How is it that a sweet potato is so much better then a normal potato? Like soooo much better then a normal potato!! Dinner tonight (which I don't think my brother was too keen on...no meat) was half a sweet potato with parley, sundried tomato's, olives and feta. Holy sweet potato, it was good.
In my training group, clean eating is always a big topic of conversation. There is one guy who trains with us who loves sweet potato...I'm talking eating it 2-3 times a day. The orange colour of the sweet potato is due to the beta-carotene in the vegetable. This guy was telling us he went to the doctors one day and his doctor had said wow your looking very tan at the moment (middle of winter). Have you been on holidays or had a fake tan...no to both.
So he was sent for a blood test to make sure it wasn't Jaundice. The results came back and his levels of beta-carotene were almost 200x the normal levels. His love for sweet potato had turned him orange! Needless to say this is now a running joke which is brought up almost weekly!
I was invited to my friends end of season volleyball cocktail party which happened to be masquerade. I knew I fair way in advance that I would be going to this party, but just didn't have the time to sort out what dress I was wearing and therefore finding a mask to match my dress...kind of essential for a masquerade!
So the night before I chose my dress and decided I was going to try and paint my mask onto my face. I have been to a few masquerades before I could remember how sick of my mask I got, ending up taking it off very early into the night. Problem solved! When I paint it onto my face, I will forget I'm even wearing a mask and still be 'in character' all night!
I was up pretty late trying to work out how I was going to do this and tried many different colours and ideas, and by about 11pm I was pretty sure I knew how I was going to do it, but hadn't quite finished it yet. So it was going to be all down to what I could put together on the night. This photo is the final product and I was pretty happy with it! And like I thought, I completely forget I even had this on my face, so managed to keep my mask on all night!
These shoes I have bought for the up coming Tough Mudder, which I am participating in. After talking to a few people, they have recommended light weight trail running shoes which have grip on the bottom to help battle the mud. So I bought this pair of New Balance Minimus's.
Not only is it new shoes that I get excited about, its the whole experience of buying them. On the same day that I went out to get these shoes, my brother was hosting Silly Sunday and Mad Monday to celebrate the end of his footy season. This meant the 18 plus, 20 year old boys from his team at out house and drinking as much beer as they could (my parents are away). I decided I really didn't want to be there to see what was going to go wrong...hence the retail therapy to distract my worries.
This morning I had training with a Ladies Only fitness group on a six week course, run by Imperium Personal Training. The aim of the group was to get ladies inspired and working hard before summer arrives. Although a lot of the training groups I'm involved with is often only women, those other groups have the option of males attending. This one is strictly women only, and all the women there are committed to working hard. Everyone there is supporting each other and carries each other through so you leave the session feeling fulfilled and empowered.
We have also been blessed with the weather throughout these sessions. Take today for example, I swear it rained all night until 5.45 am (we start at 6) and then rained all day again today!! and this happens every week! So we have these great green grass hills to run, lunge, bear crawl and burpee up with the city skyline as our work out view.
I love it when you look on a menu and see an item that is 'Deconstructed'. Normally all the ingredients making up this item are amazing on their own, but then when you mix them together, its good! The other bonus about deconstructed dishes, is that you can reconstruct it to your liking.
I was catching up with my best friends friend who she met on exchange two years ago, and since then I have met her a couple of times. She is from Adelaide (where my best friend is currently living) and came over to WA for a footy game, so we decided to catch up. We went to Typika in Claremont which has a great open atmosphere with different groups of people sharing tables.
I ordered the Deconstructed Hot Chocolate which was so fun to make your self at the table, would definitely recommend it to anyone!
I went out for a run this morning and it was pretty dark an miserable, rain was imminent so I was powering along to finish my run before it hit. But then I saw this - a dolphin swimming in amongst the pelicans and seagulls. We often get dolphins swimming up our river chancing fish, particularly on these over cast days, but it never makes it any less exciting when you see one!
Regardless of what the weather was doing I had to stop and watch the dolphins swim, if I got poured on, so be it! While I watch the dolphins swim, it makes me feel a little more carefree which I could do with in my life as I am constantly worried and stressed about things going on. So this was just like a 30 second break from reality and I felt that little bit calmer when I continued on my run. Thanks dolphins!!
This year I went back to my high school for their Athletics season and worked at the team Physio for the duration of the season. I know how that sounds, a school athletics team needed a Physio? I was at a prestigious girls school who is well know for a strong athletic ability. So the girls in the athletics team are really talented and often involved in more then one sport at a time, injury rate if high.
