Project Ripped

Upon waking this morning I was thinking about my routine when I start back at work in just over a week’s time. I haven’t really done any early morning exercise over the summer break but will need to do so when I get back in to the routine of work. I haven’t really used the rowing machine or cross trainer much at all during the summer and have instead preferred to go out on the bicycles and try some runs.

This afternoon I went for a  2 mile run down the disused railway line, this time heading East instead of my usual West route. The first mile went fine but when I turned around to come back I could feel a pain on the outside of my right knee. It wasn’t a sharp pain but it was enough to make me both run and walk on the way back. There is still some mild pain there this evening so I hope I haven’t done too much damage but it feels like I may have strained a tendon attaching to the outside of my knee. I should probably give running a few days rest until it feels better.

In a couple of days Lilla’s 100 mile invitational running challenge begins. The idea is to see who can rack up 100 miles first. Unless a miracle happens I don’t think I will see 100 miles in September but what a great way to motivate ourselves to get out there and run, especially when we are tired, or it is getting cold and we may not feel like it. It is great to have some other ’shredders’ as competition.

I still feel a bit disappointed missing out on the ‘End to End’ mountain bike challenge so I may do my own challenge that weekend and see if I can stretch myself. I was listening to an audio clip by Bob Proctor today and he was saying that he knows lots of marathon runners. He said that every one of them tells him that there is a point in every race where they feel they can not go on. Having that knowledge lets them prepare for it and then go through it knowing that it was inevitable.  I wonder if I can use this principle to take me from a 3 hour cycle to a 5 hour one for my own ‘challenge’. From my previous cycles I feel like I couldn’t have gone much past my 3 hour cycles but if I know that this feeling is inevitable and I am ready for it and I can cycle through it then I may surprise myself.

This evening I performed my abdominal exercised for the first time in nearly two weeks. I managed to do 20 reps for the six exercises I had been following previously. Starting next week I will have a new abdominal routine.

It was really nice to wake up in my own bed this morning. Thankfully a good sleep last night helped to see the back of the bug that had affected me yesterday. I didn’t feel hot, weak or in pain so I assume my now strengthened immune system is working well.

I still felt a bit delicate so I have eaten a lot of smoothies today to try and get my digestive system working again.

One of my first jobs today was to check the garden. Since being away my net covered brassicas have been invaded by butterflies and they have laid literally hundreds of eggs that have turned to caterpillers. My plants have been destroyed so it looks like I will be eating shop bought cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli from now on. Trying to be friendly to wildlife I will let them eat on, there is little left to salvage. Whatever is left can go on the compost heap. Lesson learned: next year buy a higher quality finer meshed net!

It is good to get back to some normality. After being on this project for so many weeks prior to going on a family break it has felt awkward not being able to continue it effectively for the last 10 days.

This evening I went for a 22.5 mile cycle ride on my road bike that took 1:23 hours. My rear felt a little tender as I haven’t been on any regular cycles for a while. I am sure that it will soon get used to it again.

It is reassuring to be able to take some regular progress photographs again. I never thought it would be so difficult away from home. It is so convenient to do it at home with space, a tripod, lighting and a fast Apple MacPro computer to process the images afterwards. It is difficult to find space in other people’s homes when you have already overcrowded their house with your presence.

I have just gone to signup for the ‘End to End’ mountain bike challenge and entries are closed. When I looked last the closing date was the 1st September but the website says that due to overwhelming demand they have had to close entries at 600 which is 50% up on last year. I am really disappointed at this but I guess there is always next year, and next year I will be a whole lot lighter and fitter.

This was the last day of our holiday and the day we travel home.

The day started really bad for me. For an unknown reason I awoke with severe diarrhoea this morning. This is a bad day to get this so I took some imodium tablets to stop it. Normally I would allow the cause to flush through but we were checking out of the hotel by 11:00 am. and wouldn’t be catching the boat until 7:00 pm. seeing us home by about 10:30 pm. That is a long time to be without a toilet or a familiar base!

We had planned a day out at the Pleasure Beach which is a fun fair/theme park. We continued with the plan but I felt progressively worse through the day. I started to get a temperature and felt pain on the skin on my back and in my joints. The high temperature led me to think that the diarrhoea was bacterial. All I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. We had nowhere to lie down and I knew I was many hours away from getting home.

I persevered pushing myself through the day and was a bit relieved when we started the drive to the boat as I could let me body rest. I haven’t felt this bad for a long time and at times just wanted to rollover and let it all stop.

After the boat journey we got back to the Isle of Man and reached the house at 10:30 pm. 

I unpacked the car and went straight to bed where I fell asleep almost immediately. I didn’t have time or energy to eat, see to the kids (thanks Nicola) or anything else.

I wonder where our Summer had gone to. The weather today feels like late Autumn/Winter. The sky is grey, the wind is cold and blowing hard and it just isn’t pleasant weather to be in.

We went to Blackpool Tower this morning and went up to the top. There is a portion of glass floor at the top of the tower for the brave to walk across. It is a strange feeling walking over glass knowing there is nothing below you for over 300 ft. At the end of the tower visit was the circus. The circus was fantastic and full of athletes showing off their skills. Unfortunately we had to leave after the first half as we had planned to visit the swimming pool that shuts at 5:30 pm.

We took the tram to the ‘Sandcastle Water Park’ which is a pool full of slides, wave pools and other fun water based activities. The kids loved splashing around in the water and our youngest daughter Katie managed to swim with her arm bands for the first time.

