A brief Summary so far...

A friend of a friend who is also slimming this year, and doing an amazing job of it, contacted me on our mutual friends recommendation to find out what I was doing. I'm not sure if it was to compare notes or purely out of interest, but it was fun to write down some of the details of what I am doing for her. I figured I would share some of the details here as a sort of summary of events to date since I started on this amazing journey!

On 31/01/2011 I weighed in at 28st 13 lbs. As mentioned, I go to Slimming World meetings once a week to get weighed and do their "Image Therapy", which is basically the group chatting about whats working or not working for them. I have got some great tips hint's and motivation from that. I feel it's so helpful tobe held accountable for my weight loss or gain, and provide reasons for it.

In the 12 weeks since the start have lost 3st 6.5 lbs. Most of that simply due to a healthy diet. I don't know what diet you doing, but it sounds like its working, and so I'm going to assume it's probably healthy. I'm certainly not going to stand on my soapbox and shout that Slimming World is the 1 and only diet that works. Any diet, even 1 you make up yourself can work. Some diets are healthy and nutritious, and some are desperate and radical. I've tried a few, but they hardly ever stuck. This 1 works for me and I find it not only helps me lose weight, but has revelutionised my whole life and attitude towards slimming.

I have often turned to my wife and exclaimed; "I'VE NEVER EATEN THIS GOOD!". I love the food, it tastes great! Mostly though it makes me feel great! I'm way more positive, happy and excitable than I have ever been. I have way more energy than I ever had. And this all happened before I started walking. Or at least before i started walking seriously!

As mentioned, I started at almost 29 stone! For the last 5 years walking has not been easy for me. Popping into Tescos to buy a handful of things would hurt my back and calves would ache. Going to the park with the kids was never possible, unless I could drive to the park, and the play area had seats or the picnic spot was within 100 yards!

So when my "Virtual PT" (friend in Canada) piped up 3 weeks in and said he wants me to start walking, I was like: "Um, I don't think so! Not yet, I have a ton of weight to lose first!" His reply was simply that I wasn't going to walk far. Just 100m out, and 100m in. I raised an eyebrow, knowing that he had a "plan", and thought its pointless fighting (he is a good, OLD friend...no he is a BEST friend), so I gave in and said "sure I'll walk 200m a day".

I did that for the first week. The 2nd week was 300m. Nearing the end of that week, in my quest to find a circular route the right length, I had managed to do a few 400m walks, so the 3rd week jumped to 500m, which ended up being 600m. The next week was meant to be a "step back" week meaning I was to drop down to 400m again. I found that hard and instead increased again. The 700m week turned into a few 1km walks. Thats when the bug bit!!! I was hooked!!!

By now my friend had almost given up trying to control it and simply tried to guide me to reasonable increases and encouraged me to "Listen to my body". 1km weekly jumps turned to 2 or 3km jumps. Now 9 weeks into walking I'm starting to do short jogs in my walk. I do 6 - 8km / day. Saturdays is my SLD. Slow Long Day. I'm not sure about the slow thing, but last Saturday I did 12km. This week I have kinda let up from increasing my distance, and instead tried to focus on increasing my pace. The harder I push, the more energy, determination and motivation I find.
Monday (Easy Day) I did 8km@10:34min/km.
Tuesday (Speed Day) I did 6km@10:26.
Yesterday (Rest Day) I did 8km@10:14.
Today (Speed Day) I did 5km@9:48.

Both me and my friend can't understand whats going on. We don't know how to predict what to do next. We simply sing his "Mantra": "LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!"

I don't know what to expect next...I've stopped caring about how much weight I lose, or how fast I lose it. I just feel so great and know the weight is going to drop anyway, so I'm just enjoying the Amazing Ride at the moment!

The "diet" (90% Slimming World advice) seems to feed me with unbelievable energy and seems to have altered my frame of mind from that of a Computer Game addicted "fat slob" (harsh but true) to that of an athlete trapped in a "fat slob"'s body!

