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Seven Hills and that Pesky Little Problem I have

Posted on by Renée
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Some of you may remember when I did this race two years ago…

I desperately wanted to do it the next year but I had that little knee problem and was out of commission for this event in 2011.

So as soon as I could run again (when was that, back in November or December last year?) I knew that the Zevenheuvelenloop would be done in 2012! Oh yes!!

I mentioned a few times this summer that I was training more hilly terrain and to be honest, I’m really glad I did. That, in combination with the stuff I did with the physio and then later at the gym (and at home) really helped me this time around in Nijmegen.

Unfortunately hubs’ was not able to run with me. Though he has tried, he just has too many problems with his hips. We are really not sure what to do – we thought maybe new and proper fitting shoes would help, and it did a little but not enough. We also discovered that he absolutely has to run his own pace to run a minimum of 5KM without pain. Running with me (ie slower) makes the pain come faster. So we knew at some point that a 15KM was definitely not in the cards for him.

I asked my running hero, Marcellus, if he wanted to take hubs’ place and he accepted :) This is a fairly big deal because while I don’t mind going all over the country to do races, most people I know stick to their own area. He’s Dutch, and pretty much lived here his whole life (except for one year in the US) and had never been to Nijmegen! (though this is typical; I, as a foreigner, have been to more places than most Dutch people have been in their own country). Marcellus is the one who encouraged me to keep going through my C25K program and convinced me to skip right over a 5K (and a 10K) for my first race to join the company running team to participate in a 12K. So, yeah, I was pretty excited to have him at least start with me at this race.

we’re actually smiling because it finally stopped raining

Unfortunately it had been raining all morning the day of the race, though this is not something we are not used to, and to be honest I always seem to have my best times when it’s raining so off we went from Arnhem to Nijmegen (a 20 minute train ride). We met M and another colleague at Starbucks before we headed off to our starting corral. It was cold and we weren’t due to start out until about 13:45 (we were in the last corral) but that time came and went with no sign of starting any time soon. Since we arrived around 13:00 I already questioned myself if I should try to use the loo again (I’d been about a 1000 times already) but I thought no, I’ll be fine, we are going to start soon anyway.

Two o’clock also came and went. Oh my God. Is this rain going to let up? Should I go to the toilet? I think I have to go to the toilet! What if I go and we start? Ugh!

I think it must have been about 14:30, somehow the rain stopped and clouds parted and suddenly the sun was shining! It was glorious! And finally… we were off! But now… I really had to use the loo…

photo courtesy of Loop voor het Leven (http://www.loopvoorleven.nl/loop-voor-leven/)

What I really wanted to accomplish was just beating my original time in 2010 of 1:39:26 and to be honest it was looking pretty good, BUT…

I really needed the loo.

And every time it seemed like I could go, the loos were locked up.

Finally around 9.5KM there was a portapotty that was open. Finally some relief!!

The bad news? I lost about 3 minutes in that damn thing! I did my best to make up some time and had a good couple of KM’s, but it wasn’t going to be my day to break any records. Oh, wait, but I did. My time? 1:39:20. Six seconds faster! Ha!

I seriously need to do something about my bladder!!

Letting Go

Posted on by Renée
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So that stuff at work that is going on? I’ve decided to let go of the stress that I’m allowing to take over my normal workday.

There are still things that are going on and decisions waiting to be made but clearly *I* have no influence over those things. So it’s time to let go.

By letting go that means I’m going to be more focusing on my work, my team and my goals. Let’s let the chips land where they may, whenever they are going to land.

With that, let’s move on to some cooler stuff!

It’s DECEMBER!!! WHAT THE ACTUAL BLEEP???? How did this happen??? I wasn’t quite ready for this month yet!

The last few months have been a whirlwind. It pretty much started with my birthday, my trip to Cornwall, my trip to Baltimore, a concert (hey I’m old, this is a big deal now), volunteering at the Amsterdam Marathon, and a quick trip to Brussels. There was also a weekend away in the Veluwe, some massive stress at work, and a 15K that I’d been looking forward to since the first time I did it in 2010!

