Sunday, November 24, 2013

Swims, gyms, spins and granola wins!

While the world continues to spin under my feet, I have been trying to keep going and stay focused. Bloody hard I have to say. BUT! Today's harbour swim proved to be good for the mind, body and soul. A little laughter and fun amongst friends always helps and while I was worried I would swim in circles, I actually managed a half way decent swim and was able to hang on to Roberto's feet a couple of times. The spinning sensations were hardly noticeable in the water and I had a chunk of blu-tak in my affected ear so may be that helped too.

After we got home I had a crack at making my own granola mix. Wow what a mix! Oh to hell with it, I'm going to be a typical blogger 'if I'm not already' and write down my recipe.

I x bag of summer fruits dry muesli - Uncle Tobys
Raw nut mix of slivered almonds, cashews and macadamias
Chia seeds
pumpkin seeds
dried pear pieces
shredded coconut

to the dry mix I added a melted mix of 3 parts agave nectar and 1 part Manuka honey and approx. 30mls of melted coconut oil. This was enough to coat the dry ingredients. I had turned on the oven and set it to 180 degrees and the setting was for toaster.

Well, I got kicked out of the kitchen at this point and Big Gazza took over. He was obviously scared I would go horribly wrong, set fire to the kitchen or cut my hand off or something. But he then went about putting down thin layers of the mix of baking paper and toasting them for about 10mins before stirring. I think it took him 30mins or 3 turns per batch and I was happy to let him take the lead.

He lay the mix out and when it cooled I tipped it into a bowl and to the toasted mix I added dried blue berries, Goji berries, cranberries, and Inca berries......I love Inca berries.

Oh yeah baby, for dinner I had a bowl of the mix with almond milk. It wasn't too sweet, but crunchy and full of flavour.

WINNER!

I also made some egg mix muffins for breakfasts. Man I have this sorted.
I even cleaned up after myself. I can do no wrong.

Then we headed out to the gym for a legs work out. Hit the squats, presses, curls, hammies, extensions. Feeling good after adding a little more weight this week. My thinking is if I hit the legs on a Sunday night hard, hopefully by Saturday long ride I can walk again and turn the legs over. It's a theory. I'll get back to you shortly on how I go.

Also, back to the doctors on Tuesday for a check up on the ear and a third opinion on the BPPV.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Let the world stop spinning........

I can't believe it has been 2 months since I last hit the keyboard. Lots has happened. We stepped out of routine fuelled life for 4 weeks and celebrated our 20 year anniversary in Hawaii and Canada. So many spectacular places in the world. With satisfaction I can say that we sucked every memory, every possible experience out of this trip and relished in the flavours. From go to woe it was fast paced, punctuated by moments of pause. Every day presented something new to try, see or do. From renewing our vows to swimming with manta rays, cheering on the worlds best athletes to cheering on my own husband as he completed the 50mile ultra run to climbing a mountain in the snow. Incredible. I am so incredibly lucky. I have my health and the space within my life to do this.

Kona Manta Rays


I relaxed. Prior to the trip, I had a couple of weeks of ARGHHHHH! Possibly because I could taste the holiday the closer it got to me so that the pressure of emptying the in-tray was getting to me. But I had a 'uh oh' moment when riding with Megz and the AP Crew one morning. I just wasn't having fun. I could not find my happy thought. I tried to sing (literally) but no words would come. That's a worry team! I turned for home after 12kms of riding waving to Megz that I needed to go or there would be tears.

A trip to see Coach and a treatment and a chat always good for the body, mind and soul. "I think you need a break Sammi." yeah Coach, I think you may just be right. Gave myself permission to stop, gave myself a day off, ok 4 weeks. Sweet.



Rainbow Lake - 16km hike

 
Returning home its back to the bump. ok, I can deal with work etc and off we go again. Big Gazza is fired up after being bitten hard by the ultra running bug. Me, I'm struggling a little to get going after gaining some weight (5 KILOS!!!) Don't anyone panic just yet.....too LATE. And I have a case of Vertigo. Yep, I need the world to stop spinning so darn fast please, literally. It's making it very hard to remain in the upright position, in fact laying down in bed and rolling is waking me up from my sleep with the vertigo.
  
Big Gazza on the 2nd lap
                                                  

So that's me. caught up. Next challenge on the horizon, get fit (yeah I know you have heard it all before), get back to race weight, Yeah yeah yeah and have fun at Canberra 70.3 with the Onion Man, Slippery and Big Gazza. Not sure who else from the Crew is going.