I am about to go away for a couple of weeks on a much needed holiday, but I feel I should write a brief update before I go. After all, those with a keen eye (or who look at my facebook), will realise that we reached our target of £3100 last week. Of course we are not stopping now and have increased our target to £4000, but I do feel a sense of relief being able to go on holiday and not worry about the fundraising side of things.
We held a quiz at work last week and it seemed to go really well. I was stressed to hell and wouldn't have got through it without the aid of some of my colleagues who came to my rescue when I realised just how disorganised I was (I hadn't considered food until the day before), but much fun was had by all (mostly) and it was worth all the stress to get home and realise we were only £60 off our target. One of my favourite people then sponsored us £60 in order to take us to the magic £3100.
Fitness can now take complete priority, which I admit I'm worried about, especially as I'm about to go on holiday and therefore not go to the gym for 2 weeks. Having said that, I am clearly getting stronger because I carried heavy things on the weekend and was proud of myself for my 'butchness', and of course I will be carrying my rucksack around and walking lots while we're in Munich/Zagreb. I keep saying I will keep doing press ups and squats each day while I'm away, but I'm probably kidding myself there...
See you in a couple of weeks. Feel free to carry on sponsoring us while I'm away.
Monday 24 June 2013
Monday 17 June 2013
wish you were here
My week so far without Katie has been unrelenting. The next few days promise no let up whatsoever.
Last Tuesday I met up again with Tom, the Personal Trainer, who gave me a programme to help build up my strength. From now on the plan is that I do circuits twice a week (currently involved press ups, pull ups, squats, the plank, step ups etc.) and if everything goes according to plan, a third visit would be spent doing cardio. Of course, on top of that I also have to keep walking up lots of hills and preparing as best I can for September.
All things considered, I think my first session went well. I woke the next morning to my entire body screaming out in pain, which I take as a good sign. They may be simple exercises, but they are exercises I've not really done before, so I was always going to suffer. Life got in the way for the rest of the week and I didn't have plans to return to the gym until the weekend. Sadly, the heavy rain meant I got no hill walking done, and a pulled muscle (crossing a road outside a pub on Saturday night) meant that my plan to go to the gym on Sunday morning had to be abandoned.
I went after work today and managed two circuits (minus the squats which were just hurting my leg too much), before I felt my leg really starting to pull when I began the third circuit with step-ups, so I decided to quit while I was ahead and call it a day. My plan is to take it easy tomorrow and try again on Wednesday. It's hard to find a balance between keeping up the momentum and not making things worse... that's something I have always struggled with.
The good thing is, a lot of the exercises don't require any equipment, so I can do some of them at home, even when I don't have time to go to the gym. It's handy that my flatmate is so short, because I can use the stool from the kitchen she needs to reach food in the cupboards to do step ups etc.
I've been spending a lot of time preparing for the quiz. It looks like we will have about 70 people there (if everyone who has said they are coming shows up), so it promises to be a good night. With a little help from my flatmate I have been writing the questions over the last few days. I've also procured a trophy, and a small prize for the best team name, so all I need now is a prize for the winners. And of course to buy some food for the evening. I am fairly stressed about it, but flatmate is keeping me as calm as possible. I will be glad to have Katie back on Thursday (D-Day), as she is far better at organising than me and I sort of need her to take over.
Once the quiz is done, my focus will switch to a little R&R, as I head off on a much needed fortnight's holiday. I imagine there will be plenty of walking done during that time (4 nights in Munich, 4 nights on Zagreb), and of course I can be good and keep up with the press ups etc (yeah, right).
88 days to go. On the weekend I started to give thought to equipment, and I invested in some of the more important items I will be needed - a waterproof coat and a rucksack. In the next couple of weeks I will share with you our kit-list, because as much as possible I would prefer to beg, steal, or borrow most of the other stuff we apparently need. If you have any of those items and wouldn't mind lending them to me (or Katie) for a while, then please do drop me a line. It would be hugely appreciated.
