Secret Weekend Away: Part 1 - dating like we're sixteen again

The title of this blog is called ‘Have Love, Will Travel’ – I write about all the love I have around me fairly often (I do have a lot of it!), but I’m yet to write about Travel. Though to be fair the theme of the blog is not about love or travel, in fact I’m not too sure exactly what the ‘theme’ is – the blog and I are still at our ‘finding feet’ stage.

I digress…so back to Traveling (& love too), I was recently whisked away for a surprise weekend. It was my birthday present from Kyle, but it was a complete surprise – all I was told prior to the trip is the following:

• Take the Friday off work
• Pack light
• Take shoes comfortable enough to walk in
• Take something ‘pretty’ to wear
•  Liquids over 100ml are acceptable

Upon hearing that I immediately thought we were going to Scotland; did a little Scottish Jig and started picturing us walking up the hill to Edinburgh Castle.  However when Friday came around, we got onto the M4, then south on the M25; my next immediate thoughts were ‘we must be going to France, we’re heading to Dover’. But no…we started driving to the North of Kent and ended up in the beautiful seaside town on Whitstable on the hottest day of the year so far.  

The colourful beach huts at Whitstable

I was pretty happy with  Whitstable, the beach was beautiful, the seaside smelt fresh, the town was quaint and picturesque, also ‘stay-cations’ are so in right now. So we parked up, walked along the harbour front, got an ice cream, mooched around a bit, enjoying the scenery and beautiful town, then I was put back into the car. I assumed we’d head to a nice little B&B, but as we were driving through some of Kent’s finest Country Roads I slowly worked out that we kept heading towards Ashford.

Now I've never really been to Ashford before, nor is it famous for anything particularly touristy; however it does play host to an ‘international train station’ – the last stop on the Eurostar before France. Excitingly I thought we’d be heading straight for the station….but no, Kyle had other plans and we pulled in at the Ashford International Hotel. We checked in, went to our rooms, and then straight out again; this time to the local bowling alley (I kid you not). I know ‘dates’ get less adventurous the longer you've been together – but bowling? Really? Are we 15 again?.

I knew (hoped) things would get better for the rest of the weekend, so I went along with it and really enjoyed it. It was only two of us, so our turns came around really quickly. Usually I hate bowling, because you’re in large groups, and by the time your turn comes around you’ve lost interest (especially if your losing). However it was just the two of us, so every second go was mine – and I spent most of the time winning (even with the sides down). I felt like I was 16 again, hanging out with a boy – but this time I wasn’t worried about how cool I was or if my make-up still looked fresh, I was having a loads of fun with my boy. We played another game (which Kyle won, but only by one point), and then followed it up with a game of air hockey (which Kyle won, I had to let him win that one, his ego was bruised from losing to me so badly from the first game of bowling).

By this point, our bellies were rumbling, so where is the best place to take someone after bowling (remember Kyle was in 16 year old mind set today) – Nandos!

Nothings says 'I Love You' like Peri-Peri

Belly full of chicken, tired from a day at the beach and bowling, we headed to the hotel bar to enjoy the sunset over a few glasses of pimms, and then it was strict instructions to head to bed early for Part 2....coming soon.

Family and FitBit

I count myself very lucky, I have a big, wonderfully, loving family – the kind who you would choose to be your friends. There are six  special members, who are outside of my immediate family are one of my biggest supporters in everything I wish to do (except for when I ran away from home when I was younger - they sent me back). They are my beloved Uncle Stephen, Aunt Mariam, Chris, Jess, Mylie and Humphrey (the dog).

The Old Couple

Their little terrors

Uncle Stephen has been spoiling me since I can remember – he’d buy me expensive French dresses, porcelain dolls, sweets, teddy bears, toys etc. there was definitely some favouritism going on (though he still claims to love us all equally).  He has been spoiling me ever since, and my lovely Aunt Mariam carried on the tradition when they met and married, which was a huge relief, as I feared he might forget about me (though now I have to share the ‘spoiling’ with their three apples of their eyes).

