This is the last section of path to be completed in Vincentia, it is one of my favourite parts – this used to be asphalt and poorly laid asphalt at that. They have added a carpark here, too.

Fitness February is done and dusted. I have two walks to add – both of these were with family so not my usual speedy pace.

On Monday afternoon we went down to Vincentia and Huskisson for an afternoon walk and we were planning coffee, but we ended up with pizza and gelato instead at The Cheesy Grin. That added 4.5km to the monthly total.

Tuesday I did 30 minutes of Beat Saber after work and managed a perfect score on my favourite song Escape. I also got a bit better at Gangnam Style and totally failed Rasputin. It is a very hard level, so I switched No Fail on, but I still struggled to make it through the song.

Wednesday I took the day off mostly, until my aunt and my cousin’s wife went for a walk around the block with me. That added 1.3 to the total.

Thursday while you may not see any specific sustained exercise, we did four runs to the dump, which was a bit of a workout in itself.

Mon: 4.5km
Wed: 1.3km

Final February Total – 156.78km

My goal for the month was 140km. so I beat that by 16km.

I’m not sure what goal I want to set for March. At the moment I am setting a weekly goal of 20km per week, and we’ll see how that goes. :) I’d like to do two 5kms and one 10km per week if possible, and add in some shorter nightly walks but we’ll see what happens.

I don’t have a lot of activity to share with you this week. I managed to injure myself on Monday which put me on the sidelines for the next few days.

We did the bush track and while walking there was the usual ship and helicopter landing activity out in the bay which I find quite fascinating and somehow I managed to step wrongly on a rock and fall over. I bruised my foot and pulled some muscles. Because I’d set a low goal for this week, I decided not to tempt fate and risk making this worse by walking on it until it felt better.

I did not get back out on the track until Friday, but I did do some Berry walking on the Thursday, I didn’t bother to count that. At some point during the Friday walk I believe I met my February goal of 140kms, while dodging the event set up for the Husky Triathlon Festival. I ran the first km of this, but took it easy after that.

Saturday I decided to walk near to home so you don’t get a map today. This walk met my 20km goal for the week.

Mon: 05.07
Fri: 11.68
Sat: 03.51

Total – 20.26

February total thus far 150.98

On Friday there was a low flying helicopter, I managed to grab a photo. :)

With only three days left of February to go, I’m not setting any goals for these three days but I will be setting some goals for March. I believe if I did not set goals it would be far too easy to not go walking or running – there are so many things that I could do which are not that, and a lot of things this month have been set aside in order to hit my February goal.

A little more than halfway.. there are only 10 days left in February. Unfortunately for me, I am working 5 of those days and three of those days are a long day, not my usual short and sweet 5 hour shift. So those days are probably going to be 2kms max, and knowing this was coming I tried to stretch my walks over the past week.

Monday – I headed out after work for a quick 5km. As I’d had a little argument before leaving work, I was a touch angry which meant I was in the mood to run and push myself hard.

So this was a speedy 5km in lovely but quite windy weather, about 25C (F). I was expecting to experience muscle soreness the next day but I did not, which is a sign to me I can start to push even harder if I want to.

Tuesday – Another quick after work 5km, this one took slightly longer because it was super hot – 39C (f) – and windy. I did a few sprints but mostly walking.

Wednesday – Last week I said it wasn’t realistic for me to expect to do a 10km on a work day and to be fair it probably is not most of the time, unless all the stars align in the correct pattern. Today they did – I got out on time, the weather was perfect with no thunderstorms on the horizon, and by the time I got to the starting point I realised I had enough time to walk a 10km if I wanted to and still get home at a reasonable hour to make dinner.

Strangely this was the quickest 10km I have done yet, coming in at just over an hour and a half and that was even with 5 minutes spent stood still watching helicopters land on a navy boat out in the bay. Hard to get a good photo of it though.

Thursday – I decided to really stretch out my walk today and planned a 15km walk. I did kick off with a quick 1st kilometer. After that I did throw in a few 100m sprints here and there. But somehow my maths was wrong, and when I hit 15kms I was still quite some distance from the car. Just under one and a half kilometers away to be precise.

That last 1.5km I had a very sore left calf and I was worried that this might become a longer term problem but that afternoon I had a pedicure with a massage and that helped to fix it. Just recovery walking tomorrow, though.

It was so beautiful out there, 24C slightly on the cooler side for me but a few sprints warmed me up nicely.

Friday – I did two walks today – one in the morning which was a run/walk, and a second walk in the afternoon which was more a shopping walk but I got in 1.65km in the process by parking further away and walking quite a long way between shops.

The morning walk was a sweaty event as there was not much breeze today and thus I became quite warm. I ran a fair bit of the first two KMs then just kept up a high pace with a few 100m sprints. This was a very good time for a 10km for me, I was very happy with that. Especially as I felt like it was a struggle while doing it, and I thought I was going to take half an hour longer than I had hoped.