You know what else we appreciate? YOUR SPONSORSHIP. Go on, you know you want to...
www.bmycharity.com/twoblondesonemountain
Sunday 9 June 2013
wonderful, glorious
Less than 100 days to go until D-Day and things are hotting up. Since my last update, we've been incredibly busy with training and fundraising, and I am excited to announce that we have surpassed our first target (sort of).
Katie and I are putting our own money in to cover the cost of expenses like flights and accommodation, so that every penny people donate to the trek goes directly to JHT. We've been doing this bit by bit over the last few months and we each have another £200 to put in next month. This means that while our running total currently stands at £2732, with our final payment included we actually have gone past £3100. I don't think either of us expected to have raised so much with 3 months still to go, but we don't intend to stop now. We want to raise as much as we can for the Trust, and with many people still promising to sponsor us closer to the time, hopefully we can keep the momentum going and raise a lot more.
Our next fundraising event is a quiz we are holding at work on the 20th June. Ms Motivator is off on her holidays this week however, so I shall be running the show on this one, which is rather terrifying seeing as I rely on Katie to be the organised, sensible one. But as soon as I'm done here my plan is to get the quiz written, and the week ahead will be spent chasing colleagues for confirmation about whether they are submitting their teams.
Mostly, however, my focus has now switched to the trek itself. Last weekend my flatmate got us lost on a walk and we ended up 'climbing' far more hills than we had intended. My legs got one hell of a workout, and while we only covered 13.4 miles in total, a lot of steep slopes were involved and my legs were aching for a couple of days. I also got rather sunburnt, and just generally felt quite sorry for myself all week. Then of course, there was the short amount of time when we were actually a little lost and found ourselves in a field littered with broken remains of clay pigeon shooting, clearly having blundered into some psycho farmers land. We were certain that if we were discovered he would have no qualms about shooting us (or setting dogs on us), so we retraced our steps sharpish and finally got back on the right track.
Despite all of this, it was an absolutely beautiful walk and I had such a good day, it was almost a shame when it ended (though not really because I thought I was going to die my legs were so tired). We even stopped off in Prestbury on the way home and had a carvery. What more could you ask for on a Sunday?
Last Tuesday I met with a Personal Trainer at my gym and we discussed what help I was looking for with my training. I'm meeting him again this Tuesday to get a programme, so I'm feeling good about that. Tom is lovely, by the way, and when he heard that I was doing this for charity he very sweetly gave me an amazing discount, which I have added to our fundraising total. I'll let you know how I get on with him this week, but first impressions tell me that Tom rules.
I was a little slack with training this week (it took a day or two to recover from last weekend's walk, then I had a busy week of 'things' to do), so I went for a walk on Friday after work, followed by another walk yesterday with flatmate and Katie. Katie and I have decided that we will try to train together more regularly, attempting to walk together at least every other weekend. Of course, this won't always be possible because she's on her hols this week, then I go away the week after, but one day we will actually manage to walk again.
Yesterday's walk was a little more eventful than the norm. We had an encounter with a pissed off landowner (flatmate has beautifully told him to 'go fuck himself', Katie and I awkwardly kept silent - I wish I could stand up for myself like Jo does), and we spent probably coming on for half an hour trying to rescue a poor sheep (Katie named him Gerald), who had got himself trapped in a fence. Of this, I have photos, here:
You will be pleased to know that while we didn't manage to free Gerry ourselves (despite a sterling effort by all involved), we then bravely (or not so bravely in the case of Jo and I who were nervous of dogs, Katie was the truest hero in this scenario) went up to a house to find out who the sheep belonged to so someone could go to the poor things rescue. After our encounter with the knob-head landowner, we walked back via the same path and were relieved to see that Gerry had been set free.
This morning I finished off the week with a visit to the gym. It was pretty uneventful, there were no psycho farmers or trapped sheep, so nothing to report really.
