Week 3 fail

Where to start.

I'm not even going to bother with an overview of this post, or a nice introduction or anything.  Let's just blurt it all out in any way that it comes.  And just a warning, I've just finished writing this and have come back to let you know in advance, that this is a bit of a whinge fest post.  #sorrynotsorry.  Feel free to skip this if you wish. 

I've had a shit week.  It's not been fun: I've spent heaps of it crying, some of it in pain, and most of it just in blah-land.

Overarchingly, from a weight loss point of view, I have been really, really struggling to get my head back in the game since the cruise.  I've read lately how a few of my friends and other 12 weekers dealt with their cruises, and most of them seem to say they were strong and controlled themselves in the overflowing buffets of food that never ends.

…

I am not one of these people.

It was like being stuck in a 4 day long game of The Biggest Loser temptation.  I would suck at playing that!

I was expecting to 'relax' on the ship (except for my exercise thanks to #operationcruiseship!) but what I didn't factor in was getting back in the game after I got home.  I've been off track for over a week now, and that's just since arriving back, not to mention the cruise itself!

I have been mega struggling to jump back into it.  And it's doing my head in.

And other stuff...don't we all have 'other stuff' going on? :)  Well, it's made for a pretty shit week.

What has me baffled though, is I keep crying!  I don't cry much these days, but man, this week!!

It's like I'm crying at the drop of a hat...and I'm dropping hats a couple of times a day!  Some of the 'hats' have been genuinely emotional moments...the arrival and announcements of three friends' long awaited for babies, a friend’s mum getting a potentially terminal diagnosis, my friends tween daughter hysterically confiding in me that she heard her mum being hit (!), being unable to be with and help 2 family members when they were in a car accident interstate... some of the hats from this week are non judgingly tear-worthy.  But the other tears, they are at any given moment! Far out!

It got to the point on Friday, that I even cried at work.

And I don't cry at work.  Well, I guess I do, because I did! :(  But I haven't cried at work (that people have seen!) in maybe 3 years?  I pride myself on that.  But Friday stuffed that running streak!

It wasn't corporate train wreck stuff.  It wasn't bad.  It wasn't even in the office.  It was one colleague, who saw me out at lunch and unfortunately for her, asked me how I was at the wrong moment...

But still --- what is wrong with me this week?

If my nutrition has been bad, my training hasn't been much better. My workouts have fallen somewhere in between fairly skewed and non-existent, thanks to pain/injury etc., and that’s been doing my head in too, which in turn hasn't helped my plight of getting back in the game.

Monday I did boot camp we did hill runs.  I don't know what it was, I actually think it was a combo of still being a bit unsteady on my feet after being out at sea, together with pushing myself to my extreme in my workout, but after we finished I suddenly got jelly legs and felt

faint, and my trainer had to hold me up and help me walk!  I was fine but I skipped my second workout that arvo just in case.

Tuesday is my rest day.  I did pretty well with that!

Made in the 80's!  Not the 40's... :(

On Wednesday I wore this shirt to boot camp and I had a little whinge afterwards.  Because I suddenly got so sick of having to do alternative exercises because of pain that I have.  Like my shirt says, I was made in the 80's. ;)  But increasingly I keep feeling like I was born in the 40's or 50's!  Between my back, my O pain (I will explain this) and random aches, it's getting ridiculous.  I'm old, but I'm not that old!  Usually I just do alternate exercises without a second thought, but on Wednesday I got so over this!  I just felt like I couldn't do anything.  My back and O pain means I can't always do leg raises, burpees, squats, tricep dips, clean and press, get-ups etc.; the list seems to be increasing.  My back even started to give way on my warm up run of just 200m – and I’m supposed to be running 42km in 6 weeks??  It's frustrating not being as agile and carefree (?) as I should be at my age.  As I said I usually just substitute and get on with it, but Wednesday I just had a little stamp of my feet!

