Fitness

I am running towards (ha!) my goal of 300km this year slowly but surely. So far, I am up to about 90km, but have only recorded 77.71km according to my Nike Running app. I definitely need to up my game if I want to reach 300km since we're almost half way through the year already...the running needs to increase and the excuses decrease. I'll get there!

For the past four weeks I've also been following a program called Tone it up and I finally can mention it on the blog because I have actually stuck to something for like the first time ever! Yay. It's currently in the bikini series 8 week course leading up the US summer so I am going to have a wonderful bikini body to cover up in Winter!

The program is so easy to follow with day to day videos to follow. You are encouraged to do a 'bootycall' in the morning (go for a run), but there is no getting me up in the morning so I am sticking to the workouts only. I usually only run about 3 times a week anyway. The workouts target a different part of your body each day, so the pain the next day never seems quite as bad. 

My eating habits have improved and I am eating less junk and opting for more healthy options. It helps that there are healthy options close to work and close to where I live. We recently found a paleo cafe close by and whilst I am not jumping on any band wagons, I do appreciate being able to get a quick meat and veg dinner to heat up at home when I can't be bothered to cook.

Have you been in to any fitness lately?

Beauty Aisle - Bi-carb soda

Ok, so when I first read that bi-carb soda could clean your hair (as in, really really clean your hair) I was sceptical. To me, bi-carb soda sounded like a recipe for dry, straw hair and really, who wants to create dry hair on purpose. That aside, I decided to give it a go and I am really glad I did. If you use a lot of product in your hair, you will have build up in there even though you most likely wash your hair often. I use hardly any product, but shampoo and conditioner can still build up and over time, you will notice your hair might be harder to manager (frizz and fly aways) or be dull and lifeless…sometimes, it might even still be oily after you’ve washed it.

 

All you need to do is add 1 teaspoon - 1 tablespoon of bi-carb soda (or baking soda if that’s all you’ve got) to your shampoo when you wash your hair. I usually have the tablespoon of bi-carb soda sitting just outside the shower ready to go.

 

Put the amount of shampoo in your hand that you usually do and mix in the bi-carb soda until it is a paste consistency. Rub through your hair as normal and wash out. Your hair will feel squeaky clean – literally.

Don’t forget the conditioner, otherwise you will have really dry hair. I don’t usually need to use any more conditioner than I normally do either.

I noticed the difference from the first wash. My hair dried quicker and straightened much nicer. Now, if I don’t use bi-carb soda I notice it’s a lot harder to get my hair straight and for it to stay that way. Usually, my hair will be kinked or going in different directions before I even get to work but if I have used bi-carb soda it’s a lot softer and stays straighter for longer. It makes a huge difference to me since my hair really does have a mind of its own. Most of the time I can forget having perfect hair for longer than 10 minutes.

 

Have you used bi-carb soda in your hair before? Did it work for you?

Excuse the spacing on this post - blogger is such a pain.

I did a fun run!

I’ve been wanting to do a fun run for a while now and almost signed up to the nike she runs 10km until I realised it was sold out. I saw the Mother’s Day Classic was only 8km and thought it might be better for me since the farthest I’d run in a very long time was 7km. Thank goodness I did only 8km as by that last km my body started to struggle a lot more.

I got our friend T and Steve’s sis D in on the fun and at the last minute we created a team for the run. I don’t know about you, but I often make plans to get up early and realise how stupid that was come the morning. Well, this was no difference. I woke up at 6am thinking ‘why, oh why did I sign up for this?’. Once I got out of bed and got dressed I was more in the mood and we headed out the door to make our way there.
 

S didn’t participate as he’d been studying the weeks prior for an exam so hadn’t had time to do much running. He was our official photographer/videographer/cheer person and every time I ran past him (he moved around the course), I heard ‘GO RHI’.

I felt like I was running really slow the whole time, so I was really surprised when I got in and the time said 39 minutes 58 seconds putting my place at 30/312 in my age group. I had run at a 5 minute/ km pace and I was really pleased with that. T is a really good runner and came in at only 32 minutes 25 seconds. D was not too far behind me, so all in all we did really well. I was just happy that both D and I pulled through and did the race as there were definitely points where we were going to back out.
 

