Tuesday 22 November 2011

It's been a while...

Ages since I posted anything, but not from want of trying.  The bloggy thing on my iPad has chosen to conk out, losing several posts, so I gave up.  Which I suppose IS "from want of trying"...

Anyway - since the Jennings I've been doing a bit, interspersed with doing not much.  The cycling's been fairly consistent with a commute most weeks and out with the club pretty much every weekend.  The running's been pretty pants though, with just a couple of runs average, and some weeks just the one.

We had a brilliant, brilliant day out at the Cumbrian Cracker, which goes from Grasmere, over Red Bank and down Coniston to Cartmel, then comes back through Grizedale.  Did it with Herb, Rick, Rich and Dave, and even the newbies managed to stay with us to half way.  There's quite a climb over Field Broughton to the A590, and we split into two groups there.  There's also a proper pull up from the visitor centre at Grizedale before dropping back into Hawkshead and back to Grasmere to finish.  Great day out on an utterly perfect day.

Coniston on the way up - Perfect...
Since then, which was 6 November, I've had a couple of ropey weeks, mainly driven by work and last week the cold from Hell, which just knocked me out for three days.  I recovered enough to get out with the club on Sunday, when we did a nice steady ride (good job it was steady, as I was pretty snotty and I the summer bike's gone away for the winter now).

The most significant event has been having my now-annual medical, which showed me that I haven't imagined the fact I've been getting fatter.  I was a bit overweight a year ago, but I've put on a stone since then, my cholesterol is up (although not massively so) and my body fat % is unbelievably high.  Something Must Be Done.

I think this might be the jolt I need to get fit (which is good, as I've got the Brass Monkey in about ten weeks and I don't want to be humiliated).  I've set myself the target of losing 10lbs by the New Year and another 10lbs by the time I take the kids skiing in February.  That would have me back at my proper "fit weight" over a sensible timescale, and hopefully in good shape for the Three Peaks in April.  We'll see - progress in the first five days has been good anyway!

I'm only going to weigh myself once a week, so this Monday's weigh-inis the baseline.

Wish me luck...