Its been a great week. We thoroughly enjoyed our mini staycation, see earlier posts.

Since returning I enjoyed a lovely evening with some friends. On this occasion it was about chatting and drinking but we’ve also formed a litter picking group called ‘the Rombles’. Due to everyone being busy it has been difficult to all get together but today we managed to get out for the first time and fill a bag of rubbish using our delightful new pickers.

My husband mentioned the other evening he might borrow the picker and take it jogging with him and pick up some litter as he goes. I told him:

Me: “That’s a thing you know, jogging and picking litter”

Husband: “Really oh I didn’t realise”

Me: “Yeah its even got a name. Pogging”

Husband: “Really are you sure? That sounds a bit dodgy?”

Me: “Well its something like that”

Husband: “I’ve just looked it up – its plogging!”

Me: “Ah yeah plogging – that does sound better”

That said I can’t imagine its easy to carry the bag of waste with you if you do go plogging. What would it be called if you combined ‘picking’ with other sports? Skate boarders could go ‘plating’, mountain bikers would go ‘piking’?**Ok you get the idea.

**Just looked up this word and it actually means something really gross and violent. This is the thing with making up words, you have to be careful.

I was also incredibly excited this week as I got my first training week from my coach. Starting tomorrow will be the first day I follow the plan.

So for the first week Ive been given two hours of swimming, 2 hours of running over 3 runs (plus an additional one if I want), 4 hours of cycling over 3 bike rides. I also need to add in a few 30 minute strength/gym workouts oh and I can hike as much as I want.

I have workouts before work, after work and on the weekend. Each one has a description next to it with instructions to follow. For example one of the runs is interval training so I have to run really hard for 15 seconds then easier for 45 seconds etc. In order for them to track this I have to use the lap functionality on my watch, something I haven’t used before so this was new.

There are a number of abbreviations in the instructions too. At first when I was looking at my swim and it said 200m (15), 50m hard (15), 50m easy (15) I didn’t know what it meant. I’ve now realised this must be 15 second rest periods between each set. Aha!

Anyway it will be very interesting to see how I feel and how much I improve following these structured workouts. I suppose it beats what I’ve been doing so far, which is ‘going for a bimble’ – on repeat. The reality is I haven’t gotten any faster or more injury resistant in years so I’m hoping this new approach will work for me. Fingers crossed.