The "walking" (thanx to my friend) seems to have freed me of the "reasonable restrictions" that you would think a 25 stone man should have regarding exercise, and in turn seems to have empowered me with an unquenchable desire to get fitter, stronger and FASTER! Not to mention the amazing positivity I'm filled with through accomplishing the things I'm accomplishing!

That in turn motivates how I eat again starting the whole cycle over again! Not to mention either how the Positive Attitude is effecting other parks of my life!

My friend and I have now set some goals. I'm running my first 5km "Fun Run" in Loughborough in June. (I've yet to actually run 5km, but have no doubt by 18 June, I can!) Today in my 5km I must have run about 1.2km, and felt like I could have pushed for more! Based on how I perform in the next 3 months, we will maybe find me a 10km some time this year to run. And just continue to increase the goal. A lot of our future goals will be decided by what I achieve. As I said, we don't know how fast to expect this to go.

Our end goal is to have me run a Marathon some time in the first part of 2013.

Well I'm not sure if you have carried on reading or not :P But thats what I've been doing. Exploring the boundries of a second chance in life. I know I might have sounded like I'm trying to sell Slimming World, sorry, SW worked for me and taught me a lot of healthy eating principles. I could quiet easily continue to eat this way for the rest of my life! The main reason I keep going to SW is for weigh-in and image therapy. They help me a lot. I think if I stopped going I would quit weighing myself, and stop getting hints and help, and without those 2 things, I might lose control. Who knows?

But for the most part now, I dare not change how I'm eating because it's empowering me, and helping drive my new fitness addiction!

Weigh-In Week 12

Week 12 I lost 3 lbs/1.36 kg which was a little dissapointing and I certainly was hoping for more, but am really happy with my progress so far.

Awards this week:

Slimmer of the week again.

Slimmer of the Month again! That's 3 months in a row and all 3 months I have been on this! :D


That brings the total to 3 stone 6.5 pounds (48.5 lbs / 22 kg).
Started at 28 stone 13 pounds (405 lbs / 183.71 kg)
Currently 25 stone 6.5 pounds (356.5 lbs / 161.71 kg)
1st Short Term Target 26 stone (364 lbs / 165.11 kg) (Achieved this 18/04/2011)
2nd Short Term Target 22 stone (308 lbs / 139.71 kg) (Should reach this by 18/08/2011)
Long Term Target 14 stone (196 lbs / 88.9 kg) (hope to reach this by 01/02/2014)

The losses have gone as follows:

Week 1: 4.5 lbs (2.27 kg)
Week 2: 3 lbs (1.14 kg)
Week 3: 6 lbs (2.72 kg)
Week 4: 4 lbs (1.81 kg)
Week 5: 5.5 lbs (2.5 kg)
Week 6: 2 lbs (0.9 kg)
Week 7: 2 lbs (0.91 kg)
Week 8: 6 lbs (2.72 kg)
Week 9: Maintain
Week 10: 5.5 lbs (2.5 kg)
Week 11: 7 lbs (3.2 kg)
Week 12: 3 lbs (1.36 kg)

It's been another great week. Although the 3 lbs was a little disappointing, I'm still very happy with my progress so far. Meals were fine this week, but Super Frees and Super Speeds were lacking a little some days. I think a Food Diary this week again might help. Exercise went really well last week. Despite my "puncture" on Tuesday I was able to keep walking some great distances!

Mini target set as 4 lbs (1.81 kg) to keep my average weight loss / week at 4 lbs. I only need 0.5 lbs to get my 3.5 Stone (22.27 kg) award!

Goals for this week: (SPEED WEEK!)
1. To keep 100% Food Optimization I need to get back to 1/3 of meals as Super Free Foods (Veggies & Fruit). Sometimes my meals turn into a Protein&Carb Feast (Meat and Pasta/Rice/Potato) and I forget to break out the Super Free Veggies and Fruits. :( Need to get them out more often!
2. Fish, Peas, Berries, Lemons and Beans for Super Speeds!! Need 5 a day!
3. Food Diaries this week to make sure Goals 1 and 2 are being met!
4. I want to try keep ALL my walks this week at an average pace of about 10:30 min/km!