I haven’t touched on the Marathon volunteering yet – Hubs and I actually signed up for this some months ago, just to see what it was like to be on the other side. I was a part of the starting corral team, in charge of the last corral. We had to try and get people to their correct starting areas but it was amazing how many questions we got as well, including “have you got any safety pins?” “which bus goes downtown?” “where do I leave my stuff?” “have you seen my uncle? we can’t reach him on the phone.” (really) Oh and we were on the Half-Marathon bit of the Marathon. My friend and colleague P was running and I saw another colleague as well as an Expat I know in Amsterdam. Pretty amazing to run into people you know where there are 40,000 participants in total!

We had to hang out for quite some time after the race started and afterwards I was certainly lucky that I have been doing a lot of strength training at the gym – our next task was to break down all the barriers at the start and finish areas of the race, including the entire section around the Olympic stadium. Oh my arms!!! P waited for us to finish up and then we went to celebrate with her by having a few beers and some grub that you don’t generally eat when being quite particular on a certain diet *winks* Conclusion on volunteering: It’s ok. Not sure I would do it again. Depends on the task.

watching the runners coming into the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam was inspiring and awesome!!

hey, you get a free jacket and tee shirt out of the deal, why not volunteer?

PP ready to kick some HM a$$

I also made a very quick trip down to Brussels; my friend Dave had exactly 48 hours on this side of the world and his main purpose (besides getting to hang with two gorgeous ladies) was to visit the Hard Rock Cafe in Brussels. You see, Dave has a thing for HRC. And I can’t say I blame him because I do love to go to HRC much much more now that I’m out of the US than when I was living in the US. This is probably because it does remind me a bit of home but also I’m a sucker for music and nostalgia. Dave’s been to like 1 billion HRC’s in the world and I’m sure he’s not done yet. I missed Dave the last time he was in Amsterdam (I was in Milan) so I had to go, there was no way I was going to miss him again!

it was a cold but absolutely stunning fall day in Brussels!

pinky and dave together again!

one of my favouritest people in the world – Y! aka the DutchBitch

look at that glorious sky!

Next post I will share some good stuff that happened in November – my little weekend away with the hubs just 25 KM from home and my 15K that I ran with my running hero M (he took the place of Hubs, since hubs wasn’t able to participate).

I still have quite some things to update, but let’s leave it at this and hopefully I’ll be back in the swing of blogging again!

Have you had a crazy period recently behind you? How did you cope? What do you have going on this month, besides the holidays?

Overdue

Posted on by Renée
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It really has been almost a month since I blogged. With good reason. Seriously it’s been a wild crazy busy couple of months and the stress level has been pretty high.

I meant to update at the end of October – remember I had some goals?

1) I will not only log into MyFitnessPal every day, I will actually log the food I eat as well.
2) if I am out, for whatever reason, and I am unable to log electronically, I will do it the old fashioned way and the enter when I have a chance (I am volunteering at the Amsterdam marathon this month and will be away from the computer at that time)
3) the whole month of October I will be beer-free
4) I will go to the gym twice a week. No excuses.
5) I will run minimum twice a week.
6) I will continue to not eat the chocolates from work, the entire month of October. (not cutting out chocolate in general, just not mindlessly stress-eating from the candy jar.

I did fairly well with MFP – though I keep missing a day here or there and messing up my days in a row. Prior to going to Cornwall in September I was maybe one or two days shy of a year when I forgot to log in. I think the point here though is, logging in at least plants the seed and makes me think about what I’m going to end up entering in my food diary. Food logging isn’t the worst habit to have, in fact, I am sure that it stops people from further damage (if there is damage).

I was not beer-free the whole month, however, there were a lot less excuses for it. I had beer after the Amsterdam Marathon (where I was a volunteer, not a runner) and I had beer when I went to Brussels to the new Hard Rock Cafe with a couple of friends (one who was here for just 48 hours, purposely to go to HRC).

Running – I wanted to run minimum twice a week and it averages out to that – my mileage was 71KM which is amazingly the most I’ve run all year in a one month period.