Today was the day of the end of season meet, which is a pretty big deal amongst the eight competing schools. It is super competitive, with all schools out to know the top team (us at the moment) off their perch.
With trying weather conditions, the girls put in a fantastic effort and managed to reclaim their title. I was so happy to be a part of an exciting day where girls of all ages and different athletic abilities come together to achieve a common goal of top school on the day.
Today we had Tough Mudder training. I'm training with a team who are pretty competitive and are doing whatever it takes to smash the upcoming 20km mud obstacle course. Tonight's training session was actually ridiculous:
20 hill runs: 3 forwards, 3 backwards, 3 burpees, 3 bear crawl, 8 piggy backing a partner
Backwards bear crawl up hill
40 Burpees chest to ground
Backwards bear crawl up hill
60 Hand release sit ups
Backwards bear crawl up hill
80 Sit ups
Backwards bear crawl up hill
100 Walking Kettlebell lunges
One of the hardest things I have done in a long time, but that feeling once its over is amazing! Which was when one of the group co-ordinators posted this, I was like Yep!
Every year around spring, ducks manage to find their way from the river to our house and like to have a swim in our pool, every day. A couple of years they have laid their eggs somewhere in my or our neighbours gardens and we have ended up with ducklings swimming in the pool...which launches the neighbourhood rescue mission to catch the 8-10 ducklings, then the mother and transport them all back to the river...but that's a whole other story.
So this year, without fail, our ducks are back (whether they are the same ducks every year, not sure) and this year they seem to be more friendly. They are now walking up to our undercover porch area, having a chat to our bird and wandering around up to the front door to see what they can find. You go outside, they don't run away. I'm still yet to decided whether this is a good or bad thing.
Mum is not so keen on them, I however think they are cute and I'm hoping we have some duck eggs in the garden somewhere.
Strange one I know, but today was the first day I was warm enough outside to not have to wear my jumper to work! 22 degrees and the jumper was off. Spring time is looming (though we are predicted to have a final winter blast over this coming week) and the temperatures are slowly rising. Yes I will miss the cold crisp mornings in winter, but warmer weather means I don't have to wear full length clinic pants, my washing will dry a bit faster and I may be able to get my head around washing my car...my poor car!
I received one of these Lorna Jane Live Active bracelets because of my promotion of the active lifestyle and my involvement in Active Nation Day coming up on the 29th of September. To support active living on this day, my bootcamp will be open to all people of any age, gender and fitness level to come down and move their bodies and achieve the active lives they want to achieve.
When I wear my bracelet I feel like I am constantly supporting this cause, which is not raising money or animals or to prevent cancer or anything big like that...its just promoting healthy lifestyles and working to fight the obesity epidemic that our country is now facing. It reminds me that this promotion is bigger then just me, the group of people I train with, the bootcamp I run...this is something the whole of Australia is embracing and people like me all around our country are fighting for this very same thing. Definitely empowers you to think big!
Would you believe I took this photo at the very end of our winter? Green trees and blue skies, hard to believe we ever have overcast days when you see this! I have said it before, Perth winter would hardly classify as winter. We probably have equal days of rain as we do of beautiful blue skies like this. We would only have a few days a year of temperatures below 4 degrees and because we are so use to the warmer winters, when these days do come around, boy do we complain.
I have to admit I do love winter. I love the crisp air and being able to layer up with jumpers, jackets and beanies, but with our warmer winters it is not as often that I get to do this. It is always these blue sky days that are coldest during our winter period as there is no cloud cover to hold our warm temps in. So not only are the blue skies lovely which can't help but make you smile, but it is also these days that are the coldest which is why I love them!
When I was in year two, one of Perth's big landmarks the Bell Tower was to be opened that year. On the footpaths surrounding the new building the idea was to have the handwritten names of all the children in the metropolitan primary schools in that year.
I was in the city the other day and thought I would stop by the Bell Tower and revisit my name on my primary school's tile. Each time I see it reminds me that I am part of something bigger then just my primary school class, or my school. There are all the primary school children throughout WA on these tiles and we are there forever. There is a permanent record right there that I was here.
My old school, Penrhos, was holding a careers morning for the current year 12 students where Alumni members of many different years on many different career paths were asked back for a morning where the students could ask about their profession to help them in choosing their preferences for their post school career path.
I was rep'ing Physio, and by far the youngest alumni member there. Which I think worked in my favour. To my group of girls interested in Health Science, particularly Physio, I explained the many paths of Physio public vs. private, the different disciplines and what we are able to do and what is not really in our scope of practice. When I turned it back onto them for questions, they seemed to be concerned about the Uni course such as the course difficulty, exams, how uni life worked etc. which was interesting to me.
