My favourite place

This weekend was a beautiful sunny weekend. The kind of weekend where breathing is a joy and you're happy to be alive.

I went to my favourite place in the world for a hike by myself, which I need to do every so often or else I go mental. It involved getting up before dawn to take the dog for a walk and then off I went to the Dandenongs. As tends to happen when I'm at the hills, I was grinning like an absolute fool and almost skipping at a couple of points. Yes, I am a hippy at heart and love my special place immensely. Particularly when I see wallabies just hanging out at the side of the track calmly eying me off! Unfortunately she wasn't calm enough to stay and let me photo her, but, you know. We totally bonded! ;)

After realising that I'm fitter than I thought and could hike a lot faster up hills I never used to be able to, I thought I would take a new track since I had the time. And I'm glad I did because I found a beautiful spring glade!

Even though I hate pretty much everything about the Twilight movie, this reminded me of the clearing in the woods in that movie with some tiny little blue flowers. And even though the air smelt a little like onions because of all of the onion plants, it made it look gorgeous and lush. And you can hold you nose.

Here's to frolicking in the ferns :)

Music to run to

Whenever I am feeling a little shitty, I like to listen to Disturbed. Whenever I am feeling awesome, I like to listen to Disturbed.

When I first started running I had just discovered Disturbed, and have very fond memories of running up my little hill in my pink t-shirt, most likely with a pink face to match.

This is one of my favourite songs: Indestructible

http://youtu.be/aWxBrI0g1kE

Yesterday I was very irrate on the way to work thinking of someone who was irritating me intensely, so I decided I would leave work on time so I could race home and go for a run while there was still some daylight, and therefore WITH MUSIC!! So I did, and it was good. Although I decided not to listen to Disturbed. What music do YOU like to run to?

Sunny Sunday

What a weekend! Friday night silliness dancing to daggy hits with old and new colleagues and random friends (Savage Garden? Don't mind if I do!), cheese for dinner (proof that there is a God), long sleep ins, even longer runs and cooking from scratch...great weekend!

This week I started my 100 push ups challenge. Initially I started doing them on my knees girly style, but when it came time to do the first bunch I felt bad and thought I should start it properly doing proper push-ups. But I only made seven. Seven?!? Not cool. So I started from there and did the challenge the first night, and then later some chin-up preps at the local park on the walk with the dog.

Despite setting a reminder, the next work out didn't really happen. In my defense, I had work functions on and things...and, you know, I'm lame. So today, I started again! And it was good. Although I also realised that I have an app on my phone to do exactly that, so I did a double workout to make up for being crap this week.

I also went for a beautiful 20km run with the dog, off lead the entire time. It was a gorgeous spring day and we ran along a local river and kept on going. It started getting wilder and wilder, which is phenomenal since we were only 15-20kms away from the city. Cookie cooperated well and all in all, life was good. I keep on meaning to take photos of my runs but my Cardio Trainer app doesn't allow photos - I'd need to stop the run to take it and start again. Which I'm not too cool with.

One of the highlights from the weekend was also this guy in someone's front yard:



This yard also had a zoo of other (more traditional) gnomes, and a 'cantankerous cat' who was actually quite lovely. A bit more interesting than your standard grass and flowers set-up hey?

New Challenge: 100 Push ups

Since I did the half marathon, I have been trying to figure out my next challenge. I'm not sure if I want to keep doing random half marathons (well, I do, but I really need a racing buddy otherwise it's boring for the people who are patiently cheering me on from the sides). I could try a full marathon, but that would involve more half maras first. So we'll see how it all goes. I'm still loving going for long runs, particularly with this amazing Spring weather we are having here in beautiful Melbourne *love*

However. I discovered an awesome new blog (via Pinterest of all places. That Pinterest...will it's awesome ever end?), called (never home) maker. It's about a couple who love running and eating. They are seriously my kind of people. It's part food blog, part running and fitness blog. So of course I love it.

One of the things that Ashley has done is the 100 Push ups program. As it sounds, it's a program to get you to do 100 push ups in 6 weeks. My upper arm strength has been crappola since I stopped going to the gym, so this is a good kick up the bum.

I did the initial test and did 32 (girly-on-the-knees) push ups, so now I can start training. Once I can do 100 girly ones I'll start on the proper ones.

Hooray for new goals! And hooray for Spring!

Source: Dr Google

The most amazing necklace

I saw this pic on Facebook. Unfortunately the necklace is not for sale on her website http://www.beckettstudio.net/, but... wow... just wow. I am in love.