Now, this O pain.  I've talked about it on here before.  The O pain is intermittent pain I've had for about 18 months.  This time last year, I was at my wits end, trying to work out what it was.  I saw a string of doctors, had every test imaginable, was in two different hospitals and at one point was prepped for surgery.  They thought it was possibly Ovarian cysts, or my Appendix (hence, the almost surgery).  That didn't go ahead, nor did anything else.  No-one could tell me what it was, and I gave up searching for answers.

Instead, I've just put up with the pain.  I'm just used to it and if I need to explain why I can't do a particular exercise, I just touch the area, shake my head in frustration and call it my 'Ovary pain'.  Which is ridiculous because they didn't find cysts, or anything else, so it’s not necessarily coming from there.  But I don't know what it is!  I don't know what else is in that area, hence the nickname 'Ovary pain' - or, 'O pain'.  It feels as frustrating as it sounds stupid, don't you worry.

Anyway.  Thursday night I got the 'O pain'.  Not a big deal.  It's been part of me for 18 months.  But this time was pretty bad, and it didn't seem to go away.  I was squashed in an uncomfortable chair out at a lengthy dinner with friends at the time, so I just assumed once I got home and lay down, that it would settle.

But it continued for the rest of the night, and was still there when I woke up.  It had never been this constant.  It made me skip Friday boot camp and I think it fuelled the work tears.  Against my own pride and fear, I finally booked a GP appointment for Friday afternoon.

With minimal examining, the GP said it was ligament damage/strain - probably the inguinal ligament. (?) She wasn't even slightly concerned that it was anything more internal than that.  This was a huge relief, but as much as I wanted to believe her, her diagnosis was at a long line of inconclusive tests and investigations, so I didn't feel I could take it as gospel.  Regardless though, it relaxed me a little, which is what I needed.

By the time I woke up on Saturday morning, it seemed to have gone, and that's when I climbed Nick's Mountain!

I don't remember it hurting at all while we did the mountain.

After the mountain, I had Marathon School.  I arrived at the University where it was being held – it was our first and only practical session – the rest is theory.  I had come straight from the mountain to Marathon School, aside from a 5 minute run into my house to change my top and shoes.  I hadn't had time to stop and think, or to assess how I was feeling.

I walked from my car to the group, and realised I was feeling a bit sore.  It was to be expected - a 4 hour climb of a 'wild' mountain would do that.  But by the time I got to the others, I realised it wasn't really DOMS, it was the ‘O pain’, suddenly back.  And it escalated quickly, with a vengeance. 

We were just standing in a group while one of the trainers explained what we were going to do.  But I could barely stand.  I was trying to lean on my side, and was doubled over.  I wanted to lie on the ground but was embarrassed and didn't want to be weird or to make a scene.

Don't ask me why, but I then went on the warm up run with the rest of the group.  Well, I tried to.  I did one of the two oval laps we had to do, and stopped... I know, I shouldn't have done that, I was really hurting.  The other trainer came over to ask if I was ok and I explained about the stupid ‘O pain’.

She immediately told me it's probably my abductor tendon...?  She said that I should ice it each day, not run, get an MRI and see a Physio or sports doctor.

This was getting so weird!  For over a year, I've assumed, and been worried, that there's been something wrong with my organs...now it really seemed like it was ligament / muscular!  I sat down on the grass to watch the class do their drills, trying to take note of what they were doing.  I couldn't sit though, I was in agony.  I lay down in a weird position, but every way I lay, hurt.  Apart from that I just found it really hard, lying there and watching them run, not being able to join them.  I was beyond frustrated.

And to add to it, a free fun run that I was also supposed to do that afternoon, the Schnitzel Run, actually ran past where we were training, starting their run.  I actually took this

photo...you can't really tell but it's me looking up from the grass, with the fun run running behind Marathon School, neither of which I could participate in.

I ended up leaving as I couldn't handle the pain or the disappointment that I couldn't join in!