My FitBit - and loom band that Mylie
and Jess made me for my birthday

So just like the last 24  years, this year for my birthday I was spoilt by them too; they got me a FitBit Flex. I’ve been wanting one for a while, and suspected that I might open one up on my birthday, but if I didn’t I was going to treat myself to one. The FitBit Flex is a device you wear on your wrist (like a bracelet or watch), which tracks your movement 24 hours a day; including sleep patterns. It has a display of 5 LED lights, each light indicates 20% of a goal you want to reach for the day. The default setting is 10,000 steps a day (which is just under 5 miles), and when gentle tapped the lights indicate how far you’ve got towards your goal for the day e.g. 4,500 steps – 2 lights (and the 3^rd one flashes, to show that you’re working towards lighting up the next 20% of your goal). It’s waterproof; so you can wear it in the shower – so it really doesn’t need to be taken off at all, except for when it needs charging – the battery lasts around 6 days, and takes a couple of hours to charge.

I particularly wanted the Fit Bit as it works with My Fitness Pal – as I;m a Monday – Friday calorie counter,  it helps me work out how many calories have gone in (taking data from MFP), and then works out how many calories have gone out. So each day you are left with your deficit for the day – great if your losing weight, as it keeps you on track. It also syncs with your smart phone via Bluetooth, so at any time of the day or night you can open up the app and see exactly how many steps you’ve taken, how many calories burnt, how many active minutes you’d had etc…

I’ve been wearing the FitBit Flex for just over a week now, and I’ve realised that pre-fitbit I was bloody lazy. I wasn’t lazy when I was running or at the gym obviously, but my day-to-day activities were very sedentary.

Getting the lights to shine adds a sense of game-ification (except you are the only one in the game – though you can challenge other friends who have one - I’m yet to know a friend of mine who has one).  You also earn badges along the way, so you get one for the first 5,000 steps you do (that’s an easy one), then for the first 10,00 steps you do in one day, then for the first time you do 15,000 steps in one day etc. You also get badges for the number of miles you walk in total, and last week I earned my 50 mile badge – yes I walked / jog / ran 50 miles in one week (I’d like to thank a weekend in Paris for that). If you’ve read my earlier post you’ll know I like goals, so these badges work as little goals for me to set for myself. These badges work as a great motivator for me, actually just having the flex on my wrist works as a great motivator; as every time I look at my wrist it’s a little reminder that I need to move some more.

The online dashboard is helpful & fun too – as it tracks you every day, and puts things into nice little pie and bar charts. As I’m a bit of a Geek I love seeing all my stats laid out there.  You can set all sorts of different goals, and check in every day to see how close you are to them, and get a weekly view too (I actually think I walked more on Sunday than any other day, but the battery died half way through the day).

As I was planning on buying one myself, I read a lot of reviews on the FitBit Flex and it’s other competitors that are currently in the market place. Most reviewers complained it wasn’t accurate enough, but that seemed to be their complaint about all of them – complaining that it can be too sensitive and tracks brushing your teeth or typing as steps, (due to the wrist movement). Unless they strap something to your legs, you’re probably not going to get much more accurate that this for now, plus just like the calories I count on My Fitness Pal, it’s a rough estimation, which is fine with me.

If you are using one and want to get become my 'fitbit' friend; let me know so we can challenge each other. 

The first four...

If  you follow me on Twitter you would have known that from Monday 14^th July 2014 things got serious – serious in the sense that it’s just over 12 weeks to the half marathon. 12 weeks seems like ages right? That’s a whole 3 months, a quarter of the year, plenty of time to build up to 13.1 miles. But a big lesson I've learnt about turning a year older, is that time flies by…like literally you blink and it’s the next month (what happened to June?).

So it's time to step up the training, form a routine training plan and give up alcohol (except for my four scheduled alcohol-allowed events; this weekend, Machofest, Kyle’s birthday and Carnival), the rest of the time I shall be T-Total (and probably quiet grumpy and boring on weekends now).

The Training Plan:

I’m using a mix of training plans I've found online and fitting them in between my body pump classes (as we've got to keep the muscles strong and lean right?). As it’s just over 12 weeks, and I’m away this weekend (it’s a surprise trip, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to go for a run whilst I’m away, hence the '?' in my plan) I shall be repeating week 1 twice – it will also help build  the plan into my routine that I have to stick to for 12 weeks. I’m notoriously bad at sticking to things, so hopefully shouting out about this on my blog means that it’s making me accountable for it, and I have to do it, plus its for charity and I’m running with a team, and I've told loads of people, and spent a lot of money on running shoes etc, etc.

