Keep on running

Today I went for a run. This is the first time since the speed waddle for the Macau race that I have been running.

I probably didn't pick the best time. 5pm, on a searingly hot summer day, and down and up a rather steep hill. I didn't go very far, or fast. But, for 30 minutes in the evening sun I plodded one foot in front of the other, my favourite running music blaring into my ears, and realised that this was the last hurdle. I am now doing everything I did pre-baby. It only took 8 months, but I am really proud, if a little achey, tonight.

TV or not TV, that is the question

Only have I just managed to deaden the guilt of (pick one, two or any of the following), BPA bottles, pollution, going back to work, breast feeding, starting to exercise and spending time away from Eve etc etc etc and up pops a new one in the form of the TV.

There is no doubt that, even at 17 weeks (as she turned yesterday) the TV has an allure for Eve. In the way of Boys and their toys, when we moved to this flat the Boy ditched the old, and perfectly servicable, TV and bought a flat screen black behemouth that stares aggressively at me from the wall. In the great scheme of TVs in HK, and we once ended up at a colleague's place where the boys marveled at the TV and surround sound while the women shouted over the noise, it is pretty inoffensive but it still dominates one wall. We rarely have the TV on when Eve is around. A side street to my main guilt about not spending every waking hour with Eve is the idea that when we do she should have our full attention.

However, sometimes it is on when she is around and she is magnetically drawn to the moving, colourful pictures and sounds that it emits. Whereas she is normally a chirpy, squirmy, chatting thing - when she is in front of the TV she is silent and still. For this reason I can see why people use it to babysit their babies, but it also slightly horrifies me that even at this age it has such a behavioural effect.

Therefore, we are pretty much sticking to the no TV rule until such a time that her language and attention is good enough to actually interact rather than just stare.

The exception to this is sport. Earlier this week she watched the extra time of the Chelsea vs. Liverpool champions league game with me, and yesterday Man United thrashing West Ham with the Boy. She will, of course, be watching the Olympic rowing come the summer.

Racing the Bump

With only six weeks until the due date of the Bump, I should probably be taking things easy. But then this is me we are talking about and so I found myself at 6.30am this morning standing in Macau stadium with about 1,000 other people about to do something, well, all a bit silly really.

It wasn't the toughest race I have ever done (that is reserved for the 31 mile rowing marathon I won in the UK), and rapidly walking 5km is something I would have normally scoffed at. However, I find myself sitting on the sofa now, next to the Boy who did the half marathon, feeling really rather proud of myself. I beat the time I was hoping for by about 5 mins, and considerably faster than the speed I managed on my very first training waddle. I also beat about 100 other women in my category - which does rather beg the question of how they managed to go even slower than me - and my support coach, J, was very glad not to need the various hospital phone numbers he had researched prior to the race.

It was, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the more challenging races I have done just because I proved to myself that I could do it, even at 34 weeks pregnant when most normal women are lying around the house with their feet up.

Of course now I can barely move with an entirely new injury, which seems to be some form of impact injury on my pelvis and is making moving very painful and difficult (well, if you pummel a bone with 24 pounds repeatedly for 45 mins then it's not surprising that it's going to hurt). However, Bump is unaffected and happily doing her usual gymnastics.

As an aside, as I was on the ferry on my way back I was pondering what my next training goal should be. J suggested that I had quite a major event to train for in about 6 weeks.

Wacky races

I am off to Macau this weekend for my 5k waddle, so as all good athletes should I am tapering my training (i.e. waddle distance) so I just went for a short waddle before work.

To find that the gauntlet has been thrown down by the mad 90 year old woman with the flailing arms. Clearly annoyed that my sporting prowess and training efforts mean I now walk faster than she does she has started to walk backwards instead. Arms still waving madly about.

I find myself worryingly drawn to compete...