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Today's the Day

12/28/2015

Woohoo!! The day has arrived. I'm off! My travels officially start NOW... I am very excited. Or would be if this persistent hangover wasn't hanging around. Yep, hungover. AF. Not a feeling I've missed. Ohwell, the night before was super fun (consisting of goodbye/Boxing Day drinks and then karaoke in a local pub - LOVE karaoke!) so I guess I'll just suck it up, and know it's only temporary too.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Boxing Day. Mine was lovely. Couldn't have asked for a better time. Christmas morning saw me tackle my first ever Parkrun, and wow, that was intense (like camping, lol). Definitely prefer my comfort zone of running halves or marathons or relaxed trail runs, but I guess these 5km runs are great for challenging yourself and practising some speed-work. So, now I have my time (20:59) this means I have to try and beat this the next time I run it, when I'm back in February. (Sidenote: no leaving Newy for the Goldy in Feb as previously planned - changed my mind and now I'm stoked that I'll be sticking around a bit longer. Novocastrians - you are stuck with me a little bit longer!)

Christmas lunch was with my best friend and her family - such a delicious time! Oh wow, the food was so good. As was the wonderful company. Thanks for making me feel part of the family, this was so lovely.
Then Christmas night was spent with some excellent friends, having a chilled front lawn party with a few tunes and too much home-brewed gin. Hmmm... Yep, seems I've temporarily replaced turmeric drinks with booze, damn this silly season.
In no particular order, a couple of Christmas shots:

Mmmmm, thinking of that food again. So good.

So, short and sweet and possibly my last post here for a while as for the next 6 weeks I'll be doing my favourite pastime (after running of course!) of travelling again!! Starting the trip with a couple of days in Sydney with family and friends and then fly out to London (via Hong Kong) to arrive there just before New Year's eve. I am so excited!! I will get to catch up with friends and family who I haven't seen in person for far too long, and have a belated Christmas celebration with my mum, bro, sis-in-law, and nephew too. Hopefully will get lots of running in whilst overseas as am now keen to run the Orange Marathon (http://www.orangecolourcityrunningfestival.com.au/) in late Feb, so really should have started marathon training by now. Need to get a few more long runs in, but should be ok.

Hope you all enjoy your New Years' celebrations and your time spent with family and friends. And as ever: happy running!!

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Pre-Christmas Newy Love

12/21/2015

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This past week has been filled with some awesome group runs, a solo run, a couple of bodypump sessions, parties and dinners and drinks with good friends, and a couple of impromptu sick days (= forced rest days, boooo). Newcastle has been turning on its famous charm no end and I’m awe-struck with the beauty of this city and its residents most days. So much so that’s making me seriously question my recent decision to up and leave for a new adventure. I LOVE Newy: the people, the places, the atmosphere, the running sessions and mix of running clubs, the dolphins playing around in the harbour, the occasional Ironman contest visiting Newcastle Beach etc – why oh why would I want to leave all this? It just feels too soon. Or maybe I am too indecisive. Or, because I know that I have a deadline for when I have decided to go that everything seems to sparkle anew again and I’m reminded of how lucky I am to be here. But there seem to have been more than a few signs from the universe lately re: staying put here in Newy, where I have been blissfully happy. I had mistakenly thought that my recent ecstasy (for no apparent reason) came from my sobriety stint (was completely tee-total for a good 4 months! And loved it) however now that I’ve incorporated a couple of social drinks back into my lifestyle, the happiness has remained! Maybe it is the people, and life in Newy, rather than any kind of extreme, tee-total lifestyle (I’ve decided that I can still be healthy and achieve my running goals with the occasional sip with friends). There is still one thing that I’m waiting on (all will soon be revealed) before I make my ‘final-for-now’ decision, but hopefully I should have a clearer idea of where I will be living next year in the next couple of weeks.

So, Monday night saw me join my first ever Wooterval session (intervals with the Wooters – a running group with puns!! My kind of club). This was great. We warmed up along the path to Nobby’s lighthouse and then crossed over to the field just behind the beach where we ran our 6x 4 minute intervals with a 2 minute (I think) rest in between. We even did some awkward core work on the grass at the end. Then I ran the 5ish km home to Carro, a huge grin on my face. It felt good to try and run a bit faster again. This bodes well (I hope!) for my forthcoming debut into those Parkruns that I’ve heard so much about. Yep, I’ll be jumping on the bandwagon on Christmas day for a different take on my usual early morning Christmas run (I run every Christmas morning, in memory of my father, who together with his good chum Bob Smith, ran a Christmas run each year) and will finally pop around the corner to the Newy parkrun (which turns out is the Carrington one! Who knew…).

Friday night was the Friday Fruit Loops beach and trail run, which was just over 10km of relatively fast-paced trails through the Glenrock Reserve (and sand for the first and last bit – the start and end point was Merewether Ocean Baths). My FAVOURITE terrain to run on is those skinny, winding paths through the forest – so much fun speeding through surrounded by trees and jumping off occasional rocks and tree roots. After the run I took a friend’s wise advice to jump straight into the ocean baths for a swim/cool-down. Pure bliss. I was pretty wrecked by this point, what with being ill with a virus a couple of days prior (have been downing the turmeric drinks like they’re going out of fashion hey – seems to have worked well so far) so the cool salt water felt A-MA-ZING. Afterwards we headed to the surfclub for some much needed post-running fuel (= pizza and a beer).