It looks like I didn’t mention the gym in my goals and I thought I had – I wanted to go at least 2 times a week in October. I didn’t manage this every week but I went way more in October than I did since I joined my new gym earlier in the year.

November was pretty mental. Like really mental. My brain was playing a lot more tricks on me than usual – basically there is something going on at this very moment that I can not share yet (possibly next week) but it’s something that has had me waxing and waning between self-confidence and self-doubt. The times when I’m not feeling super confident seem to be the times that I’m most vulnerable to eating junk or not going to the gym or not sleeping enough. It’s definitely been a rough month yet I still have some running, cycling and gym under my belt. I’m treading water and it’s going ok but eventually I need to do something else…

I’ve got some other things I want to talk about like my weekend away at the spa hotel and the 15K I did last weekend, but those are for the next post.

WNL:: (was not last!) Westervoort Midzomer Run

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Yes another race!

And another PR! This time I shaved 16 seconds off of my fastest race in Hilversum just two months ago. Last year I had to skip this race as it was again right after the Ladies Run and I was not allowed to run. I was exceptionally bummed because Westervoort is about 1.5KM from my flat and I run out there all the time so I know the course very well.

This year I not only got to participate but the Hubs ran with me (well, way ahead of me, but you know what I mean)! His first ever 10K and his first race in a really long time with the exception of the relay he just participated in last week at work (each runner did 1.7KM).

It was, of course raining like hell, what more could I expect from weather in the Netherlands? It turns out that rain is quite good for me though – I ran much, much better, stronger and faster than in Rotterdam just two weeks ago.

The funniest part is, this was the smallest race I ever participated in! Seriously there 150 runners in the 10K leg of the race. When I started out I was at the back. I don’t care too much about where I am located at the start of a race because there are like thousands of runners around me. This time though it was pretty obvious I started at the back and I STAYED there. Most of us kept up the same pace as well. There were two people behind me and I managed to get ahead of three others. There was one older lady that was thisclose but ahead of me and I couldn’t seem to get a gain on her. Even through the wind and the rain that lady kept up her pace (and trust me, she was much older than me, so I kind of wanted to just let it be, you know?). At around 500 meters to go I just hoofed it and passed her, coming in at the finish line at 1:04:06.

As I was getting water and taking off my time chip, she came up to me and shook my hand and we congratulated each other on a great race. That may have been my favourite part :) There were in total only 26 women running in the 10K and of those 26 I was 19/22 in my category (women under 60). There were only 4 ladies in the 60+ category, my “friend” coming in 13 seconds after me.

Hubs ran 72/80 in his category, time 0:54:54. I’m super proud of him!!!

Photos will be up on the website this week, hopefully there will be a few I can choose from that won’t be me with my tongue hanging out of my mouth looking desperate (who am I kidding? I see a camera and I’m ready for a photo op!!).

Rotterdam Ladies Run 2012 Edition

Posted on by Renée
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It was a couple of weeks ago already, but I am still smiling about my experience with the Ladies Run in Rotterdam this year. What a difference from last year!

If you have been following along, you’ll remember that last year’s Ladies Run was my last one before being forced into taking a break from running to save my knee from more pain and possible damage. Last year it was also raining, but most importantly I ran the entire race in pain and this year it was much, much better.

Last year I did run it faster and I think it had a LOT to do with the fact that I just didn’t want to stop at all for fear I wouldn’t finish. I don’t care much about time, though I do suppose that at some point I would hope to get faster simply from being stronger and maybe even losing a couple of kilos.

Anyway, it was a great day. We didn’t have to start off too early and this year we drove (all of us) down to Rotterdam to my friends Tammy & Xander’s place as they live pretty close to the Ahoy where we were starting the race. We were met by Penny and her family as well and headed off all 9 of us on the bus to the starting point!

We were in plenty of time to hang out, get nervous/excited, pick up my tee-shirt but unfortunately I missed meeting up with Joanna, who was running the 5K prior to the 10K; I thought there would be a window of opportunity before the warm-up but it was not meant to be. How exciting this day was though! It was Penny’s FIRST 10K and our FIRST race together!!

