elizevdmerwe - Journey to the Centre of the Earth

[Mrs Van]

I get lost in adventure novels (no I haven't read this original work yet), but don't really lead an adventurous life. Like Trevor it would probably have to creep up on me and let me fall in to it. With me choosing to take part in a beginner's OCR - The Muddy Princess - I am making the effort to go out and find a bit of adventure. I want to be Hannah however. The Go-Get-It-Girl! So for this challenge Hannah does the training - no hesitation, push through it, she can do anything, and she always comes up with a plan. Trevor is good, but he doesn't always get all the things done. He will concentrate on water and sleep, the essentials. Shaun is a teenager and they (from what I've heard) are sometimes stubborn. I'm going to need him to help me with food. Together we'll face this adventure at the Centre of the Earth, and come out strong and daring to face the OCR, and any other adventures that might occur.

 

TRAINING with Hannah

• BW Strength: OCR workout. 2x/week - 6x at least for 85% to pass.
• Cardio: Run/Walk 2x/week - 6x at least for 85% to pass.
• Mobility Stretches: - 6x at least for 85% to pass.

 

ESSENTIALS with Trevor

• Water/Rooibos/Herbal tea: 5/7 days a week. Min. 20 days, 80% to pass.
• Sleep (at least 7hours a night) 5/7 days a week. Min. 20 days, 80% to pass.

 

FOOD with Shaun

• <50g net carbs per day. 5/7 days a week. By end of challenge 25 days at least. Includes 4 variances for a chocolate or something (thinking shark week or just really want something). Banting approved snacks obviously doesn't count as a variance, but their carbs will count towards my daily carb limit. Knowingly eating gluten, I immediately loose the day even if my carbs were < 50g. A variance cannot be used to eat gluten. Gluten = flesh eating plants!

 

INJURY PROTOCOLS

• I sprained my ankle while doing the first OCR workout for this challenge during Week 0. I've deleted the previous protocols as they don't really apply. I've decided not to count week 0 as part of the challenge. Will take the rest of the challenge as it comes.

 

[Mrs Van]

TRAINING with Hannah:

It went well until I sprained my ankle on the pole vaults. I heard a tearing sound and my foot first went numb and then the pain came through. I did shout, and later last night when hubby checked my ankle I cried from pain when he pressed on the swelling. He was very cross with me, because I hadn't put enough ice on my ankle, or had it high enough up in the air. So I ended up for three hours on the bed, leg elevated, ice packed around the ankle. Read further from Clive Cussler book and Asterix and Obelix for the boys. Definitely got enough sleep in as well. The swelling is down a lot, but not gone, and it is still tender. The blue-ish bump on the bridge of my foot is gone though. (See Injury Protocols)

 

OCR Workout:

• Joint circles 10x clock/anti-clock: Neck, Arms, Hips, Knees (include ankles )
• Double feet jump up stairs: 5x10 stairs
• Bear crawls: 3x25m
• Monkey bar pull ups: Negatives @ 90degree elbow angle - 7 | 5 | 4 (working up to 3x15)
• Balance beam: 5x
• Rope climb over: 5x
• Squats: 3x15
• Dips: 3x15
• Vault/Jump over pole: 7 | - | - (supposed to be 3x15)
• Farmer's carry: - - -
• Lying hip stretch: - -
• Sit-twist stretch: - -

 

ESSENTIALS with Trevor:

• Water: Good - 1.5 bottles
• Sleep: Good - 9hrs! Woke up during the night, but hubby did duty for Youngest and dogs.

 

FOOD with Shaun:

• Includes 2x small Fat Bomb (Banting approved) squares, reached 36g. Well under 50g. That is due to the fact that I didn't make vegetables with the grilled chicken last night (ankle). As hubby says: "chicken are vegetables". The boys had broccoli and cheese with their chicken, we had chicken, chicken, and another small piece of grilled chicken, which all counts as 0g net carbs in Banting.