Still feeling AMAZING and loving the complete change in my lifestyle and eating habits!

Walking stats for last week

Despite my Tuesday afternoon "puncture" on my right heel, which is still healing...thanx to some heavy strapping, and later in the week some extra padding on the foot, I was still able to walk all week, and even get some pretty decent distances.

I found a great route past Keenen's school. Total distance is about 8km.

Total for last week was 40.9km! Obviously a new weekly high. I ended the week on Saturday with a extra long walk that finished at just under 12km. It feels amazing to be able to walk these distances.

This week the distance will probably be much the same, possibly a little further if I keep the 8km distance up every day. However this weeks focus is on PACE!

Today got me off to a good start where I got my average pace to 10.5 min/km over the 8km distance. I was pretty tired at the end, but it felt great to be able to push myself to that PACE for 8km. I wonder if 10 min/km is achievable this week?

Photos Page

I'm really impressed with the photos I added today. My face looks a lot thinner.

The body shots are a bit weird because they not quite the same distance as last week. Or the same angle. But that is the same t-shirt I wore last week. If you check the line of the bottom hem...the t-shirt is fitting much better! :)

Or maybe I'm looking for differences that arn't really there....either way I'm feeling great with my progress at the moment!

Terrible walk! :(

So I started off with a 100m jog to get the heart rate up to 120 bpm. Not too bad, looking good.

Walked 2.1km at about 11:20 min/km. Didn't check my HR, but it had dropped down again considerably. Was feeling ok, except my right heal felt like it was starting to blister on the other side that wasn't taped up now.

Second jog for 100m to get the HR up again, 168 bpm! Oh dear. Before starting Steve warned me to stop the running if it went over 150 bpm. :(

I stopped to message Steve my HR,  and just after clicking send, my battery died.

Then I became aware that my heal was starting to sting! So I pulled the sock back a bit to find the blister had already burst and ripped all the skin up. Now the Show was shoving the hard heal support into the raw skin with every step I took.

I packed it in! As I was walking home the heal got worse, so I literally had to slow down to like a 15 min / km STROLL!

Check list for tomorrow:
1. CHARGE PHONE YOU IDIOT!
2. Tape up my whole heal!
3. Go buy some Synthetic Socks!
4. No jogging :(

Exiting Day Tomorrow!!

As if tomorrow wasn't exciting enough with Karen coming home (YAYYYYY!!!).....  I've also been given the go ahead to try out some light jogging to go with my walking tomorrow! I can't wait! I will be taking it very easy the first few weeks, but I will update the blog with how tomorrow goes! Got to get that heart rate up! :D

My Walk/Run will be vey late tomorrow as I'm out the house with Kaydee to get Karen at the airport and wont be back till after lunch.

Weigh-In Week 11

Week 11 I lost 7 lbs/3.17 kg! Highest Loss in a week yet, and it Feels AMAZING!

Awards this week:

 Club 10 Award. This means I've lost 10% of my starting weight. For me, thats 1/5 of the way there! so 20% done! :D


3 Stone Award (42 lbs / 19.05 kg)

Slimmer of the week again.



That brings the total to 3 stone 3.5 pounds (45.5 lbs / 20.64 kg).
Started at 28 stone 13 pounds (405 lbs / 183.71 kg)
Currently 25 stone 9 pounds (359.5 lbs / 163.07 kg)
1st Short Term Target 26 stone (Achieved this 18/04/2011)
2nd Short Term Target 22 stone (Should reach this by 18/08/2011)
Long Term Target 14 stone (hope to reach this by 01/02/2014)

The losses have gone as follows:

Week 1: 4.5 lbs (2.27 kg)
Week 2: 3 lbs (1.14 kg)
Week 3: 6 lbs (2.72 kg)
Week 4: 4 lbs (1.81 kg)
Week 5: 5.5 lbs (2.5 kg)
Week 6: 2 lbs (0.9 kg)
Week 7: 2 lbs (0.91 kg)
Week 8: 6 lbs (2.72 kg)
Week 9: Maintain
Week 10: 5.5 lbs (2.5 kg)
Week 11: 7 lbs (3.2 kg)

Mini target set as 3.5 lbs (1.6 kg) to get my 3.5 Stone (22.27 kg) award!

