Comme Ci, Comme Ça

Went to physio again on Monday morning and despite a great deal of stretching throughout the past week, my calf extension has not increased one bit on either leg.  Curses! I swear the more I stretch them, the tighter they get.  Am hoping that it is a "it gets worse before it gets better" type scenario otherwise I'll be on crutches by the weekend*

I tentatively asked her whether it would be possible for me to do the Hever Castle triathlon at the end of September.  She said no.  I winced and asked her whether I might, possibly, be able to do the Great South Run (10 miles) at the end of October.  She said hell no.  Curses!  I'm now starting to wonder whether I'll be able to do the London Marathon next year (assuming that I even get a place).  I shall worry about that if I get lucky in the ballot.

She did however give me the go ahead to start using the cross trainer again, so on Monday lunchtime I headed to the gym and did 25 minutes on it, followed by some strengthening exercises that the physio gave me, followed by yet more stretching.  And yesterday morning I woke up with even tighter calf muscles than ever before. WHHHHYYYYYYY?!

I also woke up feeling very pissed off.  At 4am.  I can't remember exactly what I was dreaming about, but whatever it was, I was quite incredibly cross about it.  Then I slept through my alarm and had to choose between washing my hair and walking the dog.  I dragged the somewhat ungrateful mutt around the block and got ready for work.  Got into the car and the leaky sunroof pissed rain water all over my head.  At that point felt glad that I had not chosen to do my hair.  Got to work and my drink bottle exploded all over my desk. WHY GOD? WHHHHHHHHYYYYY?!  To make matters even worse, I felt quite ropey all day yesterday - I've had a cold floating around me for ages and I can't quite seem to get rid of it.  Yesterday started with a sore throat and by the time I went home it had progressed to a sinus throbbing stinker of a head cold.  Yesterday was not a good day, cheered up only by rereading this old blog post which made me cry actual tears of laughter.

And yet today I feel pretty much back to normal again in terms of the cold, although throat is still a little scratchy.  Don't know what that's about.  I took Murdoch to the Dog House for our morning walk and as we walked to meet the rest of the pack, the unthinkable happened.  As we reached the edge of the field, Murdoch caught sight of a deer and he was off!  Full pelt!  I've never seen him chase something like that before, usually he sees a rabbit, goes after it a bit halfheartedly, loses sight of it and gives up.  Meh.  But this time he was hot on the trail and determined to get that deer.  Hot pursuit Flash!  Not entirely sure what he would have done with it, bemuzzled as he was, but after a few minutes of crashing through the woods, he emerged, looking quite pleased with himself.  Naughty boy had to go straight on the lead. That'll learn him**  

I meant to go straight to the swimming pool for a quick pre-work swim, but forgot my wallet and once I'd gone home to retrieve it, I didn't have enough time.  Might go after work instead.  In any event I went to the gym at lunchtime again but had even less time than usual to workout because of an illtimed callback from my pet insurance company.  Useless bastards couldn't process a claim properly if lives depended on it.  Christ, sometimes they probably do depend on it. Awful.  Anyway, I did 20 mins on the bike and then stretched out my calf muscles.  They feel much looser now; long may that continue.  

You may notice the renewed enthusiasm for exercise.  This is partly because I really needed to get on track and partly a panicked reaction to the fact that my holiday in Madeira is actually a week earlier than I had thought.  So it's now only 3 weeks away.  I am therefore involved in a frantic "Jeeeeeeeeeeezuz I've got to fit my giant ass into a bikini soon" desperate spiral of DOOM.  Well I may not be able to make myself a size ten in the time available, but I can sure as heck drop a few pounds between now and then so I don't frighten the other tourists ("Looooook mummy a beached whale" "Don't be unkind sweetie, that's just a giant fat lady").

*Possibly exaggerated for comic effect

** It won't