[Wild Wolf]

Oh no! I hope your ankle gets better Elize! This is gonna be a good adventuring challenge for you and I'm excited for you to crush it! Keep icing and elevating the ankle and be ginger when you start training back on it. Ankles are tricky, but you are Elize so I'm not worried

 

Following!

 

Wolf

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following, give that ankle RICE (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) and heal up quick.

[Mrs Van]

51 minutes ago, Wild Wolf said:

Oh no! I hope your ankle gets better Elize! This is gonna be a good adventuring challenge for you and I'm excited for you to crush it! Keep icing and elevating the ankle and be ginger when you start training back on it. Ankles are tricky, but you are Elize so I'm not worried

 

Following!

 

Wolf

 

31 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Following, give that ankle RICE (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) and heal up quick.

Thanks guys, and thanks for following again.

Been keeping it up a lot, but still have half a egg on the side and it is still very tender, but not cry sore. I'll be careful on it as I really want to take part in the mudrun in 5wks time. I realised today how much I walk around during the day. I don't normally sit still for this long.

[bker1370]

Following along, take good care of that ankle

[Mrs Van]

19 hours ago, bker1370 said:

Following along, take good care of that ankle

Glad you're back! Today was all about learning how much is too much it seems.

 

I think the last two hours on my feet was just that tad too much, as I again have a proper chicken egg attached to my ankle. It's not as painful as last night, but stings and my leg burns. Giving myself RICE at the moment.

 

TRAINING  with Hannah: Nope.

ESSENTIALS with Trevor: Not quite yet, but I will probably be early to bed again tonight.

FOOD with Shaun: 45g so just enough left for a nice mug of coffee with cream. Cream, by the way count for 2.8g net carb/100g, while full cream milk comes to 4.5g/100g.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Heal up quickly my friend. It'd be a shame if you had to miss the mud wrestling at the OCR.

[Mrs Van]

18 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Heal up quickly my friend. It'd be a shame if you had to miss the mud wrestling at the OCR.

Every time I see that photo I smile because of your "mud wrestling" comment.

 

Had to drive today and my ankle did not appreciate clutch-duty or the walking. I'm back home now and will rest it a bit. Feeding the neighbour's dogs is a mission as well. The two young, strong, heavy males are very boisterous and I really have to stand firm not to be knocked over. I'm teaching them "down" and "sit", and its coming along nicely. I caught them twice searching for me over the wall, much to the irritation of our own dogs. Still have to finish the finances this week; taking Labrador Simba to the dog parlour tomorrow morning for a wash. I can wash the other two dogs myself, but he is a mission, and very, very dusty. Our other neighbour and the one behind us are both burning fires at night, with the smoke coming into our house. Almost all our windows are closed at night, but I keep waking up smelling the smoke!

 

We have too much milk. I've already cut our milk order, but still... so I promised hubby I'll try to make some milk tart. Found this microwave recipe and hope it will come out nicely. I can't bake in the oven, because hubby hasn't fixed the bottom element yet. If it comes out tasty, he can take some to work tomorrow.

  

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

Urgh!!  I am very sorry to hear about the ankle.  I hope injury protocols get you to race day so that you can enjoy the craziness!!

 

Love the theme and the quotes.  Jules Verne is a fun read.  

[Elastigirl]

Somehow I missed your new challenge. Looks good (except for the sprained ankle-boo) You should read the book, it is very fun. Do you do read alouds with your kids? Jules Verne makes for some awesome story time.

[Mrs Van]

6 hours ago, Chris-Tien Jinn said:

Urgh!!  I am very sorry to hear about the ankle.  I hope injury protocols get you to race day so that you can enjoy the craziness!!

 

Love the theme and the quotes.  Jules Verne is a fun read.  

Pain is basically gone, except if I am on it a lot. It still swells up during the day and then obviously is stiff and I struggle to bend the ankle. Standing strong so that the neighbour's dogs don't push me over is pushing the limits, but tonight is the last time I have to feed them.

