14 Weeks to go...

Did I say cold last week? Well this morning plunged to new depths!

I'm impressed with myself that I even made it out for a run this morning, considering another hectic weekend and the temperature differential between under and out of the covers.

But I did. I even had flashes of an idea to buy a pair of gloves for future runs, but now I realise that would be a bit silly. I warmed up pretty quickly and there's plenty of sunshine on my route.

The 5km (again) was fairly straight forward. I feel as though I've conquered the last few hundred meters up the hill - with the aid of an imaginary magnet situated at the top of said hill exerting it's force and pulling me up. Isn't it bizarre how the mind can trick the body?

I borrowed a book on sports nutrition from a bloke at work. I was particularly interested in a trick to solve my problem of running first thing in the morning and not having any time for a normal snack to get into my system to give me some much needed fuel.

Well apparently my solution is dextrose - a type of sugar which has a very high glycaemic index (i.e. it converts into something usable very quickly) and if taken in liquid will be absorbed very quickly too. It's used in brewing (which is nice) so I'll pay a visit to the local home brew shop and purchase a bag.

I'm hoping that it'll give me some extra zip and start to see some improvement in my week morning runs. I then hope that'll give me the momentum I need to finally start the Sunday longer runs. This weekend was another failure in that department. I just can't get out of the pit early enough and Shirl and Lian are going through a non-church phase so no opportunity to go then either.

I also picked up a local contour map to try to figure out some flat routes. Haven't had a chance to study it yet though.

On other news, I started my next mini-project at home. We have a sunroom off the kitchen which is basically stuck on the original external wall of the house, therefore the bare bricks are visible. So we had the idea to render the brick-work. However, being a perfectionist I realistically doubted my ability to get an even finish with a trowel - so we went for the next option, which over here is called 'bagging'. It's the application of a creamy consistency mortar with a piece of hessian sacking (hence the name) or more commonly these days a sponge is used. It just means that getting a flat finish is not necessary - in fact it's designed to give a rough finish.
So I first decided to fill in the (quite deep) gaps between the bricks with mortar to bring that out to the level of the brick face. The reason for this is because I figured that if I try to 'bag' it in one operation, the deeper mortar at the brick joints will dry slower than the mortar on the face and cause cracks. So that first step was finished on Saturday.

Next weekend will give me a chance to finish the 'bagging'. Then we'll paint it with a bright, light colour. We'll finish the room off with a laminate (wood look) floor to get rid of the old tatty carpet. Should be finished by end of May - easy!

Life goes on...