Goals for this week:
1. 100% Food Optimization as always!
2. Super Speeds
3. Keep walking like a mad man!

I really have had a great week. Not only have I hit a new personal record for wight lost in a week, but I have lost 10% of my starting weight which is 20% of the weight I need to lose! A fifth of the way to my Personal Achievement Target! I've had a lot of positive energy this week, and my ability to walk has gone crazy. I'm regularly doing over 6 km now, and other than some blisters on the feet showing very few bad effects from it.

I thought my motivation would subside with time, and since I started with very little motivation and only some hope, I really wasn't holding out much hope! But now, 11 weeks on, I feel like a runaway steam train. gaining more and more momentum and positivity!

I must again thank my good friend Steve, who is really doing a great job motivating me to keep exercising. I may as well keep thanking him now, because I get the feeling the real training for a marathon will start in a few months, and that's probably going to start getting painful, and I will be cursing him instead! :P

This is going so much better than i thoguht it would, and I'm really loving slimming and exercising more and more each day!!

On the topic of a Marathon...

On Friday, as Steve and I discussed our short and long term goals for me, my fitness and exercise, as a long term year or two, we had set our sights on the London Marathon (which is being run today) .... A SUNDAY! :( For religious reasons, Keeping the Sabbath day Holy, I don't exercise on a Sunday. Nor will I compete in a race on a Sunday. This is disappointing since, there is a big appeal to running the London Marathon. Steve had even committed to coming over and running it with me. But I will not compromise on my standards.

As a child I stopped playing baseball because all the matches moved to Sundays, Tournaments included Sundays and the provincial try-outs were on Sundays. I may have gone through a period of very poor standards in my late teens / early twenties, but being back to a good strong spiritual standard again, I'm not about to "dance with the devil" by doing sport on a Sunday, no matter the attraction of the event.

This meant we needed to find another marathon that was run on a Saturday. Steve found one that was PERFECT. Salt Lake City Marathon! (run yesterday) Obviously it would be on a Saturday! :D It means a lot further for me to travel, but would be perfect as a long term goal. I'm not 100% convinced that a year is enough time for me to lose the weight I feel I need to lose for a marathon, especially since I'm not able yet to start training for it as I've not even start running yet! So maybe its 2012 that I go run it, but having a long term goal is essential.

One of my short term goals is to participate in a local Fun Run, 5km, in June. Even if I walk a lot of the way, it should be achievable, and give me something to work on improving my pace for!

Book recommendation

My "virtual" voluntary Personal Trainer, Stephen Elliot, recommended a book to me, "to inspire me" to keep training and getting fit to run a marathon:

Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner by Dean Karneze

Wow! What a read! I won't spoil the book with a synopses, but I feel obliged to at least warn you the guy is a complete NUTCASE! No one should run like this guy, and I hope this obsession with losing weight and walking (working up to running) doesn't ever end in a few years with me putting my body through anything like this guy puts his body through.

However there are some great stories, written brilliantly; good humor and a hell of a lot of inspiration and good advice for any runner or anyone like me who is trying to get fit and change their lifestyle! I simply can't praise it enough. I finished it last night, and thinking of reading it again. :P Just so many good inspirational bits, I want to write down and keep somewhere to keep me focused like: "Run when you can, Walk if you have to, Crawl if you must - just don't give up!" Advice to be taken both literally and figuratively.

Maybe I will record them and play back to myself while I walk. Maybe I shoudl get Dan to read it, He has such a good recording voice!

Active Week

This week has been particularly active and I'm feeling great!