4 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Somehow I missed your new challenge. Looks good (except for the sprained ankle-boo) You should read the book, it is very fun. Do you do read alouds with your kids? Jules Verne makes for some awesome story time.

Yes, I do read aloud to them, although at the moment I'm pushing home language (Afrikaans) mostly. Their spoken English is very good because most friends, stories (videos), songs, etc. are in English. I got a lot of free Kindle versions of the classic books, and I did start with this specific one, but due to not being able to sit for long in front of the computer, I had to put it on hold for a real book, which I can lie on the bed (or sit on the stoep) and read (with ankle in the air due to swelling).

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday:

TRAINING  with Hannah: Nope, ankle was too sore after my time with neighbours' dogs.

ESSENTIALS with Trevor: Tuesday - water not good, sleep more than enough. / Wednesday - both good.

FOOD with Shaun: Good enough. The fats satiate me, so I don't eat a lot. Did have a lot of veg (green list), and meat. Ended up using a totally different recipe for the milk tart, and played around with the microwave to get it baked properly. Was quite good. Hubby finished the tart. 30g Net Carb.

 

Had a huge scare. Walked in to neighbours' house this morning and their lounge ceiling light was turned on! I switch the passage light on at night, because most parents keep the passage light on for little kiddies to go to the loo during the night, not the lounge light. So I sent a message to neighbour to ask whether anyone else had a key to their house, and when she heard what I was worried about, she laughed and said that the electrics on that lounge light was faulty and her husband had accidentally put a day/night globe in there, so it might have turned on by itself if the wall switch wasn't specifically switched off! So I double checked and yes, when you switch the outside light on, sometimes the lounge switch (they are on the same panel) sort of sticks and also switches on! I normally switch the outside light on as the last thing I do before pulling the door closed behind me, so never specifically look at the light. Man I got a fright! Anyway, they'll be back late tonight.

[Mr_Willes]

Solid advice from Tank with the RICE method! Be sure to have it as good as new before working out with, or be very careful!

 

Really looking forward to hearing about your OCR, is it this challenge already or is it later?

 

(from one injured to the other ) 

[Mrs Van]

27 minutes ago, mr_willes said:

Solid advice from Tank with the RICE method! Be sure to have it as good as new before working out with, or be very careful!

 

Really looking forward to hearing about your OCR, is it this challenge already or is it later?

 

(from one injured to the other ) 

Yip, lifting the foot up, icing when painful, and wearing very tight socks (glad its winter!). I won't train on it yet, but thought I might try some upper body workouts tomorrow. Otherwise I'm going to have to adapt my challenge to a 3.5wk challenge to exclude week 0. The Muddy Princess is end of this challenge, Sunday 14 August. I managed to move to an earlier batch, which is at 9h40, and not the original 11h40. I'm 50/50 excited and scared to be honest! If I hadn't paid, I might have tucked tail and ran.

[Mrs Van]

Thursday:

TRAINING  with Hannah: Nope, ankle was ok but swollen. Going light blue under that ankle knob on the side. I'm going to change my initial write up to exclude this week. Then I basically have 3.5weeks till D-day. What will be will be. It's not as if this is a super difficult or timed race. I'll do what I can do, and... well... I probably want to over prepare again.

ESSENTIALS with Trevor: Thursday - water good. Will go to bed in 2.5-3hrs time, can tell you tomorrow. I really, really hope that Simba the Lab has decided not to do the early bird rising thing again.

FOOD with Shaun: Huge mug of milk and cream just after 5h30am as Simba wanted to go out, and I was ice cold when I got back inside the house. It filled me up so I didn't have breakfast. Had a naartjie around 10am and then small pieces of grilled chicken for lunch. Dinner was more meaty piece of grilled chicken with grilled veg. The veg made up the rest of the net carbs, and my total for today till now (including the big mug of coffee that I'm going to have just now) is 44g. Some of the grilled veg are on Banting Orange and Red food lists.