Monday's are the toughest day, and I originally had the 30 minute easy run on a Tuesday, but trying to move the day after a Body Pump session can be tough (I barely make it up the stairs at work), so I've put my two rest days the days after body pump. It's also an easy run on the Monday (as legs are still recovering from Sunday's long run), so I can do it just before my body pump class on the treadmill, in the comfort of an air conditioned gym.

As I have created the plan, and I’m not a fitness expert I shall be changing and adapting it as I see fit (with the 13.1 mile goal in mind). I should probably run this past someone who knows what they are doing; so if you are an experienced runner/athlete/personal trainer who is reading this and can see massive flaws in the plan – give me  a shout.

I’m not going to bore you with the full 12 week plan so far (partly because it scares me a little to look at the full 12 weeks at once), so I’m just going to post the first four weeks on here.

Want to join me? I mainly run just after work around 6:30 / 7pm in East Oxford - so drop me an email / comment / tweet and we can meet up :).

Birthdays, Cake, Loved ones and Sunshine

Birthday Lemon Drizzle Cheesecake - 100 times better than Birthday Cake

On Saturday I turned 25, and like all good birthdays it consisted of lots of cake, loved ones and sunshine. July is popular in my Mums family, as 5 of us celebrate our birthday within 7 days of each other, so on Saturday evening we celebrated an 18th, a 21st, a 25th and a 55th birthday...we were hoping it would be joined by celebrating a new arrival in the family, but she seems to want to stay put for now.

For the last two years I have dreaded my birthday, blaming a wonderful childhood of excellent birthdays parties and being thoroughly spoilt by family, making slightly 'older' birthdays a bit of an anticlimax. However this year I was looking forward to spending a day with my family, and partying with the extended family in the evening, and it lived up to every expectation of feeling absolutely loved and appreciated. The 100+ messages, phone calls, emails, tweets and texts helped too - I really do have a great bunch of people around me.

As was the plan, I didn't start my 25th year on earth with a 10K around Dorney Lake, with a busy day planned a head, and not wanting to wake up any earlier than I normally do on a Saturday, I relished the extra time in bed and substituted 10K for a lie in. Though I will make up my miles this week :).

More post to follow this week on my new FitBit & my 3 month training plan...so watch this space.

I'm still Standing, well running....

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and I’m going to use the lame excuse of not having enough time,  which I hate as an excuse. Everyone has the same amount of hours in the day, choosing how you spend them is what makes it matter. With that in mind, I have been choosing how to spend my hours not updating my blog, as I thought generally no one really cared about, but lately a lot of people have been asking ‘what happened?’, ‘are you still running the half marathon?’, ‘how’s the training going?’. So I thought I’d give you an little update with what is going on.

I genuinely thought no one read my blog, or cared that I was pounding the pavements, eating healthy and generally improving my well-being; aren’t we all trying to achieve that? – so I thought this ole’ blogging malarkey was fairly boring to the reader. But then I realised that it’s a bit like a newsletter (or extra-long facebook status) for your family and friends, to inform them of what exactly you are getting up too; especially the ones who are a little far afield and we don’t have that much time to catch up with.

So, YES – I am still running a half marathon, I have signed up, I have told people, I've even encouraged a whole team of 8 of us in the office to run with me for charity, there seems to be no turning back, I’m in this for the long run (pun intended).

The Beautifully Flat Dorney Lake

Training is happening, though the schedule at the moment is not very structured - and with the crazy amounts of pollen this year, training shifted to the treadmill for a while. But thanks to Boots and a new anti-hestamine I am back in the great outdoors. With 3 months to go I’m having to devise a more structured (but not too boring) training plan that will get me to the finish line. So from this Saturday we are in full time half marathon training mode (FTHMTM). FTHMTM starts with a 10K jog on Saturday morning, around Dorney Lake, which is twice around the lake, it’s a nice flat, scenic route and a great way to start a birthday weekend.

How are you kicking off your weekend?