The countdown has begun: 8 weeks and 5 days...

Is it nearly Monday again??

How do the weekends always go so fast? I've had a brilliant one but as usual very busy. Today my older sister and I spent a few hours digging up weeds on her newly acquired allotment. It's absolutely huge (probably about 10 square metres) so when we first saw it I felt like flaking out immediately! But we persisted and after some backbreaking determined routing out of evil weeds we clearly about a quarter of it. As you can see from the pics it was a pretty tough job and we were very pleased with ourselves when we'd finished! I was rewarded with some lovely smiles and giggles from my niece when we got back home :).

I met up with an old friend on Friday night for dinner which was really lovely - haven't seen her for probably 6 years ish but as with all good friends we just picked up where we left off :). She told me all about some really interesting work she's been doing with ex-offenders to help them turn their lives around in conjunction with Crisis, her children and grandchildren and I regaled her with tales of woe from my own life, ha! I spent Saturday evening with some friends and watched X Factor for the first time in probably about 8 years (I'm so out of the loop).

Training-wise I managed my first 30 miler along the canal on Saturday. The nice, clean gravel towpath gave way very quickly to grass and mud and stingers! I can't actually believe I'm saying this but I actually found myself thinking I'd like to do one of those 10k runs through assault courses and mud! I remember rolling down a massive hill when I was about 14 and getting absolutely covered in the freshly cut grass and dew. I was soaked by the end but it was loads of fun and I think all this time spent outdoors getting muddy and wet is bringing out the big child in me, happily so.

The canal route was surprisingly treacherous and in places I really did narrowly miss ending up in the canal itself. I'm not sure it'll be a good idea to take that course in the depths of winter, particularly if it's icy, but it's good to try out different routes. I think that's one of the great things about cycling actually, the scenery is constantly changing and makes a huge difference. I'm one of those people who finds it difficult to do fewer than 2 or 3 things at any one time and gets bored really quickly but I have never once felt that cycling, instead I just get totally lost in my own thoughts.

Anyway, today my legs and knees were definitely feeling the 30 mile cycle from yesterday and the effects of the workout I had on the allotment so I'm afraid I only managed about 10 miles tonight. Not great but I actually reckon I'm better off not over-tiring myself as it then takes a good week to get back to my peak, so I'm going to head out for a run tomorrow before work and then I'll have two exercise-free days as I'm off to Tory conference with work.

Better go and pack now - this blog post has really been about procrastinating!