Perhaps next time I’ll be ready for a 10km fun run!
 

Have you ever done a fun run?

 

Birthday wrap up

Life has been really busy these past couple of months and it all came to a head last week. I made it through, but there was no time for blogging so this little thing took a back seat.

My Birthday weekend (2 weekends ago) started with breakfast at the Hilton buffet breakfast. Like any hotel buffet breakfast, this was a winner and after 2 courses, coffee and juice I was sufficiently stuffed and ready for the day ahead at work. At about 2pm I got a call from reception to let me know I had flowers waiting for me. I raced up as I had no idea who they could be from and found my bestie who lives in Brisbane had gotten flowers sent to me. She is such a beautiful person!

No birthday is complete without a bottle of your favourite alcohol and S did not disappoint with this bottle of Hendricks gin that he had gotten for me.

My Birthday was on a Sunday this year, so we chose to go out for dinner on Saturday night so we could have a few drinks. We went to Spencer Guthrie in Newtown for dinner and drinks, followed by Earls Duke Joint for a couple of drinks afterwards.

 

The food at Spencer Guthrie was great, but the service not so much. The waiter was slow to take orders, they ran out of gin and then towards the end the drinks we ordered didn’t even make it to the table. Whilst the food was good, the service really let down our experience there and I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to go back.

I was gifted with some beautiful Jo Malone perfume in a grapefruit scent by S. It has a really delicious smell and definitely smells just like grapefruit as I have asked a couple of people if they can pick the scent and they have said grapefruit straight away.

On Sunday – my actual Birthday, I got cake for breakfast from Black Star Pastry. Delicious watermelon and strawberry cake that I love. That evening we went for a low key dinner with our friends T&M and baby H which was lovely.

It was a great Birthday and I was thoroughly spoiled!

Who reads your blog?

Out of the 107 followers that follow me by google friend connect, only one of them knows me ‘in real life’…well, 2 if you count the blogger I met through blogging. It took a while for me to tell S what the address of the blog was. He knew I blogged and would often ask about it, but I never let him read it. Now he reads often and gives some good feedback and post ideas, or tells me when something might bore readers. He’s more proactive than me in taking photos for the blog as well, almost like having an assistant.

 

I’m not sure what it is about blogging, it feels ‘safer’ when there are only random people reading it. Who cares if they have criticism when they don’t actually know you. They can leave a comment and if it’s nasty (thankfully I haven’t received any nasty ones), you can just delete it and go about your day. Whereas if a friend was reading it, they can make a nasty comment that you will carry for a long time and let’s face it, you can’t just delete friends and family. It’s almost like opening yourself up to criticism (that will most likely never happen).

 

Part of my apprehension in telling anyone I even had a blog is the fear they will think I am strange or that I am a bad writer or boring. Maybe I am all three of those and the online world just hasn’t told me yet. I didn’t want to justify why I wrote something and I guess a part of me still holds apprehension in too many people known to me reading what I write.

 

Over time, I have slowly told people here and there that I have a blog. I usually give them a brief idea of what I write about, never much more than that. If they’re lucky, I will tell them the blog name, however usually I don’t.

 

This past weekend, I mentioned in passing to a couple of girlfriends that I have a blog. The following day, we were with one of them and S mentioned to her partner, T that I had a blog. He was interested straight away and although I didn’t tell him anything about the name of the blog, I received a couple of comments the following Monday from T. So, that cats out of the bag because he promised to read it once a week. He’s probably reading this too, Hi T!!

 

The feedback I’ve gotten off friends and family that have read the blog is all positive, so I think the fears that stop me from telling more people are probably a little silly. In saying that, I just can’t advertise it to everyone that I write a blog so perhaps for now I will leave it at telling a few people here and there.

Do you tell people ‘in real life’ that you have a blog? Have you had any negative comments?