Firstly the passive things: with Karen being away, I've been doing all the Caring for Pets, Cleaning, Cooking, Dishes, Dressing Kaydee, Shopping, Tidying & Washing. I'd love to be able to count the extra calories burned with all those daily activities.

I wanted to walk the kids to & from school every day, but at least half the time I was running late so had to dash in the car. That did mean though about half the time I was doing some extra walking to & from school.

A nice active visit to the park with Kaydee on Friday after school before the boys were home. She had me running her up and chasing her down on the zip line. I didn't get as much "swing-pushing" exercise as I thought, since she was getting a bit dizzy.

And looking back ont he week, I would have thought that all that extra activity would have SLAMMED ME, but it seemed to have the oppisite effect and kind of encouraged me to walk MORE. I managed to walk 26.3km this week. My total for all previous weeks was 30.7. So I nearly managed to walk as much as the previous 7 weeks together, and twice as far as I did last week!

Yesterday was the furthest walk yet at 8.3km (not including the approx 0.5km that the GPS tracking paused.) It's was however a touch too far. The last 2km were a real strain and my feet felt like they were going to split open. However, after a hot soak, good meal and a bit of rest last night, I feel fantastic again this morning, and were it not Sunday (my rest day for exercise and religious reasons) I would easily go out and kill another 4 or 6km!

Weigh-In Week 10 (I LOVE SLIMMING!!!)

Week 10 brought another GOOD loss of 5.5 lbs/2.45 kg!

Awards this week:

 2.5 Stone Award (35 lbs / 15.88 kg)

Slimmer of the week again. I'm racking these up fairly nicely!



That brings the total to 2 stone 10.5 pounds (38.5 lbs / 17.46 kg).
Started at 28 stone 13 pounds (405 lbs / 183.71 kg)
Currently 26 stone 2 pounds (366.5 lbs / 166.24 kg)
Short Term Target 26 stone 0 pounds (Should reach this by 18/04/2011)
Long Term Target 14 stone (hope to reach this by 01/02/2014)

Here's the Graphs:

(I have started my own spreadsheet and Graph in kg for all my South African Friends who use the CORRECT and BEST for of Measurement (KG). And Kept the old Stone and Pound graph too. I prefer the KG 1 because it "speaks my language" and also I'm in control of its layout and control the targets)


The losses have gone as follows:

Week 1: 4.5 lbs (2.27 kg)
Week 2: 3 lbs (1.14 kg)
Week 3: 6 lbs (2.72 kg)
Week 4: 4 lbs (1.81 kg)
Week 5: 5.5 lbs (2.5 kg)
Week 6: 2 lbs (0.9 kg)
Week 7: 2 lbs (0.91 kg)
Week 8: 6 lbs (2.72 kg)
Week 9: Maintain
Week 10: 5.5 lbs (2.5 kg)

Mini target set as 3.5 lbs (1.6 kg) to get that 3 Stone (19.05 kg) and Club10 awards! (Club 10 = 10% Body Mass Lost)

Goals for this week:
1. Get 2 Swims in. (1 Tuesday night while Dan is still here and another on Saturday with the kids.)
2. 100% Food Optimisation. This week will be 1 of the hardest as I have to do it all myself because Karen is away in the USA. though I don't think it will be hard to keep optimising, it will be hard to keep cooking all the food myself. I really enjoy cooking, but struggle to find the time. getting all the Super Free Foods in may be tricky this week.
3. Try squeee in as many of the Super Speeds in as I can!
4. Exercise this week will be easy! Walking Dylan, Damon and Kaydee to school will at least take care of my 1.5 - 2km walk every day. And I will go Fetch Kaydee  at midday, and the days Keenen is busy, I' be doing a 3rd trip to school to fetch Dylan and Damon. So racking up the kilometers wont be a challenge. I could drive them to school and back, but for a month now I been working on my exercise and fitness and set it as a goal to WALK them to and from school, now the time has come to accomplish the goal I set for myself!
5. Try not to miss Karen that much that I start comfort eating! :P Missing you already my love and you haven't even left the country yet!