I would have thought that before you got into the nitty gritty about the actually course, you would be interested in know what type of career your getting yourself into - whether I explained that well enough that they had no further questions, or they were truly only interested in the uni side of things. This is how I feel I had the edge over other ladies at the function, I was the latest out of uni and could remember how the lifestyle was, in it's most recent state.
Regardless of what we spoke about at my table for health science, it seems like my girls walked away from the morning with a greater understanding of a career as a Physiotherapist, the scope available to us and how achieving a Physio degree goes throughout uni life. I was grateful to have the opportunity to inspire and educate these girls at what can be a hugely stressful and confusing time and to give them some guidance about what they could potentially end up doing for the next few years or more.
It has been particularly wet and rainy and chilly in Perth, very unusual for September here. I try to avoid turning on the heater where possible, saving power, saving money, saving the environment...all of that.
So I got home from my Tough Mudder training tonight, cold and wet and exhausted. So after my shower to wash off the mud, I collapsed onto couch with this blanket that my grandma made for me out of lots of pieces of scrap material. Not the most attractive blanket I know, but it does then job. It's super warm and makes everything feel like its going to be ok.
My weekends are normally crazy! I work on Saturday's, I coach swimming for an hour on one of the two days, I have a bootcamp to run, I do other training as well...pretty much you blink and you miss it! This weekend though, would have to be the longest period of time I spent sitting in one place for a while! (and I'm talking around 2 hours).
It was my friend Claire's birthday and she is a huge Dockers fan, so she couldn't think of a better way to spend her birthday then to have people over and watch the footy. I'm not really a footy fan, actually I'm not a footy fan at all...which my family pretty much disowns me for. I am in a tipping competition, but my method of picking my teams depends on the colours and mascots of the teams and which combination I prefer of the two. Needless to say I'm not doing very well in the tipping (wooden spoon!!).
But despite my lack of interest in football and not even being able to follow what was going on in the game, it was a great afternoon of not running around from place to place and to catch up with people I generally see, but often only for minutes at a time.
I use to make cupcakes all the time. I would make them for peoples birthdays, take them to swim training, take them to uni or to prac or even just drop them off at peoples houses. I would always keep a couple for my family as well (I think they were a bit annoyed they didn't get more). But since I have started full time work, my time for baking was cut down...actually it was pretty much eliminated.
I was at a fitness session and one of my trainers, who I have know for a long time and has been the recipient of some cupcakes in the past, brought the topic up. And I realised that it would almost a year since I last made some cupcakes. So for one of our recovery/mobility sessions, at which are a heap of people I'm training with for the up coming Tough Mudder, I baked some Mud Puddle Cupcakes.
Giving them to my training group brought back that feeling of doing things for others, and being appreciated for something I'm good at, which I haven't done in a while.
Today I had a pretty boring one a head on me. Incline walking on the treadmill. Normally I hate being on a treadmill, I would much rather be outside in the fresh air then in a smelly hot gym. But I'm trying to change things up a little bit so I have changed of my weekend runs to a an incline walk instead. This means I'm doing a more aerobic work out, keeping the heart rate lower and allowing my body to recover a little without the damage it gets from my pretty high intensity runs.
I have my iPod in as one attempt to keep me entertained but normally I still manage to get pretty bored looking out the same window at the same oval. But today on that oval was this group of kids practicing their karate. Today at my gym, a grading day was being held for the karate school. So these guys were out on the oval practicing their routines.
Now I have never really watched karate before. I knew that there was arm and leg movements but to be honest, what I was watching for the hour was not what I was really expecting. The routines reminded me much more of a gymnastics routine (without all the flipping, turning and leaping) then what I expected karate to look like. But hey I learnt something today.
These guys gave me one more thing to keep me entertained and made that workout go way faster then all the others I've done!
In the world of Physiotherapy, following your initially registration on the Australian board of Physiotherapy you have to complete at least 15 hours of professional development each year to deem you eligible to register again for the next year.
At first when I had just come out of uni, the thought of trying to stuff my brain with even more information was so daunting and I could not read and take in any more knowledge. In the practice I work for we do continuing education every month which was enough to get me started on those 15 hours, but now that I'm over 6 months out of uni, I feel I have it in to direct my own learning again. So I registered for a webinar run by the Australian Physiotherapy Association.
The webinar was about chronic pain - something that we see so much in private practice and pain central sensitization, a topic I have always been interested in but not really understood. Thanks to this webinar now though, I feel like I really do understand it and can help prevent it in so many of my patients.
