. Some system that means you can eat whatever the hell you like PROVIDED you earn the calories first. That would really hammer home the connection between your activity level and your calorie intake. It's just a pity that what real life presents us with instead is a calorie credit card with no upper limit.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen

I was at a parents' meeting at school last night. First Born, who is currently 9, is due to go away to camp at the end of September for 3 nights. The meeting was to let us anxious parents (none of whom were thinking "Free for 3 nights! Wahoo!", no sirreee, not at all) know what was involved at camp, what the arrangements were and how much kit we would have to buy for our little bundles (answer: shedloads. And I have to sew a name label into every. damn. thing).
I have been worried at a low level, well maybe not worried, just slightly concerned, about how FB will manage away for 4 days. He is looking forward to it but of course I am focussing on the potential pitfalls. FB has dyspraxia and this tends to mean that as well as having difficulty with balance and movement, he finds it difficult to focus and concentrate and remember instructions. I mean, even more difficult than the average nine year old boy. It is not unusual, for example, to send FB upstairs to brush his teeth and get dressed for school and to go up 15 minutes later to find him wearing boxer shorts and 1 sock, staring into space, completely engrossed in whatever is going on in his head. He does not mean to be disobedient, he just.....well, something occurred to him and he went with it.
So aside from the performance that is going to ensue when they try to get him into a kayak, there is every chance he will just "forget" to change his underwear. Or wash. For a week. I am thinking of starting a sweepstake and taking bets on how many of his belongings which leave Edinburgh actually make it back with him.
I am, however, taking heart from the fact that when the head teacher asked if we could impress on our children the need to hang towels up otherwise they would not dry, EVERY parent in the room guffawed in a "Like THAT'S going to happen!" sort of way. Maybe FB is more like a normal 9 year old than I thought.

No more silver men

Do you know what has been lovely this past week? Being able to walk around in Edinburgh without seeing anyone painted silver. Or blue. Or any 6 foot obviously-rugby-playing blokes dressed only in a nappy and carrying a dummy and a bottle. There has been a noticeable absence of gangs of posh young chaps attired as cleaning ladies, inclusive of pinny, Hilda Ogden headscarf and curlers. No-one has thrown themselves on the pavement in front of me declaring "I die! I die!" I haven't heard any pan pipes. Or didgeridoos. And nobody has tried to stuff leaflets into my pockets (or put them on top of the pile of files I am carrying - grrrrrrr!) because I won't voluntarily take one. No-one believes their entire happiness depends on persuading me to see their groundbreaking performance of Hamlet in medieval Serbo-Croat. In short, the Festival is over for another year. Thank God.

Forgive me for I have......strayed a bit

Right, time to own up.
Things I have eaten in the past fortnight that I shouldn't have (and what's more I hadn't eaten for months!):

1. Chocolate (lots)
2. Scampi
3. Chicken liver pate (bucketload)
4. Crisps (I don't even really like crisps!)
5. Pizza. More than once
6. Chinese takeaway. More than.........three times (!)
7. Chocolate torte, strawberries and cream (heavenly and it was at a wedding so I can be forgiven. But not for the fact that I ate two helpings because my friend doesn't do sweets)
8. Cheese. Oh god, lots of cheese. If it wasn't for cheese, I would be built like Kate Moss. Well, slight exaggeration but cheese is my downfall quite often.

And...
Things I haven't done for the past couple of weeks:
1. Run, really
2. Any other kind of meaningful exercise.

As a result, I am feeling blech and I've put on about half a stone from the lowest weight I had got to. When I fall off the wagon I do it with style and dedication. So, this week, back on the straight and narrow. I know I feel better when I eat sensibly (ie have some of those things listed above but only a little and NOT ALL THE TIME!!) and get out and move my backside a bit.
I have amended my goals to reflect a black tie "do" I have to go to (and find an outfit for) at the beginning of October so I want to shift some of this weight gain by then and of course I have agreed to run the Bupa Great Edinburgh Public Humiliation of Death 2008 next May so I need to start a nice gentle training schedule for that.
Went out for a run yesterday morning - just 20 minutes to ease back in and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it wasn't that good either. So, I hereby promise:

I will run at least three times a week on my own (ie not toddling along with one or other of the boys but proper running. I will still go out with the boys at weekends if they want but it won't count as one of my three).
I will get at least one session of some other form of cardio in per week (more if I can manage it)
I will avoid acting like a black hole and sucking all food within a 50 foot radius into the gravitational pull of my gob. (I will still have one chinese takeaway a week and some cheese though - have to keep my spirits up!)

Right, I have promised now - you (the imaginary person in my head who reads this) have to make me stick to it. Kate Moss watch yer back!

What was I thinking?

Um. I appear to have agreed to run the 2008 Bupa Great Edinburgh Run. In my defence, I was caught on the hop. One minute I was discussing the payment of a tax bill with the cashier in my office and the next minute.....I was saying "Yeah, sure, that would be fun!" in response to the question "How would you like to humiliate yourself in public and leave yourself unable to walk or get out of a chair without assistance?" Well, she didn't phrase it like that (I might have twigged quicker if she had) but that's really what the question meant.

I initially came off the phone thinking "It's only 10km, it's not till next May so I have time to prepare, it'll be fine". Then I looked at the route of the run on the web. And then I died. You have to run along Princes Street (people! watching me run!) and up the Mound (people watching me expiring on a hill!) AND THEN round a bit of Holyrood Park (another hill and I ran that one in the Race for Life and it is HARD!) and you're still not finished! Eek!

I think I had better get training. Or change my name and move.