Be unstoppable!

I have to admit, I had been dreading the Blenheim Triathlon.  I signed up to it about nine months ago, and it was one of those things that was just so far away, you didn't really feel like it would ever actually happen.  And while I did a fair bit of training in New Zealand, once I got back to the UK and life intervened (having to find a new house and a cold being the two main time suckers), it was really hard to prioritise going for a run when you had nowhere to live!

But the day dawned, thankfully bright and sunny, and it was off to Blenheim to put the wheels in motion (sorry for the pun).  I was definitely very nervous and didn't have any idea how it would all go, but it was actually really fun!  I am so surprised how much I enjoyed it, particularly compared to a marathon or a half marathon which is such a slog, this was actually something I could imagine doing again.  Obviously it would be nice to have done more training and feel completely prepared, but I achieved all my goals (the most important being not stopping on the run) and finished in less than two hours, at 1 hour 52 minutes.  I am super, super happy with that time as I was aiming for about 2 hours 30 minutes, so to do it in less than two hours is great.  Now I guess I aim for less than 1 hour 45 minutes next time!  (She says in the after-glow of a fun event).

 

Lots more photos here, so have a look!

Busy, busy, busy

I just looked at the blog and realised that I hadn't done a single entry for the whole of September - terrible!  But it has seriously been a rather busy month for us, as I've been working nearly full time on Growth Week, which has meant that most other stuff (including my PhD) has taken a bit of a back seat.

However, now that's over, it's back to two days/week work, and I've officially designated November as 'No Fun November' so that I can make sure I'm keeping on track with my PhD due date!

Some other fun things have happened in September though - I'm now President of the Beekeeping Society (although hopefully only temporarily as it's probably too much work for me to keep doing in the long term), and I had a lovely two week stay up in Islington cat-sitting, which meant lots of tummy scratching and purring to keep me company.

We also got to go to the Olympics and Paralympics, both of which were amazing.  I must say though, I did enjoy the Paralympics more - we got a day pass to the Excel Centre and saw table tennis (below), sitting volleyball, powerlifting and boccia, as well as tickets to the final night of the athletics at the stadium.  I had bought those tickets literally months and months ago and really had no idea what we were going to see, and realising that we were going to see the 400m final with Oscar Pistorus was pretty cool!  I really liked the blind runners running with their guides as well as the high-jump - those guys were pretty inspiring.

And keeping on the sport theme, Adrian also just ran the Berlin marathon in an amazing time of 2:58:11.  How fast is that??  Good inspiration for me as I've signed up for my first triathlon, the Blenheim triathlon in June next year.  Lots of training to come!

We're off to Egypt and Jordan this weekend, which I am really looking forward to - especially the weather.  Check out the temperatures for Cairo while we're there - absolutely perfect!

London Sevens 2012

We had so much fun this Saturday at the London Sevens - especially because it was the first time we'd been in the sun in London in weeks!

The London tournament gives an overall theme to inspire everyone to dress up which, this year, was 70s disco.  We donned our best polyester, but there were lots of people in all sorts of costumes like smurfs, tiggers, mimes, even a group of marmite folk!  Do you like our orange wigs??  We were definitely easy to find in the crowd!

As always with the Sevens, it's not really so much about who's winning and losing, although the Kenyan team got lots of cheers, as did the underdog of whatever game was on - apart from when England was playing!  We cheered heartily for NZ and were happy to hear that on the second day of the tournament, while not winning this weekend's event, they took out the World Series title for the 10th time.  What was also cool was that the coach, Gordon Tietjens, was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame for all the work he's done with the team - congratulations for sure!

Something that did surprise me a bit was the booing.  I've always been told that booing is incredibly poor sportsmanship, but talking to an English guy in front of me he didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong with it at all.  Basically on par with cheering for their own team!  Ah well, there's always a new cultural difference around the corner to discover.

Click here to have a look at the rest of the photos.