It's been a great week, that really bolestered my resolve! My walking fitness has sky rocketed! My belly feels MUCH smaller (even though it is still huge)! Had some great meals, and proved to myself that when i want to have a Basic week with few snacks and reduced carbs...I CAN! As long as I can always look back and try feel how I felt this week, Then I will easily see this through to the END!

I LOVE SLIMMING! AND I FEEL AMAZING!

Awesome Walk today!

I had an awesome walk this morning! Saturday is meant to be my "slow-walk-double-distance-day", but wasn't sure where to walk or how long it was going to end up being and Thursday and Friday had already been double distance. I started with my usual Graveyard walk, with a slight ZigZag to get a little more distance.

As I was walking out the second graveyard I was still feeling really good, so I made a split second decision to walk through the little suburb next to the graveyard for a short loop that would give me some more distance.

At the end of the loop I was on about 2.4km and still feeling great, so I thought I would add another road to my list of roads I've walked, and crossed the road to the school, thinking it was only a short detour. In fact I was walking further way from home at that point! I must have added as least an extra 1.5km walking that route.

It was a nice long walk, 4.4km, although possibly a little further than i should have done today. At about 3,5km to go my dogs were barking from these stupid walking boots where the back of the heal is worn and hard. I didn't have back ache like I've had in the past, but the back muscles were feeling a little tender. I wasn't out of breath really even though I had been walking a fairly decent pace that averaged out to 12.5 min/km, which is really about the pace I walk most mornings anyway. It took about 55 minutes. Here is a link to see the route, distance, etc on my RunKeeper profile. I think I'll do that route again next Saturday! :)

Because my heals were hurting in those old walking boots, I decided to go buy myself a decent pair of trainers. I opted for some running shoes in the end because they were the most comfortable, were light and mostly because I'm hoping to start running some time later this year hopefully.

Busy day

It's been a busy old day! I was enjoying my walk so much this morning I decided to extended it a bit and did 1.8km.

Then straight after work I went to a Zumba class 1 of the ladies from my Slimming World Group organized. No doubt it can be a great work out, and a lot of fun....IF you have the co-ordination for it. I felt so confused and useless out there amongst all those women! I felt about as co-ordinated as a cupboard full of dinner plates tumbling down the stairs! :s The routines don't last very long, so I spent half the time figuring out what i was meant to do, and the other half of the time doing it completely wrong or at the wrong time. And no matter how much i thoguht, Ill just dance along, my brain kept watching and tryign to send orders to my poor arms and feet, who clearly were on strike! Thanx for arranging it Deana, but I wont be there next week. :) I think I'll stick to the Walkign and Swimming for now.

Came home from Zumba, quickly had some dinner and squeezed in an hour of Starcraft 3v3 with Keenen and Dylan, then off to the pool!

Sadly I ran out of time before I could get my 40 Lengths in for 1km, but 36 lengths is better than NONE! I definitely felt a little tired tonight in the pool, but I met a nice guy there who is on Weightwatchers, and roughly the same size as me. We shared a lane and he kept pushing me to go go go! He was much fitter than me doing 90% of his lengths crawl, and managed to get about 48 or 50 done in the hour! Clearly been swimming a little longer than me I think.

when i got home, I was a little hungry so I tucked into some Melon Banana and Orange with a Activia Fat Free Yog. Also forced the last of my Healthy Extra A Cheesys down with some cold meat. Why do I struggle so to get all my dairy in for the day?? :s

Off to the doctor in the morning for a checkup on my leg. Hopefully she doesn't prescribe me a 3rd course of these Anti-Biotics! I might go crazy. Those things are sooo nasty. They kill my appetite, make me feel sick and mess up my eating routine because you have to take them on a empty stomach and 1 hour before you eat anything! I'm unsure what she is going to say. My leg looks better, but there is still a lot of redness on the shin, but I'm not sure if that is just scar tissue or still some infection...? :s

Weigh-In Week 9

Very disappointingly I have maintained my weight at 26 Stones 8 Pounds (370 lbs / 168 KGs).