We did the warm-up together which generally speaking I do either half-ass or not at all. BUT, it was a really good warm-up, I quite enjoyed it! And I really felt like the legs and the muscles were ready to hit the road. It was already quite warm out (especially after the weather we had/have been having) but I was pretty confident it would be all right (not as hot as at the Marikenloop).

We ended up near the front when it was time to go and we were off! The best part of the whole race was actually seeing my people cheering for me at a few KM’s down the course! Normally this never happens, since I only have one or two people with me at a race. How exciting to see Tammy especially smiling at me from a distance and waving like a crazy woman whilst trying to take photos at the same time!

Me waving wildly back

So it really WAS warm out. I had to stop at the drink stations a few times. I had to walk about 500 meters between 8 -9 KM. Ultimately this slowed me down and put me about 2 minutes slower than last year. I am VERY happy with the result though! I am VERY happy that I could run with Penny (and she was only a couple minutes behind me! ROCK ON SISTER!!)! I am VERY happy to have had so many great people there supporting us!

After the race of course you KNOW I had my cold beer and french fries!

Cheers!

It was fantastic just hanging out with friends and the kids. Later we made our way back towards home, stopped off for some dinner (which was a large salad) and after taking the kids back, got home, took a shower and passed out!

A special shout out to Tammy - thanks for the use of the photos!!

Marikenloop 2012

Posted on by Renée
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Wow, I can’t beleive it’s already been a week ago that I was able to participate in the 10th annual Marikenloop in Nijmegen! This is a Ladies Only race and has really grown in participant numbers over the last several years. The first year they had a little less than 1500 ladies running through park Brakkenstein. The course has changed over the years but there’s always the opportunity to do a 5 or 10K at this race.

This year there were over 12,000 participants! It’s an extremely popular race in the Netherlands for the ladies. I loved being able to participate this year, since it’s in Nijmegen, which is only about 20KM from where I live (to compare with where I do many races, somewhere around 100 – 130 KM from home). I was also extremely happy that one of my friends was also participating. I don’t know Niki that well, but what I do know I like, so it was great that she had also signed up.

The race itself is a charity event, sponsoring PLAN: Girls First; in a nutshell PLAN is helping girls in developing countries have a better life and better opportunities.

The Netherlands finally started having “normal” spring weather some time last week. That meant that the chances of it being warm on Sunday were high. Well, I would definitely say it was WARM on Sunday. Like, very. Even when I woke up in the morning it was already warm, no jackets or sweatshirts were needed. I debated wearing a short sleeve shirt or a no sleeve, then regretted choosing the short sleeve (but hey, it matched my nails!) later.

I woke up after a good 8 hours of sleep, had my breakfast and got ready. Most of my stuff was already prepped from the night before, so no rushing around searching for things like I do in some cases. We left on time (hubby came to support), in fact early because I like to be early… got the train and arrived at Nijmegen to find a bazillion people waiting to go to one stop further, so we ended up missing one train and waiting 20 minutes for the next.

As I said, it was warm. QUITE warm. We must have arrived around 12:45 and I went to pick up my shirt to wear AFTER the race (never wear a race shirt before I’ve run it!), we walked around, I ate my (paleo) snacks and had my picture taken as if I were on the cover of Runner’s World Magazine :)

Around 1:30pm Niki texted me that she had arrived with her posse and we were able to find each other pretty easily in the crowd. Niki’s ankle is a bit messed up and she had been taped just prior by her physical therapist who actually joined her at the race. Around 2pm we went to our starting area to do the warm up and then eventually get in the queue to start.

Well we must have been in the “slowest of the whole bunch” group because the race officially started at 2:15 yet we were unable to even reach the starting line until 2:40! Niki and I both decided we were just going to keep at each other’s pace and see how her ankle held up. Sadly, just after 3KM Niki signaled to me to go on, that she needed to stop. I felt bad leaving her behind but was hoping she just needed to slow down a bit and would catch up later.