And then Sunday.  Sunday morning I had a 10km run event. 

It did not go to plan. 

I’ve been trying to work out ever since whether I should blog about it.  If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that it was a total fail.  But all that I’ve been able to share so far, is that it involved police, hiding, and a lot of tears.  I’m still up and down as to whether I’ll write about it.  I am absolutely embarrassed about it.  I was starting to think I would tell the story, but when my boss’s reaction when I told him, was to put his hand on his wide opened mouth, gasp, and exclaim that I shouldn’t repeat this story, it didn’t give me much confidence!

So I will see.  I will however blog soon though about ‘my marathon is in 6 weeks’ fears, especially now with my ‘O pain’ and how this fits in with that….

So as a result, my Week 3 star sticker stats were:

Nutrition: 0/7
Training: 4/7
Sleep: 4/7
Water: 0/7

My sleep has been getting so much better.  But I have no excuse with the water.  And nutrition and training, see above. :(  So as a result, you can imagine the scales weren’t my friend this morning!  I'm just feeling so blah (is it any wonder??) which isn't helping my self esteem factor! 

Sorry for the down and out post.

Kate Von Trapp-Grylls

I've said this many times and I will say it again but I have so much to tell you!  I have so

Climbing under and up!

many stories and updates milling around in my head that I really need to get out on paper (blog).  I will!  Very soon.  But for starters though, I have to tell about my little adventure this morning.

It's been a while since I've done one of those 'I can't believe I'm doing this' Kate Crazy Adventure.  But, today was one of them.

One of my 12 personal challenges for this round (we're supposed to do 3 milestones, I love them so much I do 12!) was to 'Find a new mountain, and climb it.'  I do my regular mountains around here, and they're great, but I wanted to try something new.

I didn't have to go far to find one, because just after I made the goal, my little brother, Nick, and his partner, bought a 44 acre property that went from a valley and up over a mountain!  My little brother now owns a mountain!  Okay, it's not the entire mountain, but his property extends to the top and over a little bit, so to me that is practically like having your own mountain :)

Find a new mountain.  And climb it.

To be polite, I waited for a couple of days after settlement and then asked them my pressing question: "could I climb it??"  hahaa.  They were happy for me to!  The thing was, though, this was not like Mount Coot-tha, Mount Coolum, Mount Ngun-Ngun, all of my regular haunts.  As I like to call it, 'Nick's Mountain', doesn't have daily visitors. There's no path cleared or man made road or steps.  There's no toilet block and water bubbler half way

My brand new steel cap boots...$10 from a charity sale this week!

through, or sign posts on the gravel road.  This is thick, dense, bushland, that is essentially untouched.  Why I thought this was a good idea for someone to climb who's petrified of all animals and hates nature, I don't know.  But I decided it would be awesome to climb a private mountain, and so set my heart on it.

I made a date about a month in advance and invited a stack of my local 12WBT friends to join me.

Nick offered to climb it first, to make sure it was doable, and to mark out a bit of a trail.

Now Nick, (together with our other brother), is like this most amazing brother.  He and his partner climbed it twice, and cleared some of the scrub for us.  They put some red tape on scattered trees to the top - and when he went back to check it for us yesterday and noticed the red tape had started falling off, he climbed it a third time, and this time tied string the whole way up, so that we wouldn't get lost.  Not only that, the string was

Nick's treasure map :)

coloured, in a specific order, so that we knew how far we had gone, and, (his idea), for it to be like a motivational tool for us!  This is the text he sent me with the order of colours: BLUE string was our goal, like a treasure map!  When we were kids, I would draw up pirate treasure maps and mazes and made up a Spy Club for my brothers and I, and this was kind of like him doing a treasure map for me!

He sent me photos, videos, Google Earth images, mud maps, land division maps, offered me his machete and Camelbak to take (if I needed to clear more lantana), and offered to pick us up at the top of the mountain and drive us back to our cars.  He also dragged a piece of carpet partway up the mountain to put on top of some barbed wire.  He is just incredible.

