A Give Away And My Challenge

It's the start of a new month already! I thought we'd just started a new year but apparently we're now well in to it.

And to celebrate the start of the shortest month of the year I've got a give away. I was contacted by Shervin from Personal Planner with an offer to give away one of their personalised planners to one of my followers. They also gave me one so I could let you know just how easy it was to create. I'm a diary tragic. I HAVE to have a hard copy diary so my life doesn't spiral out of control. I put everything in it - due dates for bills, appointments and birthdays. If I didn't have my diary no one would get cake!

Making the planner was so much fun. It was just a matter of going to the website and then working step by step through the choices and this is what I came up with. It's awesome!

The inside has a full week on the double page spread so I can see what I've got on at a glance and the spiral binding lets it open up flat. I was able to add a training box to put all my training stats for each day and then there was another area where I could put my totals for the week so I can congratulate myself over how amazing I am or have a pity party (by eating copious amounts of chocolate) if my training has been less than stellar. 

I could also put in a 'To Do' area where I can remind myself just who needs cakes that week. And there's an area for 'Ideas' so if I'm feeling flush with ideas for posts I can just jot them down. It's just the perfect diary for me and my forgetful, almost-50-so-there's-no-hope-for-improvement brain.

So if you too LOVE diaries and would like the opportunity to create the mother of all diaries you can enter my give away. All you have to do is 

1. Go to Personal Planner on Facebook and LIKE the page. Then ...

2. Let me know that you've done so in the Comment section here. And ...

3. Be a follower of My Life's a Marathon either here or on Facebook.

Easy!! The give away will run till Valentines Day when I choose the winner.

***

Now back to me. 

I've been on treatment now for eight weeks. And because I've been starting to feel incredibly NORMAL again (I'm not talking mentally because I don't know that I ever want to be totally normal there - slightly crazy is a lot more fun) I've been adding a few things in to my training schedule. 

One of the things that I lost over the last year or so has been strength and that's one of the things that I wanted to work on once I started getting energy back. I used to do a little bit of strength work - and I do emphasize the word 'little' - and I really missed being able to just drop and push out a very wobbly half dozen push ups whenever I wanted to. Impressed? Yes, I know - even at it's best my upper body strength was underwhelming.

One of my squad-mates put me onto an iPhone app - 100 Push Up Challenge so I did the test, huffed, puffed and moaned my way through 15 push ups and that was the start of this week's pain. The app MAKES me do push ups three times a week. And it MAKES me do more than I'd ever do if I had a choice. And it's given me a little abdominal strain because I'm not used to holding my body straight and rigid under pressure. And I still haven't deleted it off my phone. Why? Because I don't give up easily once I start something. And because I'm a masochist!! And soon I'll be a masochist with guns. Not Uzi-style guns - probably more like water pistols. But they still count as guns don't they?!

But the problem with doing push ups after not doing them for the best part of two years is the associated pain and inability to move my shoulder girdle through its normal range. And add to that very sticky weather and the need to wear singlets and you have an issue every single time you want to dress and undress. I wear singlets with a bra shelf as my pyjama top in summer and can I tell you I've almost needed to call the Fire Brigade to bring out the Jaws of Life to get me out of the tangle of sweat, flesh and Lycra  If Iven hadn't have been there to do a little unravelling I swear I'd have made the call. I wonder if they would have sent out the crew from the Fireman's Calendar. These guys look like they could handle any tricky rescue.

But I digress. 

I'm now up to 152 push ups for the week. Incredible, I know. Stunning! Awesome! Mind-blowing! But if the challenge is to get to 100 push ups, then surely I can stop now?!! They don't really mean for my tooth-pick, runner's arms to able to do 100 push ups in a day or anything stupid like that, do they?

I'm thinking I should have read the small print before I started this thing. It may not end well!!