Yeah!

I walked for 5 and a half miles this morning and ran for about 1 mile out of that - half a mile all in one go :D Very pleased with myself now!! Regular blogging will resume soon!

If you were wondering what happened to me running.....

...then I can tell you that I really hurt my knees a while back doing it i.e couldn't walk without a stick hurt my knees - that was fun!! So after a few days of not being able to walk I went to see the doctor (something I do very rarely) and he told me that I was too unfit and overweight (nice!) to be doing that much exercise and that I needed to build up the strength in my knees by walking for a couple of months and go from there. So that's what I am doing - with a little bit of prompting from this wonderful blog* - and I'm hoping to be back to jogging sometime in the next couple of months. Good job too as I really enjoyed it and the sense of achievement when I ran for 9 whole minutes was fantastic. So expect more posts soon boring you with my walking routes!

I just have to share this picture I took the other day - I really like it!

Bye for now - I'll be back tomorrow with some new things I've been working on.

*They have started a routine of walking everyday which is something I can't do but I can go a few times a week. They are hoping to turn it into a habit!

Just a quickie

I'm really daft in that I forgot to take a photograph of the completed birthday present (I remembered as we got to the party) but I have made similar things in the past and will dig out a photograph for you - doh! Went running again this morning and managed to run for a whole three songs - Matt bought me an MP3 player so I could sing along (!) as I'm running. It did work though and the 3 songs added up to 9 mins37 secs so I ran for nearly 10 mins!!! Not bad for only my third time out running :)

I've been tagged by the lovely Ruth so here are my answers to this meme.

Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate no contest!
Big Mac or Whopper: Whopper as McDonalds taste like crap
Coke or Pepsi: Pepsi Max but Diet Coke is acceptable if they don't have Pepsi
Beer or Wine: Wine
Coffee or Tea: Tea - I love my tea
Apple Juice or O.J.: Orange Juice
Facebook or MySpace: I have a My Space for Cuteable and Facebook for me but I haven't logged onto Facebook for about 5 months!
Summer or Winter: Summer
Windows or Mac: Windows
Cats or Dogs: Cats even though I am very allergic. I don't see the attraction of dogs

Best go as it's bedtime - night night

7 miles today!

Well I walked (and ran a little of it) just under 7 miles today. It was possibly a little bit more or a little bit less as we detoured off to go and see the Singing Ringing Tree. Well I did as Tara had fallen asleep at this stage! It's a big sculpture that 'sings' when the wind blows through it. You get some fantastic views from up there and I'll definitely be going back. I kept seeing lots of little paths off the road but they had great big stiles so we couldn't go down those ones as I'm not strong enough to get the pushchair over the stiles yet!! Maybe on Sunday. Tara thought it was hilarious when I ran and her favourite thing to do was shout go and then I started running. I ran faster when I had the pushchair as we tended to run on the flat or going downhill. Here's a map of the route - cos I like pictures in posts!

The little line off in the middle is where the Singing Ringing Tree is - well I think so that's why the distance isn't accurate. My pedometer is officially rubbish - it said I did 2,000 steps and covered 0.9 of a kilometre so I think I'm going to ditch it. Bloody Tesco rubbish for you!!

Well I'm doing some sewing this afternoon so hopefully things to show you later.

OMG!

My legs hurt, I look like an old woman when I'm trying to walk and I can't walk downstairs or sit down without my legs hurting. Whose bloody stupid idea was it to start running again - oh that would be me. Hmmmmmmmmm :)

Running

I actually enjoyed the running I did this morning and I was very lucky with the weather as it was warm but not hot (it was 6 o'clock in the morning!) and it hadn't started raining yet. This is a view of the route I took which Gmaps Pedometer said is 5.5 miles (there and back)

I started off walking up Manchester Road which a a long fairly steep hill and when I reached the pub at the top I thought I was probably warmed up enough (and the banana I had eaten before setting off was digested enough) to try running. Now I went onto a couple of running forums and found a schedule that looks good for complete new beginners to running - it basically suggests walking for 2 mins and then running for 1 and repeat this several times. Then repeat that schedule 3 times a week (I will only be doing 2) and make the walking bit shorter and the running bit longer each time until you are running for 10 mins, then 20 mins etc without a break. Well coming back down Manchester Road I managed a 4 minute run with a one minute break and then another 4 minute run. I was very pleased with myself for that - considering that at one point I tried to do a one minute run and could only manage 30 sec cos I was just too tired. And that I am an overweight, asthmatic 30 year old!!

I was going to baffle you with statistics etc but it seems that the pedometer only measured about a 3rd of my footsteps and calories burnt etc so I'm going to see if it right's itself on the next attempt. The next attempt will be with Tara in the buggy so we will see how that goes!!

P.S. I know this is supposed to be a crafting blog and I will get back to it soon I promise!

P.P.S Once I get into the running a bit more I won't be writing about it much here - just major steps - unless I'm stuck for a blog topic that is!