Another week is over, only 96 days until we leave. You know the score by now, if you haven't sponsored us yet, please do so by popping over to our fundraising page here.
Katie and I are putting our own money in to cover the cost of expenses like flights and accommodation, so that every penny people donate to the trek goes directly to JHT. We've been doing this bit by bit over the last few months and we each have another £200 to put in next month. This means that while our running total currently stands at £2732, with our final payment included we actually have gone past £3100. I don't think either of us expected to have raised so much with 3 months still to go, but we don't intend to stop now. We want to raise as much as we can for the Trust, and with many people still promising to sponsor us closer to the time, hopefully we can keep the momentum going and raise a lot more.
Our next fundraising event is a quiz we are holding at work on the 20th June. Ms Motivator is off on her holidays this week however, so I shall be running the show on this one, which is rather terrifying seeing as I rely on Katie to be the organised, sensible one. But as soon as I'm done here my plan is to get the quiz written, and the week ahead will be spent chasing colleagues for confirmation about whether they are submitting their teams.
Mostly, however, my focus has now switched to the trek itself. Last weekend my flatmate got us lost on a walk and we ended up 'climbing' far more hills than we had intended. My legs got one hell of a workout, and while we only covered 13.4 miles in total, a lot of steep slopes were involved and my legs were aching for a couple of days. I also got rather sunburnt, and just generally felt quite sorry for myself all week. Then of course, there was the short amount of time when we were actually a little lost and found ourselves in a field littered with broken remains of clay pigeon shooting, clearly having blundered into some psycho farmers land. We were certain that if we were discovered he would have no qualms about shooting us (or setting dogs on us), so we retraced our steps sharpish and finally got back on the right track.
Despite all of this, it was an absolutely beautiful walk and I had such a good day, it was almost a shame when it ended (though not really because I thought I was going to die my legs were so tired). We even stopped off in Prestbury on the way home and had a carvery. What more could you ask for on a Sunday?
Last Tuesday I met with a Personal Trainer at my gym and we discussed what help I was looking for with my training. I'm meeting him again this Tuesday to get a programme, so I'm feeling good about that. Tom is lovely, by the way, and when he heard that I was doing this for charity he very sweetly gave me an amazing discount, which I have added to our fundraising total. I'll let you know how I get on with him this week, but first impressions tell me that Tom rules.
I was a little slack with training this week (it took a day or two to recover from last weekend's walk, then I had a busy week of 'things' to do), so I went for a walk on Friday after work, followed by another walk yesterday with flatmate and Katie. Katie and I have decided that we will try to train together more regularly, attempting to walk together at least every other weekend. Of course, this won't always be possible because she's on her hols this week, then I go away the week after, but one day we will actually manage to walk again.
Yesterday's walk was a little more eventful than the norm. We had an encounter with a pissed off landowner (flatmate has beautifully told him to 'go fuck himself', Katie and I awkwardly kept silent - I wish I could stand up for myself like Jo does), and we spent probably coming on for half an hour trying to rescue a poor sheep (Katie named him Gerald), who had got himself trapped in a fence. Of this, I have photos, here:
initially, we were all a little cautious
but it wasn't long til we made friends
You will be pleased to know that while we didn't manage to free Gerry ourselves (despite a sterling effort by all involved), we then bravely (or not so bravely in the case of Jo and I who were nervous of dogs, Katie was the truest hero in this scenario) went up to a house to find out who the sheep belonged to so someone could go to the poor things rescue. After our encounter with the knob-head landowner, we walked back via the same path and were relieved to see that Gerry had been set free.
This morning I finished off the week with a visit to the gym. It was pretty uneventful, there were no psycho farmers or trapped sheep, so nothing to report really.
Another week is over, only 96 days until we leave. You know the score by now, if you haven't sponsored us yet, please do so by popping over to our fundraising page here.
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