I ran up until about 5K and then decided to walk a bit. It was now officially HOT. I needed to slow down my heart rate some and I was incredibly thirsty. Not only that, but because I was hydrating before the race, and did the necessary couple of trips to the ladies’ I still at this point needed to “go” because of the delay with the start. At 43 you don’t challenge your bladder as much as a 23 year old would, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I hit the drinks station just before 6K and there was a little scouting hut there so I went around to see if there was a loo I could use. YES! There was! I did my thing, then went and splashed cold water on my face, went back out to the drinks station, had another sports drink, took a deep breath and carried on. I lost about 5 minutes during this whole process.

I think I may have walked about 350 meters again around the 8K mark and after that just decided it was time to run through. Most of the run was through the woods, but at 9K we were out on the city streets again. As I was running up to the finish I saw only Niki’s fiance, but my Hubs was next to him apparently (I have bad eyes), so I waved, sped up and crossed the line.

Finish: 1:14:39

Not my fastest 10K, I take 5 min off for my break at the scouting hut, which would leave me around 1:09. Not bad considering the heat and the walking. Poor Niki never made it. She had to be medically escorted back.

My friend Alli also came to have an ICE COLD BEER (ahhhhhh… carbs I will make exception for, especially after a race!), so once Niki’s crew headed off to meet her where she was, hubs, Alli and I had a couple of cold ones before we had to head back. Getting back was a slight challenge since there were so many people, but eventually we made it. Once back in Arnhem neither one of us felt like cooking anything so we had something to eat in town.

It was a nice race, a beautiful course and a great day. Some not so nice things happened, namely that I didn’t get to finish with Niki, not even close, even though we were kind of hoping to do that together(ish), I didn’t like that I started 25 min after the actual start time, and the heat was a bit much. I would definitely do this race again, and hopefully I’ll have a chance next year to have a better time as well.

And… Another Race!

Posted on by Renée
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A few months ago I signed up for the Spieren voor Spieren (that’s “muscles for muscles” literally translated) City Run in Hilversum (the media capital of the Netherlands). I knew it was the week after Milan and I thought it would be fine since at Milan I was “only” running 7KM so no big deal right?

Milan came and went and I was pretty darned exhausted the week after, not to mention crazily busy at work and I thought “really, Pinky? what have you done!?” I was not really in the right mind set to do another race so soon afterwards.

The nice thing about it though, was that my colleague Sam, was also running! What I didn’t know was that it was her VERY FIRST race! And a 10K to boot! So probably by Wednesday/Thursday last week I was feeling it a little bit more and looking forward to at least meeting up with her and her partner and starting the race together.


Hubs was once again gracious enough to get out of bed early on a Sunday to accompany me to the race. Hilversum is not so far away, but not close either, so we still were out the door around 9:15 to start the journey to get there. I used to work in Hilversum (it’s where I worked when I first came to the Netherlands) and I have a soft spot for the place (many of my “firsts” in this country happened here) but I didn’t really research where the route would take me so I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. Turns out the course went through the Media Park (never been there) so it was fun to see all the television studios. It also went up the street where I used to work and around one of my most favourite buildings in the country, the Hilversum Town Hall (by the famous architect Dudok)

hilversum - dudok town hall 01

The weather was fairly cooperative and I felt good and it turns out I ran my fastest 10K to date!

For me this is real improvement! In June of last year when I ran Rotterdam, if you recall correctly, it was completely on my bad knee. I had to stop running after this and now I know it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I’ve learned a lot about how to take care of myself in order to run better and stronger and I’ve learned something VERY important:

NEVER COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS
YOU ARE YOU
YOU ARE UNIQUE
YOU HAVE YOUR OWN SPECIAL QUALITIES

I have been WAY more relaxed about running since I started up again and I have absolutely NO DESIRE to do any more than I know I am capable of at this time in my life.

When you are relaxed, you just perform better. When you don’t CARE if you PR or not, you just perform better. By that I mean, if you are good in your head, no matter what the outcome, it is ALL good.

As you can also see I have already some other races lined up and I am truly looking forward to them.

Another Week Goes By And What Have I Done

Posted on by Renée
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I realize it’s Tuesday (evening for me) and I’m very late with my update, but this is my life and the way the lowfat cookie crumbles.

