May Review & June Goals

It seems like a bit of a monthly update on the blog at the moment, but that’s life and once June is done with, I should have a bit more time for well, life! More on that in the minute, but what about May I hear you ask?

This missive comes to you from Weymouth, where we’ve once again been spending half term week. It’s been lovely being here again, I just love being by the sea, and whilst the weather hasn’t been as hot as last week, the last couple of days have been sunny and it’s been glorious along the coast.

During May, Paul and I also travelled to Gothenburg for the weekend. To say things didn’t really go to plan would probably be understating it! The purpose of the trip originally was to run the Gothenburg half marathon – the world’s largest with around 65000 runners! I’d planned to combine this with a work trip, flying out to Stockholm earlier in the week and then getting the train to Gothenburg to spend a day in the office before Paul flew out to join me. Firstly, we’ve both been injured – my hamstring and Paul’s ankle, and neither of us had been able to run since early March. Then a last minute travel freeze at work meant that my trip was cancelled (despite the flights being non-refundable!), so I ended up having to book my own flights. I was feeling a bit grumpy about the whole thing, but we actually ended up having a nice weekend, it’s a lovely city and it was nice to spend some time exploring rather than my usual whistle stop visit. The weather was hot and sunny and we did visit the race expo for a bit of post-injury inspiration. I’m slightly terrified by the thought of my credit card bill this month though…

Things are improving on the injury front slightly, I’ve been given the ok by the physio to do some gentle running, so I’m just starting out with some 15-20 early morning runs. So far so good, the leg actually feels ok, but my back is bothering me a lot at the moment. We’re still not really sure what’s going on, it’s possible the hamstring pain is referred from the back via the nerve, so the physio has been working on that quite a bit, but it’s been disrupting my sleep a fair bit which isn’t great. Still, I’m enjoying running again and I’ve been doing some strength stuff which is also good.

So how did the goals pan out?

Ditch the alcohol – er, no. I didn’t drink at all until Gothenburg, but I did whilst we were away and I have in Weymouth too. But I don’t generally drink more than once or twice a week anyway, so that isn’t a big deal.
Work out regularly – strength at least 3 times a week and cardio at least twice – more or less, I’ve been enjoying cycling to work and getting the weights out again!
Get back to eating more fresh unprocessed food – pretty good whilst at home, less so on holiday. Have been trying some new recipes
Finish the unpacking – not bad. There is quite a bit we can’t unpack (e.g. books – no bookshelves at the moment!) and things it’s not worth unpacking before we have work done, but we’ve done ok
Get an architect in to get going on our house plans – yes! We’ve had a couple come round for an initial chat and we’ve just engaged one of them who we felt got what we hope to achieve. First sketches should be ready in a couple of weeks time, which is very exciting!

The big focus for June is going to be finishing the second year of my Nutritional Therapy course. I’ve got the final two assessments to be submitted in June, plus an assessment of my consultation skills, which I must pass to progress to year 3. It’s been a tough and demanding year and this month will be no different, but then I have a couple of months off over the summer to relax before my third and final year!

I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself to achieve anything else this month as that’s going to take up a lot of my time and energy! I will continue to focus on eating well and exercising, which are vital for me to feel energised and help manage my stress levels. The only house goal for this month is to get someone out to look at the TV aerial as it doesn’t work and we’re getting a bit bored of on demand only! Finally, there are one or two things I need to get organised with my finances, nothing major, but I do need to do them. June’s goals are: