"Shut up!" @ Date Night

These these last couple of weeks have been challenging. Last Sunday I walked for just over 5 hours with covering nearly 19 km. It was hot! I only made it 2/3 of the way back up the summit. Turning around was hard, I was drinking all my electrolytes, I had eaten...I couldn't work out why I had no energy. I turned around, blubbered as I walked back down and tried to find my car. This was the fun point, as I had to park over 2 km from my normal start. As I mentioned, I was nearly delirious and I thought I had lost my car. At one stage police came up the hill and I wanted to dive in front to have them carry me to my car. Obviously I made it, and did not manage my ice bath on getting home as I had to go to a school camp for leaders that afternoon. 

Since I have put this crazy challenge  'out there' I have had the most beautiful support and words from the least likely sources. I have found though that being in a positive mindset has allowed for me to be more open and responsive to positive people around me. I have started to write down quotes and the like as little reminders. As you can see by my student's quote. I was really anticipating something very deep and meaningful, as he is a very motivated, serious young man. When he told me that he just tells his mind to 'shut up!" I thought that was brilliant. 
My body on the other hand is holding out, however I have become friends with my roller and my physio. I know for a fact that Maxi will not have these issues and training will be quite last minute for him. My biggest enemy though, is my mind. It is a constant battle.  As I have been doing my long walks I have been listening to audio books, the latest have been Daring Greatly (Brene Brown)  and  GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (Angela Duckworth). Believe it or not I love these types of books and find the audio version so easy to follow when I am out for hours walking, plus they are good for my work! Thank you to an amazing past colleague and beautiful friend for these recommendations.
I am have also started to follow an amazing young Australian, that if I had my time again I would love to be in her shoes. Please check out Lucy and Wombat (a beautiful cattle dog) at www.tanglesandtail.com   

Off to do some training. I have asked my husband of a thousand years to join me to dinner there tonight. He couldn't think of anything worse than dinner at the gym...but my gym has a great restaurant! So date night it is!

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