Again a week has gone by and my intentions to blog during the week went right out of the window. You guys are used to that right?

So what have I done?

Monday evening I had my second appointment at the gym with the trainer to get a program set up for me. I have to say I’m not really impressed but my expectations were not that high. The thing is, I already had a program at my other gym, I’m not new and I don’t really need the machines totally explained to me – new ones, yes, thank you, but not ones I’ve been working with for years. So again I arrive on time – and I cycled there so I would already be warmed-up – and again the trainer is nowhere to be found and there are two others waiting for him as well. The woman who did my fitness test came over and told us the trainer would be with us shortly and we should go and do a warm up on one of the machines. :( I realize not everyone has the same dilemma as I have, but my time is precious and I already warmed up so I could start immediately! A few minutes into the elliptical the trainer came over and we could start. The two other ladies were complete beginners so for me this trip to the gym was slightly a waste of time. After setting up a program I did a little bit more cardio and then cycled home. So much for that.

Tuesday I was up early to prep my lunch and snacks (because if I go to the gym in the evening I won’t have time to do food prep if I want to go to bed on time). Work was “normal” (if you can use that term for it!) and at 5pm I left to go and meet some old friends in Utrecht – my friend Beth and her husband used to live here but moved back to Texas (where Beth is from – her hubs is Dutch) 7 or 8 years ago and this was the first chance to see them since they moved back. Another friend of ours, Gwenn, also came and it had probably been even longer since I had seen her last! It was great, just like old times, but again slightly bittersweet – it brings back not so nice memories and thoughts around that time and reminds me of my “previous life” in Den Haag. I love them though, and it was really wonderful to catch up. Luckily we were not out too late and I was home around 10pm, then pretty much straight to bed.

Wednesday I already had plans to see another friend Sarah – we’d planned weeks in advance because I’m trying to have only one social engagement a week – Beth being in the country kind of threw a spanner in the works, but I also want to be more flexible with my schedule. So Sarah works at this expat shop in Leiden and I had asked her to bring me some Vegemite and then we could catch up, have a drink, dinner, etc. I hadn’t seen her since this summer and that was brief and not really one to one. Sarah met me at Leiden train station and we ended up having dinner at a place called De La Soul; apparently it’s “soul food” in the Netherlands… and the menu looked good but we ended up having burgers which were delicious (you guys have no idea how hard it is to find a decent hamburger in this country!). Time went by too, too quickly and I had to go home as Leiden is pretty far from where I live. Luckily hubs again picked me up at the train station when I arrived around 10:30pm.

Thursday I worked from home – I actually had a doctor’s appointment in the morning because I wanted to discuss my TOM issues with her. Nothing major, just that I have a lot more pain than I used to have, not only cramps but my back as well. Not much they can do; I got a prescription for painkillers and am supposed to try that for a couple months before we look at other options. I was going to go to the gym after I finished working – but all of my gym clothes were in the wash. I didn’t want to NOT exercise at all, because the old me may have just said “oh well, my clothes are in the wash”, but the new me wants to keep moving! So I walked 3.5 KM into town to use up my nearly expired coupon from my running shop to buy new socks and I also ended up checking out another sports shop that was having a mega sale, buying a pair of fitness/gym shoes (the ones I was using were over 10 years old!!!) and yes a new pair of gym pants. I was explaining to the lovely Karen that yes, I have running pants, but I don’t like to wear them in the gym. I don’t have a lot of insecurities about my body and I’m ok with my ample backside most of the time, but I feel very exposed in tight running pants and feel like my arse is on display. So, now I have 3 pairs of gym pants I can wear and no excuses why I couldn’t go and work out!