That brings the total to 2 stone 5 pounds (15 KGs / 33 pounds).
Started at 28 stone 13 pounds
Currently 26 stone 8 pounds
Short Term Target 26 stone 0 pounds (Should reach this by 18/04/2011)
Long Term Target 14 stone (hope to reach this by 01/02/2014)

Some of the reasons I think I've maintained and not lost:
1. Wednesday we ate out. I only had a starter ceased salad (Figured my Syns would cover the croutons and ceased dressing) and I had a Chicken Fajita an essentially ate out the chicken, rice and beans filling leaving the Sour Cream and Tortilla behind. (I guess the bean sauce on the rice must have had some Syns too)
2. I've avoided bread this week, just using the hifi bars for my Healthy Extra Option B. But replaced the bread with Crackerbread (1 Syn each). Not sure that was the best plan!
3. I've been eating more Syns each day, often going to 12 or 15 Syns. I'll decrease that massively this week!
4. Food Diaries! Back onto the food diaries this week. I tend to track my food and Syns fairly well in my head (I think), but just in case, I'm doing food diaries this week!

Over all I'm not too worried although a little disappointed, I had a good 6 pound loss last week and thought this week would be a struggle to lose as much. I still feel great though, so it's all been worth it. I'll be a little more strict on Syns this week, and next week should be another good week!

New swim distance record :)

I'm being a busy boy today! After my 2pm walk this morning, I've come to the leisure centre for my second swim of the week and just swam 1km.

Sine there is not much else to do while swimming in a boring old leisure centre, I always count the lengths I do. Recently I started Dillon in the nots on RunKeeper the number of lengths I'm swimming, then keep a constant tally of how far I'm swimming. I did 600m on Tuesday which is approximately what I normally swim.

Today it was general swim which means they section off 5m of the shallow end for the "non-swimmers to swim in, which made the big part of the pool 20m. I was feeling really good today, and with fewer breaks, I reached my 600m a lot sooner than I normally do. Since I still had time and wasn't really tired I thought I would see if I could hut a nice round 1km swim. I breezed it, even finishing with 2 fast crawl lengths!

It feels great to be progressing with my fitness and reaching new milestones regularly! Bring on the English Channel is 2 years time!! :p

Walk through the Graveyard

I didn't walk yesterday morning as it was the 1st, which means end of the month reports starting at 7am. So instead I went for my walk in the evening. Since there was no rush to finish I thought I would take a slightly longer walk and headed for the graveyard. Unfortunately when I got to the entrance it was closed, so I walked up the footpath next to the 2 graveyards leading to the next estate/mini suburb, an for the first time realised that the graveyard to my right was actually fairly big! The round trip for the walk was 1.18km, and I felt great when I got back!

So this morning once I eventually dragged myself out of a lazy morning in bed, I put on my walking boots, and headed for the graveyard again. This morning the graveyard was open and I decided to go have a look what the far side of the graveyard looked liked. I walked all the way round the outside of the graveyard. I saw some graves for some people who "Died in Action in France". Wow! I didn't think I would see anything quite that interesting! Also, I'm not sure what today is, but the graveyard seemed to be a hive of activity. Is it like this every Saturday morning?

Some how the app on my phone pauses itself , so I lost a little distance and time, and somehow managed to teleport myself to a different place in the graveyard! :p

Anyway, it was twice as far as I was meant to walk today, but I really wanted to have a look at the graveyard. My total recorded distance was 2km! It took me 26 minutes to do the trip. I really enjoyed it, and I'm hoping I can fit this walk in to my schedule every day soon.

I felt a little tried after but my back was fine the while walk. My calves were complaining about half way, but they eventually walked up and felt great at the end o the walk!

Thank you Steve for taking it upon yourself to appoint yourself as my personal trainer! The last month and a bit has already had a dramatic effect on my life, body and fitness! As my personal trainer though, you have automatically signed yourself up for whichever physical challenge I choose to do at the end of this all! No "going-back-sies"!! (Make sure you fix the vote for your preference! :p)