We ate after swimming and after a bit of a walk had an early night as we are leaving tomorrow.

Although my eating hasn’t been as clean as I had planned for it to be over the last week I have to be pleased that it isn’t bad. I haven’t eaten any sweets, crisps, pastries or fried food. I have eaten plenty of fruit but I have eaten more cooked food then I have been of late. I like eating raw food but it is just so difficult to do away from a kitchen. I guess we all have to learn how to adapt the first time we encounter difficulties like these. I will be better prepared for our next holiday.

This morning we travelled from my Mums to Blackpool. We visited Blackpool Zoo and had a good walk all around and then checked in to the hotel late afternoon. In the evening we went for a walk around the Pleasure Beach area of Blackpool.

The weather has been pretty awful today and I had planned to try and go out and do a run.

I am finding being away from home extremely difficult to fit in the planned exercise and eating. Although I am enjoying the holiday I feel that I will be better able to continue with my fat loss transformation when at home.

This is the first Sunday where I haven’t done a proper “weigh-in”. It was impossible to do it where we were staying. There was no room and it was difficult to access the equipment we needed. I will have to have a bi-weekly weigh-in next Sunday – sorry!!

Today was a planned easy day where we drove from Nicola’s relative to stay with my Mum for a night. The drive took approx. 3 hours and when we got there we went to visit a local maize maze which was a lot bigger than I thought.

Throughout the day I ached and was tired. London had taken the last bit of energy out of me and I desparately needed a rest today. Not being at home it was difficult to find personal space to have a proper rest do I didn’t get any quality rest until bed time.

I have managed to have smoothies for breakfast almost every day of this holiday and I have managed to eat clean pretty well so far. I don’t expect to have lost any weight over the last week but I do expect to have not gained any either.

We decided to spend a day in London. We woke up relatively early and caught the 9:21 am train to London Pancreas station. The journey only took 50 minutes and then we got on the tube to get to our chosen locations.

We visited the London Eye which was absolutely spectacular. It took approx. 40 minutes to do a full revolution and at the top you can see all of London in splendid detail. I took some photographs and video at the top and our kids loved it.

After that we went to Madame Tusaudes Wax Works which was packed out with people. The wax models were great but the whole experience was spoiled by the sheer volume of people mingling around the wax works trying to have their photographs taken with them.

After that we visited Hamley’s toy shop and walked on down to Leicester Square. From here we took the tube to Green Park where we walked to Buckingham Palace and was amazed to see that they were preparing for the London 2012 Olympic Party happening tomorrow. We walked down The Mall to Trafalgar Square where we caught the tube and train back to our base.

The weather was extremely hot and we covered many miles of walking around London today. Whilst it was really enjoyable I was exhuasted and at about 9:30 pm I crashed out on the bed, was asleep before the kids and poor Nicola had to see to the kids without me.

We had another trip to Legoland today. The miles of walking are starting to take their toll on us all. Waking up in the morning our hips, ankles and feet are aching.

The weather today was excellent and Legoland was packed out. We got in early and enjoyed a few rides and the stunt show before calling it a day and headed back to stay at Nicola’s relatives house. They kindly loaned me a mountain bike so that I could get a little extra cycle practice in.

It was about 6:30pm before I got out and thought that I would have until about 8:00pm before the light started to fade enough to need lights. So I picked a route from a map down some country lanes that would take about an hour and set off. After an hour of cycling I realised that I wasn’t anywhere near where I started. I wouldn’t say I was lost but I had no clear idea of where I was. I used my sense of direction to take some turns towards where I thought I had set off and after a climb up a long hill saw some landmarks on the other side of the hill that gave me a better sense of direction. It took my 90 minutes in total to get back and at an estimated average of 12 mph I had cycled about 18 miles. These 18 miles felt quite good and I found that with my previous hill cycling that I had gone up the hills faster than I ever had before.

I am finding fitting in my regular exercise and diet difficult but today was the most succesful day on the holiday so far.

Today was another day similar to yesterday. After leaving our relatives house early this morning we drove down England to get to Legoland in Windsor. We spent the whole day there and didn’t get to our accomodation until 8:30 pm. After getting all of the gear out of the car and settling the kids down for bed it was time for us to go to bed too.

I am finding combining exercise with this type of holiday an impossible combination. I need to be happy with the miles of walking that I am doing each day.

I am keeping the diet clean and refuse to eat junk foods such as burgers, sweets, chocolates, ice creams, hot dogs and many of the other taste temptations that theme parks have on offer. I think that the worst we have had is some wraps and they are only bad as the bread in the wraps made our bellies swollen. I am still eating some raw chocolate, raw brownies, goji berries and fruit as snacks. If I can continue to do that I should be happy.

Tomorrow will be similar to today. Back to Legoland followed by a drive back up the country to the relatives again.

No photos now until Sunday at the earliest. I will be taking them but find it difficult to process them ‘on the road’.

A very brief post today.

We spent the day at Alton Towers theme park and then aftwards drove down to stay with a relative for the night. Upon arriving it was very late and there was little space or time to do any exercise. I am feeling a bit guilty about not following a program this week but I did get plenty of hidden exercise throughout the day.

I must have walked for miles around the park, most of the time with all our gear in a backpack and some of the time with my youngest daughter on my shoulders. So, perhaps I shouldn’t feel so guilty after all.

Absolutely no possibility of taking a photograph today. Will do so at the next opportunity. Off to Legoland tomorrow.