Friday after work I went directly to the gym since I didn’t make it on Thursday. I was busy working out and had to ask one of the trainers where the weights bar cushion thingee was (you know what I mean?), and he started talking to me, asking me if I was new, what my goals were, etc. Anyway, we chatted for a while, he told me he was a personal trainer and asked me if I wanted a try-out session. He said he could definitely help me reach my goals of being fitter and stronger but he could also help me lose weight. I explained to him that I didn’t want to focus on weight loss, that I’ve been on this plateau forever yadda yadda yadda (you guys know the drill) and focusing on weight loss drives me mental. He said we didn’t have to focus on it, it would just be a bonus side effect. So I said, sure, why not, I would try it, nothing to lose really, right? I gave him my number, he gave me the name of his website and I carried on with my work out. I arrived home around 8pm or so, had a wonderful dinner with my hubs and a glass of wine and just hung out. Nice :)

Saturday morning slept in a wee bit, did some errands, had a failed shopping trip and then headed off to the kids’ house to celebrate my step-son’s birthday (he turned 11 on Monday :) ). Arrived back home, quick rush to get ready, then out for a quick bite to eat and straight afterwards to a MeetUp my friend M and I had organized for the expats in Arnhem. Was actually really nice, tons of people showed up, lots of newbies! It’s cool to meet so many expats in the city I live in, especially considering it’s not the biggest city in the Netherlands (but the 2nd largest in my province). Sadly my back was killing me after several hours standing so we went home around 12:30am.

Sunday more sleeping in, lots of pottering around and then finally I got my bum in gear for a RUN! It was cold, but I layered up and headed out to Westervoort. I love running over the bridge, along the dyke and through the farmland! It’s so amazing that it’s so close to the city yet so removed from it all. I can clearly still see the couple of people I saw also running along the dyke and smiling from ear to ear. I know it sounds cheesy but I just love to see others running, acknowledging each other and knowing the other one is loving it too! It was a fantastic run, I honestly could have kept going! When my loop was done I was almost at 10KM so I just kept going until I hit that mark. I stopped off at the supermarket (weird, I know, in all my sweaty, stinky, running clothes glory) to get something the hubs needed for dinner, went home, had an amazingly delicious meal, prepped all my food for the next day, showered and then settled in to watch a movie with hubs until it was time for bed.

Phew!! Now THAT’S an update!!

This week:

Monday – Gym
Tuesday – break
Wednesday – Gym (aerobics class with my friend G)
Thursday – don’t know yet
Friday – PT appointment!!
Saturday – too much going on probably nothing
Sunday – Going for a run :)

I was thinking of doing the aerobics class with G only every other week and then maybe if my friend M is up for it I could see her in town on the off weeks. I’m trying not only to be good to myself this year but also be good to my friends. That means making time when I can and spending even one or two hours with them as opposed to having weeks go by and not seeing each other. This year is all about the balance. Food, sleep, work, fitness, friends, hubs. Not in that order :)

The Last Foodie Friday of 2011

Posted on by Renée
7

We made it guys! WHOO!!

This week has not be stellar for me once again but we are not surprised by now. After all this is NOT A WEIGHT LOSS BLOG so no real reason to expect that I’m a green, mean, clean eating machine all the time, right? With the holidays coming to a close, finally the biscuits, cookies, chocolates, cakes, special breads, etc., will stop being put in my face until next year and I can at least go on with my life in the way I actually MEAN to go on.

Remember last year I did the 30 Day I’m Not Going to Eat Any Crap At Work Challenge? Well it’s time to have that challenge again. This is utterly ridiculous and not who I am.

It’s funny because we have stuff at home right now, chocolates that my husband bought, but the thing is, I don’t like them, so I don’t eat them. I don’t like half the shit I’m shoving in my face at work, but I’m still eating it. I’m not hungry, I’m eating it. I’m looking for stuff to shove down my neck. I know that it’s stress related.

But it’s amazing (here comes the broken record) that even though I know it doesn’t help I do it anyway. Really annoying. I can quit smoking, but I can’t stop shoving crappy things in my face?

Anywho. I had some really good stuff this week too though. I must be such a food/health dork because I just LOVE a great salad. I am definitely going to refocus and get my good food on next week and beyond :)

Thanks to Tracy, I had these Cheddar Snack-a-Jacks with lowfat Philadelphia and 4 slices total of chorizo for breakfast. In hind-sight, I agree that these are more a snack item and not breakfast as I was just too hungry too soon. Lesson learned.