The final group run of this last week was this morning’s ‘Newcastle Runners’ Christmas Gift’ where a large group of various running groups around this area met up at the Merewether Surf House and ran up along Memorial Drive and Anzac Walk to King Edward park where a cleverly themed running-themed Christmas carol was sung (by most, I spectated – my voice is not really with me at the moment, it hasn’t read the memo that I’m not ill anymore and is the last thing to get back to normal I guess) and photos were taken. Then we carried on down to Newcastle beach and along to Nobby’s and along the breakwall and back. A great morning! Here’s me practising my ‘woot-face’ with the Wooters. I snuck into their photo despite my shirt belonging to another group there - the Five30runners (I’ve joined both it seems – and more on the way! I like the look of the Naked Runners’ shirts, watch this space):

Here’s a larger group shot of the whole multi-group running gang and an action shot along the way:

And here’s who I came home to after this wonderful run – the cat next door (we call him Me Meow but apparently his name is Frank or Neville) has decided to make himself at home. Nothing quite like a purring, friendly cat rubbing around your legs and paddling their paws. Again – feeling the love and will be sad to say goodbye!

There you have it: a busy week and also busy trying to pack up my things and finalise a few bits and pieces before I fly away on my travels. My own work has intentionally slowed down (having informed my clients that I will soon be MIA for a while) but I will be back with a bang in late February so all good. Arrghhh, well it is the silly season after all. Shit’s getting real. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is my last post pre-Christmas Day, so a very very merry Christmas to you all!!! I hope you all have a happy, healthy (of course! Everything in balance and moderation), safe, fun, beautiful, and loving time wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. All my love, Lou xx

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A Day Off

12/14/2015

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So, this morning was supposed to be a 25-30km trail run up at Heaton Gap with a few other awesome runners. However, I declined and didn't go in the end, instead choosing to party late into the night with the most wonderful woman and group of people (I am really going to miss them when I leave shortly). I am taking a much needed rest day today instead, and hope to get up there again soon. As a very wise, beautiful woman told me at the party last night: 'it's ok to take a day off and do nothing if you want'. Thanks K! I am definitely taking your words of wisdom almost literally today, and am sitting here with a healing, calming green tea as I write this (having had a very late start to the day after the very late night).
The rest of the week saw me do the usual few runs (one of them being a slightly longer 19km run on Monday - back to my usual coastal route, just so beautiful) and strength training (lots of bodypump was had last week). I also took part in a Christmas running relay on Tuesday night - the equivalent of a Christmas party for local running groups. This was a lot of fun, but boy, I am out of practice with sprinting around a track! Here's the before shot of the team I was running for:

Later in the week, I joined the guys over at Glenrock for another awesome 'Friday Fruitloops' session - this time with an added exciting bonus of it being a hill running masterclass, where Chris Hayes and Nick Marriage passed on their expert advice and teachings re: running up and down steep hills. This was wonderful! So informative and fun, and will help no end if I sign up to any more trail races in the future (having only got the Wuyuezhai 50km, Leh Gong Mountain Guizhou 100km, and Kedumba half marathon under my belt so far - I am keen to do MORE, so much more....). Thanks again guys! Here's the after shot from Friday night's session:

Well, I better get off the computer and crack on with packing up all my things - feels like it's so close now to my trip! I can almost taste it. I am literally buzzing with excitement about my trip in just two weeks' time now, which will see me head back to London, Devon and Shropshire in UK, and then on to Vietnam on the return journey back home to Newcastle in Oz. Just feels like I'm running out of time with regards to spending time with everyone here as I will then be relocating in February up to Queensland, but no doubt I will be back often to visit all these amazing folks who I love so dearly. You can't get rid of me that easily Newy! You may remember such times as when I did this to move to WA, or to NZ, or to China. It's time to head off for another exciting adventure into the unknown, but I will always come home to Newy (eventually). The difference this time is that I will be heading off completely independently, not as someone's girlfriend or someone's wife, but just as me. This is both a little daunting (as I don't know many people up in Queensland yet) but is also pretty damn exhilarating and exciting. And I'm hoping y'all will come and visit me in my new humble abode! I'll keep a constant look out for cheap flight deals for you excellent Novocastrians.

So, enjoy your Sunday one and all! I'll be back into the running tomorrow, but for now, I'm going to take K's advice again, and take it very easy (albeit a bit of light packing and computer work).

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The Week In Pictures... (Mainly)

12/7/2015

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Last week was SO wonderful! Had some very good quality times with some amazing people who I am blessed to have in my life. Blogger-fail = I did not take any photos of my time seeing T Swift with the bestie, but rest assured: it was awesome! So much fun. Less fun was then trying to get out of Olympic Park and get home. Then commenced almost a week (ok, 4 days - but 4 great quality days, where time seemed to slow down, amazingly enough, and I felt like we had all the time in the world) of coffee drinking with one good friend, then meeting my other dear friend who was over from UK for yet more coffee drinking, but also lots of delicious vegan and veggie food eating, tea drinking and chocolate eating, hiking in the mountains, chatting chatting chatting, and lots of laughing and reminiscing about things. Not much running as such as was had, albeit for a brief 12km ish run on our last morning in the mountains (had to get one run in whilst there) and a 10km Bay Run near my Uncle and Aunt's place in Sydney - love this run as (as corny as this must sound) I always feel closer to my dad knowing that he has also run this route on previous visits to Sydney. So, instead of rambling any further about said wonderful week, I thought I show you by the power of photos instead (if you're fb friends with me you'll probably want to skip this post as you'll have possibly already seen these):

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Today's the Day

Pre-Christmas Newy Love

A Day Off

The Week In Pictures... (Mainly)

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