The afternoon walk was in Berry heading to a shop that is in the process of closing. It happens to be one of my Aunt’s favourite shops and I got some super specially priced yarns for her as a surprise. She arrives here next week on the Wednesday.

Saturday – we did the bush track and a bit of the path today. I knew anything more than 6km I would hit my goal, but we kept going a bit further as it was so lovely out.

I mean, does it really get any better than this? Spending so much time out walking the bay is my favourite thing. :)

Sunday I took a day off from walking but not a day off from exercise – see this video. This is a far different form of it than I am used to, but essentially this is what is happening in the man cave right now.. :) my arms are like jelly, I can hardly type. It is a virtual reality game called Beat Saber and it is super fun. In fact I believe this is exactly what virtual reality was designed for.

Mon: 05.31
Tue: 05.51
Wed: 10.56
Thu: 16.49
Fri: 11.81
Sat: 07.51
Sun:

This weeks total 57.19 (to Fri)
February total thus far 130.72

To complete my goal I only need one more 10km walk and I will definitely manage that in the next 10 days. I’m going to take my foot off the pedal slightly and focus on shorter faster run/walks, setting a quite low goal for this week of 20km. The Other Half has two weeks holidays now and we want to get some decluttering done around the house so that will be my main focus once I’ve hit that goal. Other than trying to master Gangnam Style in Beat Saber.

Monday – I had an appointment in Nowra on Monday 4th February so I did a 5km wander around town while I was there. I figure take the chance to get my walk in wherever I can! Though I did get held up by traffic lights more often than I would like, the terrain was different as was the wildlife – I never see ducks on my walks down at the bay.

We did have a plan to go walking after The Other Half got home from work but I wasn’t sure how the weather would be. At least this way I got my 5km in for the day, anything extra is bonus distance. It was pretty warm out there, 31C (87.8F) and super humid, so this first walk was a sweaty adventure.

We did end up getting out for a second walk, and that one was down at Vincentia with a sea breeze, much nicer, zero traffic lights and not so humid. We did some running too. This brings the distance for Monday to 10.78km.

Tuesday – was pretty crazy. There was a large yacht in the bay which distracted me once I spotted it. Maybe I have watched a little too much Below Deck. ;)

I thought I was way off the pace for the first 5km so I pushed really hard and it turned out I was actually spot on with the pace. Not sure why the maths in my head wasn’t working, but I am feeling this workout in my thighs right now.

As I finished the 5km it began to lightly rain. I’m not going to let some rain get in my way, so I kept going. However I decided to just slow down and enjoy the walk, and somehow lost track of my distance. So I ended up doing an extra KM as a surprise.

Wednesday – was a work day and I have to be realistic about this – there is no way I can fit in a 10km on a work day. I actually took this as a rest day as I had done 3 solid days of exercise in a row. But it was the worst I have felt on any day yet! I was so tired. I found myself falling asleep in my recliner while dinner was in the oven and I went to bed early. I am going to make more of an effort and try to work in a 5km on work days but even 1km is better than nothing. At the moment with daylight savings it is do-able, I just have to plan it well.

Thursday – I had a dentist appointment, but right after that I headed out. I did not set any pace goals, I just walked for distance today.

It was very windy and wavy out there so there were a bunch of kite surfers enjoying the conditions. It felt great to be out there walking but I am feeling it in the backs of my lower legs today.

Friday – we got out for a quick 5km after work. I did not even take a photo, we were so focused on getting this 5km done fast as thunder clouds were threatening from a distance.. And fast it was. Mostly 100m sprinting, then 100m walking. I wanted to push myself hard today, do a recovery 10km on Saturday, and then I have 4 days of work in a row so I will need to walk at the usual pace on those days.

When we got home the thunderstorm hit, and wow did it ever hit. The Other Half went out to his car to get his phone just as it kicked off, and he wasn’t able to make it back to the house for some time, he was stuck out by the shed where he watched all the water not go into the rainwater tank – because it is full. Meanwhile I was watching a leak develop in the Delicate Nirvana, which will need sorting before the next storm.

Saturday – The Other Half and I took the bush track to Hyams and back, then a bit of the normal track to make up a 10km.

It was a gorgeous day about 28C (82.4F) with plenty of sea breezes to cool us off.

Sunday – I had to work, so once I was done we did the bush track again to make a 5km. It was 26C (78.8F) and gorgeous out, so while we kicked off with some sprinting runs, after we got to 2.5km we slowed right down and just enjoyed the bush track.

The totals for this week –

Mon: 10.78
Tue: 11.00
Wed: 00.00
Thu: 10.31
Fri: 05:03
Sat: 10:31
Sun: 05.02

Previous week total : 21.08
This week total : 52.45
February Total: 73.53

Overall it has been an excellent week even with my weird one day on one day off work schedule I’m not sure if I really liked it. I’m more of a work all my days in a row and then have time off. Next week I work the first 3 days, so those will be 5km days, the remaining days will be 10km weather permitting on all of those walks, of course. I will walk in rain no problems but not a thunderstorm and we’ve been having a lot of them just lately. The distance goal for next week is 55km.