Another breakfast: Green Eggs. I used spinach (frozen, thawed out from night before), spring onions and courgette (zucchini) with two eggs and two egg whites, about 10g of parmigiana and (sorry if this sounds weird) used the pan that had a wee bit of oil (< 1TBSP), garlic (whole clove), chilies and cumin fried in it the night before. This was delish and definitely more filling than the snack-a-jacks.

Curry (Dahl) – OH MY GOD this is insanely delicious and healthy, really! Lentils, tomatoes, chicken, spices… with basmati rice and the “topping” as mentioned above ^^^^

The topping, in the pan:

Wait that’s not food! (Nena, Kitty #2 hanging out)

Another breakfast: this was good, but only semi-filling. I had a couple weeks there where I was doing all right but lately (maybe again lack of good sleep) I’m hungry by the time I get to work. Again need to revamp and figure this out. Ah I’m in a constant state of reinvention, no?

2 Hard boiled eggs, leftover rice and two small ripe tomatoes:

This week I also had, but did not photograph, leftover chili con carne with rice (yum), leftover Dahl (no chicken, no topping) and I had some leftover rice, steamed broccoli, chicken, courgette and red onion that I whipped up together for lunch yesterday.

With all the not so healthy choices (and chocolate/biscuit face shoving) there were some healthy ones in there too.

What did you eat this week? What was amazing and healthy? What could you improve upon? Did you also almost eat up a cute kitty cat?

Initial Results: Tommie Copper Knee Sleeves

Posted on by Renée
11

You may or may not know this, but I am kind of skeptical. Usually I don’t “buy into” things very easily. My approach is really more no-nonsense than anything – usually takes a bit of convincing before I’ll try a product and even then I have the feeling it won’t work.

It took me quite a while to start thinking seriously about compression. I know that when you read people’s testimonials they say they are giving their own opinion – but I’ve hardly seen anyone say a product is crap when they’ve received free goods or services to try. Am I saying people are lying? No, but I am saying *maybe* it’s not all true…

Anyway, *I* did not receive any free samples. I actually ordered the Tommie Copper knee sleeves to give compression a chance myself. My physio told me not to bother with any extra help, and I really wondered about this as I see people wearing braces and compression gear all the time. If those people are doing it, who advised them and more importantly why? There must be a good reason.

I wrote earlier that I was already impressed by the service I received. My package arrived fairly quickly from the US and luckily even on the day that I had a day off from work (last week Tuesday). I immediately tried it on because if it wasn’t the right size, I needed to arrange to send it back immediately. I wore it on my left (bad) knee for several hours. Already I noticed that when sitting for periods of time my knee didn’t hurt when I started to move again. The next day I wore it in the train on my commute. Usually after 1 hour and 15 minutes of sitting still my knee hurts pretty bad. In fact, I usually start to get up out of my seat and work the kinks out about 5 minutes before I arrive at my station. I have a lot of pain for about 10 – 30 minutes after that; walking through the train, going up and down stairs at the station, getting into the bus, getting out of the bus (a real doozy). Already though the first day on the train with the knee sleeve – NOTHING. No pain. No kinks. Even the stairs and getting on and off of the bus was fine. Amazing!

Since then I’ve been wearing at least the left sleeve. I hardly notice it as I’m wearing it. Saturday I was out all day with my family and I wore both. My legs and knees were much less tired than normal. The real test though was to come…

Sunday I went for a run and I knew I was going to go minimum 10KM. I slipped on the left sleeve, got dressed and eventually hit the pavement. I have to say it went really well! I hardly noticed my knee at all!! My only regret was not wearing both sleeves. There was a very clear distinction between left and right knees; my left TC knee was fine, my right non-TC knee definitely had some mild irritation/tiredness.

So there it is :) Would I recommend Tommie Copper compression gear? Yes, I would. Even without receiving any free stuff from them to try :)

Unfortunately I didn’t win the contest over at Running With Spatulas, but I would still consider buying from them again regardless.

Have you considered compression gear but just aren’t sure it works? What sort of compression gear would you try? Do you know what makes Tommie Copper special?