Tough Mudder

As I was trawling the interwebs the other day (well, facebook), I discovered a little ad on the side called Tough Mudder. It looked interesting so I clicked the link...and fell in love. If by love you mean instant excitement.

Tough Mudder is billed as 'probably the toughest event on the planet'. I don't believe it's that' tough, but I'm sure we'll see. It involves a 12 mile (which equates to 19 kms...eep!) obstacle course with things like mud pits, monkey bars, dives into icy water and other vaguely masochistic challenges. Awesome. Actually, looking at some of the individual challenges has made me wonder what the hell I was thinking! Particularly since it will be two weeks before our wedding!



BUT it does tie in nicely with some of my challenges - eg one of the requirements is to be able to do at least 6 chin-ups and at least 25 push-ups. So I can think of it as epic way of achieving my goals, yes?

I was hoping that my friend Anna would do it with me, but she said hell no. But I live in hope! (although I didn't realise it was 12 miles rather than 12 kms...this does make quite a difference).

Now to buy me some kettle bells or at least a dumb bell bar. Good times ahead! :-D

30 before 30

Hello! Finally I have time to revisit my 30 before 30 list and see what I still need to do in the next 3.5 months.


1. Go to a new country with a different culture and language

2. Learn another language

3. Run a half marathon

4. Learn to surf

5. Learn to sew (properly), as in take a sewing course.

6. Climb a palm tree

7. Go scuba diving - booked in for this year! 

8. Swim with sharks - half done, if you consider snorkelling with sharks in Sea World as swimming with sharks.

9. Travel around Australia - half done - I'm slowly making my way around, but I haven't seen the outback yet. 

10. Go to Tasmania

11. Go skiing

12. See snow
13. Go to the Amazon - half done. I've been to the Amazon Basin but not the actual Amazon River. 

14. Get a degree

15. See the full moon over water (ideally a beach)

16. Live inner city

17. Go camping under the stars

18. See Macchu Picchu

19. Attend a High Tea, preferably with my mum.

20. Go to a gallery

21. Go to the Museum (I have been to museums, but not the Melbourne Museum...)

22. Do the Oxfam Trail Walk

23. Have a stall at a market

24. Go to Canada

25. Buy a brand new car

26. Do Bikram or Hot Yoga

27. Do 10 chin ups/pull ups

28. See Rammstein Live

29. Go to New Zealand

30. Go to the Melbourne Comedy Festival

I thought I was doing pretty well actually, but I've only done 16 out of the 30...crap! Some of them have been half done, such as swimming with sharks and going to the Amazon, but they're still ones that aren't completed yet. I have plans on cage diving with sharks in the future, and whenever I see pictures of the Amazon I have pangs of longing so clearly that isn't finished yet. 

Some of these I haven't completed and know I won't. For instance I know I won't get to Canada before I'm 30, and that's ok. Oxfam Trail Walk I physically won't be able to do since it's next year and even then I won't be able to do it. I would prefer to climb a palm tree in a tropical island paradise, which will most likely be Thailand for our honeymoon. I'm not really craft anymore so I can't imagine having a craft store, unless it's for old clothes or a glorified garage sale. Learning to surf and taking a sewing course have been on my list every year for a good 5 years or so, probably longer for surfing. Since we're saving for the wedding I don't think they'll happen this year (again!). 

Overall, there's still a good couple of things that I can do in the next few months to knock off the list: 

High Tea with mum

Visit the Melbourne Museum

Bikram or Hot yoga

10 chin-ups or pull-ups (although I'm not 100% convinced about that. But I reckon I should be able to get up to 5. Can't I?!).

Realistically...that's not too bad. I can knock the first two off in a weekend easy. Sweet! 

But one day I will get back to South America. I will boat or canoe along the Amazon, and I will see these guys, the Amazon River Dolphin, or Boto. Even though they look a little freaky, one of my favourite memories was waking up one morning to see my dad (who worked night shift and had just finished work) watching a documentary on the Amazon. In the river was in flood, and there were dolphins frolicking in the water between the trees. Dolphins! In a forest! Fucking awesome. 

Image via Kevin Schafer @ Nat Geo

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.