 

I've got red scratch marks on my back from the dogs next door. Thank goodness its coming to an end today! I really prefer my older, more sedate dogs. Clive Cussler book is halfway (thanks to Tank's RICE advice). Laundry almost done, rest is the same old, same old.

Have a good evening, chat again tomorrow.

[Rurik Harrgath]

I really enjoyed that movie, and I really enjoy your challenges, so it only makes sense that I've found my way here. 

 

[Mrs Van]

Thanks Rurik! Nice to have you.

1 hour ago, Rurik Harrgath said:

I really enjoyed that movie, and I really enjoy your challenges, so it only makes sense that I've found my way here. 

 

 

[Mrs Van]

Friday 15 July

TRAINING  with Hannah: Nope. I really should probably get going. Feels like I'm using my ankle as excuse to be lazy, but I actually really enjoyed just having off days this week.

ESSENTIALS with Trevor: Water and sleep very good. Closed the windows totally, so almost no smoke came into the house. Simba slept through, we slept through, all good.

FOOD with Shaun: Just under 50g with gluten-free pizza for dinner. Used gluten-free pancake batter recipe as base: lots of eggs, some coconut flour, some potato flour, water, little olive oil. Lots of meat and some cheese on top. Had the same for breakfast this morning.

 

Seems the next couple of weekends are going to be busy. Hubby is at a track racing day today. Next weekend IDPA league shoot for him. He heard about a different club shooting range which he wants to go to. This one is more kid-friendly with a safe playing area for them. More rally-marshalling, more shoot days, and then my mud-day. I put my foot down about that Sunday. Too bad if he has something on now, all of a sudden. He will take me through and he will look after the boys.

 

Sorry I'm in a bit of a tiff today. Too much sleep, too little work, too little getting out to train. My own fault.

[Lightning]

First, I disagree that you don't lead an adventurous life!  You have monkeys eating out of your fruit tree! You Ranger ALL the things and have a dragon as a pet.  I could go on...

 

So, not to sound like a Mom but, do you think you need to get a doctor to look at that ankle?  

 

No need to apologize for feeling a little cranky.  We all understand how frustrating an injury can be, especially when you have worked so hard on living an active lifestyle.  I'm sure a good upper body or core workout will make you feel better about your situation.  Sending healing thoughts. 

[Mrs Van]

58 minutes ago, Lightning said:

First, I disagree that you don't lead an adventurous life!  You have monkeys eating out of your fruit tree! You Ranger ALL the things and have a dragon as a pet.  I could go on...

 

So, not to sound like a Mom but, do you think you need to get a doctor to look at that ankle?  

 

No need to apologize for feeling a little cranky.  We all understand how frustrating an injury can be, especially when you have worked so hard on living an active lifestyle.  I'm sure a good upper body or core workout will make you feel better about your situation.  Sending healing thoughts. 

Thanks, I've just been a bit down, but been talking to myself   and got myself sort of out of the funk today. Think it is also shark week hormones. Decided to just take this week off totally, and then jump back in next week, but I'll probably fit in a short walk up/down the street today/tomorrow depending on the weather. There is a storm brewing. My ankle is ok walking and bending, but no pressure. I tried to jog down to the gate to stop the water tanker, but that was a no-no.

 

Adventure begins when the water cuts out in Africa, doesn't it? Almost like living in the wild, while actually being in the middle of a city. Concrete jungle and all. The usual buckets of water up to the house from the water truck. The neighbour across the street sent his son to come help with the 25L drum as hubby is at a track day. We're not frequently out of water, only about once or twice a month now. Otherwise the usual. Almost up to date with finances. Finished Clive Cussler's book. Almost finished with Bible study book. I'm actually blessed with no real issues or dramas.

