I lost my print-outs with my stats on them at some point in the pre-Christmas rush...however I do remember that I did a perfect weigh-in the Wednesday before Christmas, which would have been Wednesday 18th December. 8st 8lbs and BFP 24.5%. I had decided to allow myself half-a-stone lee-way over Christmas and was thrilled to be in the best possible position to take advantage of it!
The Food
None of note, as I've been eating quite plainly in the run up to Christmas. Well, except for this...
...our pre-Christmas Dinner! Alastair and I went for a lovely walk on Saturday 7th December and felt like a proper Sunday lunch on the Sunday...and I was feeling festive so when I did the shopping I picked not only a roast chicken but, on impulse,stuffing, bread sauce and cranberry jelly too! I did a full-on roast with chicken, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, Brussels sprouts and all the trimmings. It was delicious and got me into the festive mood...shame there were two full weeks and a day at work left before it was actually Christmas!
The Exercise
Before Christmas seems like such a long time ago now that it's hard to remember what I did! As so much of my exercise is outside it gets hard to keep it up this time of year, so in December and January I always work on the basis that whatever I manage to do is a bonus. As a result I'm pretty pleased with what I did in the run up to Christmas. Because the weather was so mild I managed to cycle into work most days before I broke up for Christmas. Cycling in the winter's not easy but it does have its rewards.
I also got a few runs in. I used my last half-day of annual leave to do a long run which was absolutely fantastic. My half-marathon training plan said 1hr 30mins with the final 30 at half-marathon pace so I used the long run/faster final section combination as an opportunity to try my first energy gel. You can see from my splits that they work well for me (and also that I had to stop and walk for nearly two minutes while getting into the packet and eating it!).
I also got a nice 30 minute progression run in (according to my training plan it was meant to be a 45 minute progression run but given how tired I get around the shortest day I was pretty impressed).
And finally I did a seriously wet run on my last day at work, Monday 23rd December. It rained non-stop all day and I got absolutely soaked to the skin! I took advantage of it being the last day and took an extra-long lunch-hour to do a long run, tee hee.
Somewhere inamongst the running there was a fantastic Cross Fit session which included something I was actually good at! Normally I'm not good at Cross Fit things, as I'm neither very strong nor very co-ordinated but I proved to be a dab hand at these! I was then inspired to try my first hand-stand for about 25 years against the wall. I didn't quite dare to go all the way up and over but Dave said I was nearly there. And then he looked at me, said "you're just playing now, aren't you?!", shook his head, grinned and walked off.
Alastair and I did a lovely walk one weekend, from North Gare to Saltburn and back (that was the walk before our pre-Christmas Dinner). We set off from the stunning North Gare...
...stopped to climb the new Redcar Beacon...
...and stopped again on the way back at the amazing Archer's Ice-cream Parlour. Alastair had a knickerbocker glory and I decided to be abstemious and just ordered a coffee...only to find that the coffee came with a miniature ice-cream cone! I was very happy and the ice-cream was delicious.
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