Just in case you wanted to know...Central Sensitisation is a process that happens in the spinal cord and the brain which makes you more susceptible to the feel of pain, even if there is no structure that is been harmed. The longer the duration in which you initially feel pain and the extent to which you focus on the pain makes the brain more receptive to the pain which means you can feel it even if there is no actual incoming stimulus. Crazy hey?? Hope you learnt something new!
This little project has been in planning for a few months now. Earlier in the year, I along with hundreds of other Penrhos Alumni celebrated 25 years of this amazing mans contribution to Co-Curricular service at a cocktail party hosted by the school. Little did he know at the time, I was in the middle of also liaising with this cohort of ex-Penrhosian's and putting together a year book (well a 25 year book) of his past 25 years with the college and all the sporting teams that he had been involved with.
I was receiving thousands of photos and putting them together with their corresponding year groups to present as a time line. The book was completed and printed in time for the final major IGSSA event of the year - the Athletics. This event celebrated the end of Norbert Fandry's 25th Year of Co-Curricular involvement (and not his last might I add). The book was presented to him on this day and with some tears from the both of us, I was so thankful for everyone who had contributed to the project, the company Cahoots that had gotten the beautiful finished product to me so quickly and that everything in regards to the construction of the book had gone relatively smoothly!
I got sent these flowers from two girls you may have seen in earlier posts, my twin friends - one half of which is currently studying in America and the other who comes to bootcamp regularly. I was talking to the international half one day and filling her in on current Perth events, such as work, the latest news at our swimming club and then told her about my recent cyclist vs runner incident. At the same time I was also talking to the Perth based twin, organising a swim workout for us next week, but didn't actually tell her about the accident.
When I got home from work that same day, I found a massive bunch of flowers in my room from these gorgeous girls, organised from the other side of the world. It reminded me that people do care about me and my well being and that I matter to some people. Definitely put a smile on my face that day!
Every week I am watching the weather forecast for Sunday. The bootcamp I run is held outdoors on an oval with no shelter from the elements. Although we do have a secret spot for if there is a torrential downpour, the space there is very limited and I try to avoid using it where possible.
This week in my weather watch, it was looking progressively worse the close we got to Sunday. Showers and wind...fantastic!
However, by the time 4pm rolled around, we were pleasantly surprised! The sun had come out and although the grass was a little damp (what would a bootcamp be without getting a little grassy?), we made it through the full hour without a sprinkle of rain...and my campers killed it!
I was having a crazy morning. It was about 9.30am and by this time I had completed my morning boxing session, been to the athletics training session that I am currently being the team Physio for, showered and eaten breakfast and was in the city to pick up some race packs for my mum and me. And I knew I has so much to go as well - 2 loads of washing in process at home and had to be at work by 12pm.
Now if you don't know Perth at the moment, there are road works EVRYWHERE! You cannot get anywhere without doing through a detour. I was trying to get to the Convention Centre to pick up these race packs but the road works meant that I couldn't find my way into the car park at the centre - but I knew it was still possible, so that was starting to frustrate me. I ended up just parking down on the river front at the Ferry terminal, which is about a kilometre from the Convention Centre is you walked in a straight line.
But I thought I would walk along the river side and cross the busy Riverside Drive when I got closer to the centre at the crossing down there. I get to the crossing and guess what...more roadwork's! Meaning the cross was not in operation and instead of walking the 1km directly to the Centre, I walked almost 2km in the wrong direction, almost into another suburb to walk another 3km from that suburb to the Centre as that was fastest way I knew to get into the centre and by this point was very frustrated and knew I was starting to run out of time. I finally got to the race pack collection, ploughed through it and started my long power walk back to my car again.
But just outside the convention centre, I saw two guys selling Daffodils. It was national Daffodil Day, raising money for the Cancer Council of Australia. So I stopped my manic looking power walk and bought two Daffodils. Instantly felt better. The feeling of giving to something bigger, and something that has the aim to help so many ill people is enough to make anyone feel good. So today I was thankful for being able to give and help these sick people, but also to the Charities that make such a difference to these peoples lives through their continuous fundraising.
I like to fill my Saturday mornings by teaching these gorgeous little ones. I teach Jazz and Tap to Kindies who are aged 3-5 years, followed by Juniors aged 6-9 years. On a given Saturday morning I will teach over 50 girls (and the occasional boy) dancing and they are one of the biggest highlights of my week! True, sometimes with the tap shoes on they can be little terrors and I do often lose my voice every Saturday, but on the whole they try so hard for me and have a lot of fun doing it!