In the end, it ended up being just my beautiful friend Alana, my

Mum, me and Alana :)

mum, and me, who did it.  I couldn't believe my mum was keen.  I jokingly asked her just two days ago, if she wanted to come.  I never expected her to say yes.  She doesn't really do this kind of stuff.  She plays tennis, walks sometimes and has a very active job......but she's also 58, has bad knees, and doesn't do the fitness stuff I do.  She was intrigued after I told her about when I did Spartan, and told me she was keen to do an obstacle race, so I guess she's been

Mum crawling over the carpet on barbed wire

wanting to do something a bit different for a while.  So, she said yes.

As with all of my crazy adventures, I plan them with the bravest and naive intentions and then the day before start to freak out and wonder what I've gotten myself into.  This was no exception.  My mum started talking about how she was going to bring a snake bite kit, her CPR mouth piece, (she just did her first aid/CPR refresher last week) ;) , stuff for broken bones and first aid kit....my friend reminded me to be aware of standing on snakes....all of this talk was freaking me out!  I was fine planning it, making an event on Facebook wasn't very scary to do.  But the day before, with all of this talk, I started realising the dangers.  Oh my gosh what was I doing?  I was really worried about seeing animals and freaking out.  I was worried about my mum.  She's in no way elderly, but, well, she's my mum!  I started doubting the whole thing - I've never done anything before that had a list of things that I needed to bring that included a snake bite kit,

machete and steel cap boots.

Oh.my.goodness.

Last night, I really wanted to cancel.  It was dangerous, scary, and I've had an awful week.  I actually should have been lying down at home.  And you know what?  I just wasn't looking forward to it.  I wondered why I made the goal in the first place.  To be honest I was prepared to give up on the goal all together, which is never like me.  But I wouldn't let people down...and besides, when I rang Nick to check on last minute details, and he said he was putting the string up, I

The start of the walk.  WHERE DO WE WALK??

knew he'd gone to a lot of effort for me.

I woke up early this morning, praying that both Mum and Alana had texted me to say they weren't coming.  There were no texts.  Damnit.  LOL

We got to the property, at the base of the mountain, and searched for good sticks to walk with.  There was a bit of a miscommunication about the machete, and I didn't end up getting to bring it.  Which is probably a good thing, seeing as I not too long ago, thought a machete was a gun....can you tell I'm a bit of a girly girl??  I didn't tell Nick that, as he probably wouldn't have lent it to me in that case haha! 

This string was the best idea!

We started looking for the first bit of string...red string.

Even though I knew about the untouched terrain, I was still shocked when I saw the red string.  I must have been fantasicing that there'd be at least a little clearing?  Nope.  It was like string had been dropped from the sky into thick bushland, through trees.  THIS was the start?  Where on earth were we meant to walk??  I think my exact words were "are you freaking kidding me??  This is the start??"

I felt a bit like Jane from Tarzan and Jane as we navigated the vines and trees.  Actually, the whole way I felt like a combo of Jane, Bear Grylls, Maria Von Trapp (scaling the Austrian alps) and John Oxley, the explorer I did an assignment on in Year 4.  'Kate Jane Von Trapp-Grylls-Oxley'. Yep, that was me, today.  'Kate Von Trapp-Grylls' for short.  We were pioneers!  (With coloured string to show us the way...........practically the same thing that those guys would have had). ;)

It was tough.  My heart rate peaked at 169 but stayed at fairly high numbers the whole time.

Dense

  It was a combo of hiking, scrambling, climbing, crawling on our hands and knees, climbing under and over tree trunks, wading through waist deep grass, dodging vines... There was lantana, cactus's / prickly pears (?) and vines with thorns on them.  I didn't need a machete, Alana was like this powerhouse - a few times she got her stick and 'swoosh swoosh swoosh'!  This sweet, lovely girl I know, swooshing, knocking stuff out of the way (including spiderwebs!) for Mum and I.  Go Alana!  She was incredible! 