Flying through the air with the greatest of ease

For our five year anniversary, I took Adrian out on a date.  But not just any old date, a trapeze lesson date!  It was part of the summer session of the Gorilla Circus down in Battersea Park, and was a two hour class learning how to do a knee-hang move.

I could explain it, but here's Adrian getting it perfectly on his first go!

Damn those naturally talented people...  I had a bit of a harder time:

But in the end I managed to get it!  I was so determined that there was no way I wasn't going to get those legs through that bar...

But because Adrian was able to demonstrate he was good enough, he got to do a move with the instructor:

Impressive non?!

Here are the rest of the photos.  I'm covered with bruises today and have incredibly achy shoulders - but it was totally worth it!

Can you run up 1,037 stairs?

Well, I certainly can't, but Adrian managed it in just over 5 minutes - amazing!

Back in May we volunteered through the NZ Women's Business Network for a charity climb up The Gherkin which was organised to provide funds for the Christchurch earthquake relief.  The event, 'Step Up 4 Christchurch', had the morning briefing meeting up the top of the building which was very cool - it's only open to the public once a year and it's really hard to get tickets for it, so it was a neat opportunity to be able to see it without lots of people and for a good cause as well!

We were stationed down the bottom, letting people up into the run and it was interesting to see all the various types of people who were participating.  The guy who won did it in 4 minutes 56 seconds which was pretty incredible...  Our turn was at the end of the day (immediately after eating a late lunch which definitely weighted me down I reckon!), and it was a great feeling to get to the top and celebrate.  I did it in 9 minutes flat (mostly walking) which I didn't think was too bad.  All the volunteers had a glass of fizz up the top, then tootled off home with the left over goodie bags - nice!

More photos are here.

Throwing ourselves down steep cliffs for fun

As is becoming a slight habit now (well definitely for Adrian!), once winter arrived, it was straight online to book our ski trip.  Having gone with the absolutely brilliant UCPA last time (kind of like the YMCA for France – ensuring that expensive sports like skiing or diving are available for those with less generous means), there was no question about who we’d choose this year. 

Adrian was keen for a bigger challenge than La Plagne, so we decided to go with Val d’Isere from 1-8 Jan.  There’s lots of back country area and it had a specialist ‘off-piste’ group which Adrian could join (think lots of hiking up mountains with a shovel strapped to your back).  I went with snowboarding again, and as usual with the UCPA, everything was thrown into the price (accommodation, four meals/day, gear, lift pass and full-time instruction).

This time we also learnt from our mistakes and flew over rather than submitting ourselves to the torture of the bus ride.  And thank goodness we did – we learned on arrival that something had gone wrong with the buses and they took nearly 40 hours to get there!  Yikes...  Although we didn’t do amazingly well either – a slight miscalculation of the tube times meant an incredibly stressful sprint to the train which we made with literally 90 seconds to spare!  It was a bit of a hectic start to 2011 that’s for sure.

We went with Bryony, a friend from Oxford, and Frances, a friend from Adrian’s work.  It was good having four because we got our own little (very little) room and could all compare notes from when we got back from our respective group sessions.  The snow was pretty icy for the first few days, but luckily we got a big dump on the Wednesday night and so everyone got some excellent powder runs in.

One of the crazy things about Val d'Isere is this bar called 'La Folie Douce' which is located right in the middle of all the runs and only accessible either on skis (or snowboard!) or via a telecabine.  It was crazy to come over the crest of the hill and see it with all the music pumping away.  This is what it looked like in the middle of the madness:

At the UCPA they didn’t supply helmets with the gear so I ended up buying one (just about as cheap as renting one).  Thank goodness I did because I took two big falls in the first couple of days (one completely my own fault, the other when someone ran over my board) and broke my helmet!!  Better than breaking my head...  Luckily I’d remembered to keep the receipt so now have a brand new one nestled in the cupboards at home.

It was awesome snowboarding down the glacier right at the very top of the ski area – I think it’s about 3600m above sea level.  I loved the off-piste powder too – makes you remember why you pay all that money to go!

As usual, lots of photos uploaded here – enjoy!