[Tova, Warrior of the Wilds]

Late to the party, but following for sure! Sorry you hurt yourself, but you'll be back to tip-top shape in no time. Lots of ankle alphabets, and rolling with a soda bottle or other round object. Did a very bad number on my right ankle last year (at a 5k fun run with bouncy castles) and broke my left ankle 2 years ago. These saved me!

[Mrs Van]

2 hours ago, Aggievet2014 said:

Late to the party, but following for sure! Sorry you hurt yourself, but you'll be back to tip-top shape in no time. Lots of ankle alphabets, and rolling with a soda bottle or other round object. Did a very bad number on my right ankle last year (at a 5k fun run with bouncy castles) and broke my left ankle 2 years ago. These saved me!

Great having you here! Thanks I'll try these out. I've been doing circles with both ankles the last two days and I'm using an ibuprofen ointment which helps with inflammation and swelling. The blue under the ankle is slowly fading. I've sprained/twisted my ankles before, but could usually go on as normal either within a couple of hours or by the following day. This was a bit more intense, sore, but not as bad as actually breaking the ankle. Ouch!

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

I've been told that a bad sprain is worse than a break.  So ..... take care of it as you would your children's ankles (I know .... I'm evil).  

 

[lucky fire dragon]

Hai there, you still know me? 

 

Sorry for the long absence... will try to stay on better again this time and start off with sending lots of healing vibes for your ankle <3

Do you have anything uplifting you enjoy listening to when you are tired and frustrated? I find giving my mind happier things to cling onto helps it not chewing too much into unhappy thoughts that are simple nonsense, but seems so real at the time...

 

Love your Jules Verne quotes, too, by the way. And agree with Lighting, you are one of the most adventurous people I know!

[Mrs Van]

5 hours ago, Chris-Tien Jinn said:

I've been told that a bad sprain is worse than a break.  So ..... take care of it as you would your children's ankles (I know .... I'm evil).  

 

Oh yes you are - you know me so well! I have been taking care as if it was one of the boys (except on taking pain meds), because I didn't want to cause more damage and then because of my own stupidity can't do the mud-race-wrestling-thing.

1 hour ago, lucky fire dragon said:

Hai there, you still know me? 

 

Sorry for the long absence... will try to stay on better again this time and start off with sending lots of healing vibes for your ankle <3

Do you have anything uplifting you enjoy listening to when you are tired and frustrated? I find giving my mind happier things to cling onto helps it not chewing too much into unhappy thoughts that are simple nonsense, but seems so real at the time...

 

Love your Jules Verne quotes, too, by the way. And agree with Lighting, you are one of the most adventurous people I know!

Welcome back Lady Fire Dragon! That looks so much like our Stampy peeking out!

 

To be honest, there were a lot of things from the last month+ that went through my mind. I struggled to find uplifting things, but managed in the end to find joy in my family, the animals, and could finally just switch off when I sat on the stoep, looking at the birds, Stampy running around, etc. Being forced to sit, slow down and think sort of forced me to confront some issues, work out the truth of my feelings, the situation, and action to be taken. It didn't help (or maybe it did - great coincidence) that the Bible study chapters, and the Clive Cussler fiction book touched the same topics this week! I realised I can't condone something if it goes against the things that I stand for - morals/ethics/faith. I can't support someone if all they want is me saying yes and amen to everything they say. I know I'm not innocent and I'm not trying to act holier than thou, but... AND in certain cases I'm putting me first now, and not friends. So minus a friend there, or just another situation as with my mom where the silence drags out, and I sit and stew and wonder? Hormones (and guilt) didn't make this process easier, but I'm in a happier place now. I felt like running away from all the people, as if withdrawing would be the answer, but I know it isn't.

 

Hubby and I managed to discuss the weekends up ahead, and yes, it wasn't really an issue. Yes he does have a league shoot on the same day as my mud-run-wrestle-thing, but there are more than enough other league shoots, rally days, track days, etc. that he can attend. So not an issue.