Mud Man

It really is winter over here. The last couple of weeks have been really cold and whilst I love cold crispy days, it's not that much fun when you have to work through them. Work has been pretty busy but manageable. The deal that I thought on Thursday had died, is back alive and made me stay in the office until 9 pm on Friday. Not fun. But I am looking forward to some time off between Christmas and New Year. Just chilling and not doing much. I haven't been taking much time off work this year because I am trying to save all my holiday and use it together with my maternity leave next year. So I am just plodding along.

Shaun and I raced last Saturday. There is a great sport events company here called Human Race Events (they were responsible for organisation of Olympic triathlon races) and we love doing their events. During the winter they put great off-road race series where you can either race off-road duathlon or trail race. Shaun did their off-road duathlon and I decided to do the trail run on Saturday. The run was just over 7 miles of mud and hills. I seriously have never done such a hilly run in my life. But it was so much fun. The night before the race Shaun was trying to talk me out of it as he was worried it would be too hard and muddy for a pregnant woman like me. But I decided to give it a go - what's the worst it can happen if I feel it's too hard - I would probably end up walking.

So I lined up at the start at the back because I decided to take it easy and just plod along at an easy pace and stay out of people's way and therefore minimising the possibility of tripping and falling. The first 2.5 miles weren't too bad - muddy but relatively flat and I was doing 10 minute miles. The next 5 miles were HILLY. You would literally have to go up a really steep hill which then wound back really steep downhill and then back up again - it went on like that for a while. I walked up the hills (and so did most of the other people) - they were just too steep for any meaningful running. But I ran everything else.

The race was so much fun, I have really enjoyed it. I was slow but who cares. It was the longest run I've done since I discovered I was pregnant and considering I am doing only ad-hoc training (when I feel up to it, which is not very often), I was really pleased with how it went. The next race is not until end of January by which time I will be 25 weeks pregnant so will have to wait and see how I feel by then.

Not much else is going on. I will be 19 weeks tomorrow. I am feeling ok, not great but not too bad either. I have put on around 7.5 pounds which is not too bad for almost half-way. We have a 20 week scan next week and hopefully we can find out if it is boy or a girl and start purchasing stuff.

And Christmas is just around the corner. Our last Christmas with just Shaun and me. Next year will be so much fun.