Mum wanted Bruce Springsteen tickets which were going on sale at 9am today. She had previously tried for presale four days before, but they had sold out with in minutes. So she recruited some help, more, someone who was more technologically skilled then she was so that we had any chance of securing some tickets. And so I set up the above scene - the home computer, my laptop and the iPad all connected to the ticket website and constantly refreshing as the time ticked over 9am.
It was all go. I was refreshing all three for about 30 seconds before my laptop connected and we scored the tickets she was after. Although I may have had technology on my side, luck was definitely in play today. The tickets were completely sold out within minutes and mum had spoken to many different people throughout the day who were unsuccessful.
I was out running. I was coming up some stairs onto a bridge that had a big cement wall to my right and a lot of bush with a curved path to the left. I paused briefly to look both ways before joining the path and the next thing I know I'm lying on the ground with a cyclist groaning next to me and a bike lying on top of me.
The cyclist was really close to the cement wall so when I looked right I wouldn't see him without sticking my head out to be decapitated. I'm not pointing the blame anywhere as really it would be more my fault then his. But what I was really disappointed with was the way he reacted. He started yelling and swearing at me calling me an idiot, and what was I thinking and that was what I was more upset about then any of the injuries I sustained.
Not the most bright and shiny of my posts, but what I was thankful for today was the two people that stopped (one on a motor bike) to check that we were both ok...more then can be said about the guy who ran into me! I'm also thankful that I only sustained minor injuries which would heal with time.
What you see in the picture is the imprint of his front wheel on my thigh, and his helmet on my head. I also had she handle bars imprinted on my hip and big grazes up my right leg and shoulder. And somehow a deep cut on my ear.
I wasn't big on coffee until about 2 years ago, actually I hated it! You would never guess that now. I went from not drinking coffee at all to drinking Long Mac's...like the strongest coffee you can get. Go hard or go home I say. But I must say I'm pretty fussy about how I like my coffee. I don't like milk so anything to milky is out of the question, the darker the better. Which is why I often much prefer just to make my own, rather then be disappointed if I'm out.
So in my opinion, what would be better then being able to add your own milk? I was out with a friend at Bib and Tucker on the WA coast, and they allowed you to do just that, best idea ever!!
Good Coffee = Good Mood = Good Day....Thankyou Bib and Tucker!
When talking to a patient during a treatment session one day, we got talking about running, fun runs and the sense of community spirit. This patient worked at Murdoch University and was telling me about the up coming Dog and Jog fun run the University Gym was running as a community fitness event and as a fundraiser for a local charity.
Now I'm allergic to dogs, so no puppy to come for a jog with me, so I took my mum instead. I registered us both online for the 8km run, and when I went to collect our race numbers to find I was given NUMBER 1!! Kind of excited, always wanted to be number 1 in a race.
Not only was I race number one, but it turned out that I also one the thing as well...two number one's in a day. Thanks to the quick conversation with my patient I scored a double VIP pass to a well known WA two day music festival in our southwest region, tickets that would cost the general public around $500, so thankyou number one and thankyou to my patient!
So today wasn't my best day. On the whole, compared to where I have been in the past I have been doing a lot better, but these days tend to come around every so often. And when they do, I do what ever I can to distract myself. Today, I baked.
I baked two loaves of Clean Zucchini bread, Raw Skout Bars, and Sweet Potato Hummus. I baked all morning before heading off for work in the afternoon. A busy day of patients that kept me distracted for the remainder of the day. Then from work I went straight to Tough Mudder Training where I was distracted by a different kind of pain.
I know that distractions and a band aid and just push everything into the back ground, but sometimes that's the best I can do. Today that was the best I could do.
The first Sunday of September brings about Fathers Day. The day where families all around the world celebrate the fathers, grandfathers and father like figures and all they contribute to their children's lives whether is be through breakfast in bed (most of which mum has to cook) or suppling him with the latest power tool for him to play with out in blokes world (the shed).
Slightly different in my family...no one stays in bed long enough to get served breakfast in bed, let alone pull a fry pan out of the cupboard! Dad was out the door at 7.15 for a run, and I wasn't far behind him. My brother on the other hand was yet to come in it from the night before. By about 10.30 we were all back in again, where we could give Dad his gift - pre-paid tour of the Ferrari Museum on his upcoming Italy trip. We had lunch with my aunty and uncle and two of my cousins, and my grandparents.
From there it was off to Dad's Day at the usual girls on bootcamp! So pumped he was keen to walk there to get the full bootcamp experience. And you know what, he actually held on ok for an old man! A great day with the man who has taught me so much in life and instilled so many values in me, I know I don't thank him anywhere near enough, but it is this day where Dad's everywhere can be celebrated so much to make up for the days we forget to say thanks.