She just went for it!

At one point I had to crawl under some vines and it was intense...I couldn't get out straight away.  I remember thinking that this is one of those insane moments in my life...I'm on the side of a mountain, in a ball, trapped in the middle of vines.  What am I doing?  It was fine, but really...what am I doing?  Who was I?  The bush princess!

So many times we got to the bottom of a rocky incline and were just like "wow, ok, how are we going to tackle this one?"  But we did it each time.  Alana pretty much navigated the whole way.

And what kept us going, was that amazing string.  We

Beautiful view looking out to Moreton Bay

got so excited each time we saw a new colour!  We couldn't wait for the 3rd blue...that was what we wanted to get to!  We were soooo thankful to Nick! 

There were beautiful views of Brisbane's Moreton Bay, from about halfway up, and we stopped for water and (and one Carman's Dark Choc Blueberry, Seed & Nut bar) breaks often. :)

Apart from powerhouse Alana, what really impressed me, was my Mum.

I did not give her credit.  My 58 year old mother powered up that mountain!  She crawled under trees and pulled us over the carpet barbed wire and over rocks and encouraged us and kept going!  She was so fit and agile and to be honest, was better and faster at this than me!  I am so impressed by her.  I don't know that she's ever done anything like this before!  She also wanted to walk down the mountain!  Alana and I were keen for the lift!  When we encouraged her out of going back down the way we came, she then wanted to walk the roads - the LONG way around, which winded up to another mountain, then back down to my car.  The only reason she agreed not to do that, was that Nick estimated it would have taken about 6-8 hours, and we had places to be!

We eventually got to the end of the blue string.  It was an amazing feeling.  It was next to an

Kate and mum Von Trapp

electricity tower - it was what we were aiming for.  It had been a success.  We had no injuries (a few scratches, that's all).  We had seen NO animals...the only animals we saw were butterflies :)  Can you believe it? :) 

We felt accomplished.  Mum and Alana discussed their FitBit steps (I recently gave Mum a FitBit Flex and she loves it) :) and I kept checking my Polar calories.  We were pretty proud.  Now, it was time for bacon and coffee.  We just needed to find the cafe that Nick and his family were meeting us at for breakfast....  We were a bit lost with no coloured string!  After a call to Nick, we worked out where to go and I think we all wanted to cry when we realised we then had to climb another ridge, to get to the main road, to then walk a kilometre, to get to

My amazing mum!

the cafe.  But at least that last part was on a dirt / gravel track.

We got to the main road, almost dancing down it in pure pleasure to be on bitumen and so close to coffee/Diet Coke!  On the way, Alana spotted an injured kookaburra!  We had seen no animals really in the bushland, then see one on the side of the main road.  It

The end of the string!

looked dazed and injured and we stood right next to it (me hiding behind the others) and it didn't fly away.  Alana called the wildlife rescue place, who were going to send someone to rescue it and said they'd call her back.

Instead, Nick's partner (and Nick) used to be emergency wildlife carers (of all the people we could have been meeting!) so instead, Nick drove back and picked up the kookaburra, wrapped it up and they've taken it to the vet.

And that's it!  It took us just under 4 hours to climb, and that was including the kookaburra phone call.  Nick said it was an 850m climb but Mum and Alana's FitBits said
we walked about 5-8km.  It was about a 50% gradient and I burnt just under 1700 calories.  And we had bacon and eggs :)

Beautiful heart Alana checking on the kookaburra

All I wanted after that was a shower and to chill out, but I had to run straight to Marathon School.  It's now Saturday night and I am yet to have a shower.  I feel so gross!  I am off to have one now :)

I can now tick this challenge off!  Nick's Mountain has been climbed!

Love, the very brave Kate Jane Von Trapp-Grylls-Oxley xx ;)

My scratches.  Like Bear Grylls

We climbed that!

The amazing Alana

One of those "how do we get up there" moments

The vines I got tangled in

We were in the thick of it!

Ahhh goal tower

The second ridge we had to climb up! :(

One of the butterflies!

Mum very excited about her coffee!

And I got a selfie with the machete ;)

Shuffleboard and deckchairs...my Week 2 assessment

Hey hey hey!

Just a quick wrap up of Week 2.

There's not much to say really because I just got back from my cruise!  So it wasn't exactly a hectic week!  I'm lying on my bed

I got into this book while I was away!

at home, typing this, and the room is spinning / rocking as if I'm still on the boat.

Exercise wise, I am soooo proud of myself as I achieved Operation Cruise Ship / Operation Minimise Damage.  I hit the gym every day I was on the ship and burnt 500 calories each time as planned!  I have never done that before, gone away and kept up with best intention exercise/training goals.  But this time I did, so I feel like it's achievable now.  Every morning I got up, changed into my training gear, went and had breakfast with my Dad, then went to the gym while Dad did other stuff.  I then showered and joined him for the day.  I felt bad leaving him for that time when we were trying to spend time together, but he's supportive, and really, it was only 1-1.5 hours each day.  Apart from a couple of other trips we've been on, I haven't spent this much 1:1 time with him since I moved out of home 15 years ago!

I stuck to the gym because the 'jogging track' they spoke about wasn't a dedicated track, it was the same deck that people walked on, played shuffleboard on and was also the smoking deck.  I've run on a ship before and it's a bit hard to weave in and out of people in the narrow space.  It's one place you definitely don't want to trip over!  But I found solace in

My Dad and I about to sail away

the gym and apart from doing the Lean and Strong program, I ran on the treadmill, used the cross trainer, and even shot a few basketball hoops on the sports court with Dad!  That was very cool!  I also used the 8 flights of stairs for dedicated exercise but also incidentally each day - I think I only used a lift 3 times - the rest of the time I used the stairs...and we were up and down them a lot.

Food wise...umm yeah, let's not go there ;)  No, it's ok.  I actually gave myself star stickers for food for each cruise day because I had planned to allow myself to relax the reins, and relax the reins I did!  I will not tell you what I ate, and how much...far out. I was expecting it, but it doesn't make it any better!  I am not looking

Just in case you missed my elevator selfies...

forward to Wednesday's weigh-in.  But it's just a part of this journey and I'm only looking forward!  

I had a lot of thinking time for my goals.  I didn't have much planning time, I had no laptop with spreadsheets on hand...but I will work everything out.  The thinking time was good and I'll keep you updated on that front.

But overall I had a good time and spent time with my Dad, which is what this was all about.  Some things come before losing weight.

My star count for the week is:

Nutrition: 4/7
Training: 6/7
Sleep: 4/7
Water: 0/7

Not cool re: the water!

Thinking / deckchair time

Anyway sorry for the boring post, I just wanted to share my exercising-on-the-cruise-proof-photos. It was a pretty spectacular view from that gym!  I was lucky and was unexpectedly given 150 free minutes of internet time onboard, so each day I did up my little photo proof thing, logged onto the limited gifted wi-fi and posted the photo on my Instagram and my boot camp private Facebook page.  If you're going away I highly recommend you doing something like this, to keep you accountable.  Knowing that I had pronounced to the world (well, Instagram and my boot camp) that I would be doing this, pushed me to get my butt to the gym and JFDI rather than sit on a deckchair eating more pavlova with extra ice cream, which would have been a lot easier to do!

Have an awesome Week 3 :) xoxo

Day 1:

Day 1 proof

Day 2:

Day 2 proof

Day 3:

Day 3 proof

Playing basketball with my Dad!

State room (cabin) selfie!

The only food photo I will share with you, LOL!

Playing shuffleboard with Dad.  I'm sure I burnt some extra cals ;)

<3