Congrats form me too Sylvestra!!

you should feel very proud and elated, well done 🙂

Well done. 🙂
Doesn’t matter how fit you are if you don’t run, running is hard.
Have fun and keep on celebrating each win along the way.

I’ve only just caught up with this strand, sylvestra. So a belated congratulatory hug. I know myself well enough that I would never do a Race for Life in a million years, but the week 1 exercise looks doable, so I may well give it a go.
Hermajxx

good for you sylvestra! I’ve tried to take up running before, and tried couch to 5K once. Every time I’ve ended up straining something in my ankles, knees or feet. We grow very bad joints in my family, and I’ve concluded that God wants me to walk for exercise, not run. But I am in awe of those who can do it. Congratulations on starting toward a new goal!

Sylvestra, what have you started;
I’ve begun looking at the Race for Life site and have started er… shall we say FASTER WALKING (lol) on the elliptical!

I hope it’s going well. I would say ‘it’s not a race’ but then everyone will start groaning 😉

Aud x

What a stroke of luck to find several of my most regular cyber buddies together on the same thread. Your physical efforts put me to shame but I’m just about to launch on the final stage of the marathon for the mind, i.e. my MA dissertation. I have my first supervision this week and my supervisor has asked for something in writing before our meeting. The day job has also got busy.

Could I ask all of you to cross fingers, toes and everything else – nothing to do with the MA but the fact that a) the kilo I finally lost after a 5-month wait has not returned and b) I appear to have lost a second one. I’m hoping this one will also stay off.

For some strange reason a couple of weeks back I found on two consecutive non-fast days that I felt rather Moby Dick (Cockney rhyming slang for “sick”) after eating a modest sandwich for lunch – already I’m totally unable to eat breakfast. Since then I’ve stopped eating sandwiches on non-fast days and having only the filling, i.e some kind of lean protein and salad, which has meant a big reduction in carb intake, like 10 slices of bread a week. It works well on fast days and on the other days it means that in the evening when I’m really hungry I can indulge a little more without going over the top.

Morning sylvestra x

I am heartened by your 2015 aim – if I think too hard about the younger ones dropping pounds every week and running 10k in 4 weeks, well, it get me very jealous and then I get the Munchies (255 calories per pack, lol)

Yes, keep on running!
Aud x

well done Sylvestra!!

also congrats on your running, way to go girl!! xx

sylvestra Wow! What an amazing weight loss.
The Race for Life was the very first running event that I took part in. The local council had a beginners running course in the spring that was about 8 weeks long with the goal of a 5K at the end.It might be worth checking out whether there is something like that near you…and it was only for women.The Race for Life is organized so that the runners start first, then the joggers and then finally the walkers who have pushchairs and dogs.It’s a lovely atmosphere and really all about taking part together.
Well done on your running/walking. It does get better/easier the more often that you do it.It might be worth trying a Couch potato to 5K training plan, there are several that you can download. If you are going to the gym, then you could try it out on the treadmill, if it’s too much, then slow down.
I cannot believe how much you have lost, it is quite extraordinary. WELL DONE!

Thank you Sylestra!

Just taking one day at a time for now… Hope you are having a lovely sunny sunday 🙂 xx

I’ve been under the radar for the past week with the mother and father of all colds, which I gather I have shared with about two-thirds of the UK population. So just checking in on a topic where I’ve previously found some of my regular cyber-buddies. I’m still not 100% but at least I’m back at my desk. Your finger-crossing seems to be working. Not only have the lost 2 kilos stayed off, another one – or at least half a one – also appears to have slipped quietly away. I haven’t truly been fasting but have eaten so little it amounts to the same thing. Hopefully I’ll be back in the 5:2 routine next week.

Some spectacular stuff going on here, especially sylvestra with that stunning weight loss and the final goal almost in sight. And running with OA – what a star! I don’t think I’ll ever be a runner – I know my limitations – but I take my beanie off to those of you who are, like annette and sylvestra, or will be one day, like aud.

Angie, I’m thinking of you, knowing you are having a rough time right now. We’ve all been there, one way or another, and are all still here to tell the tale – and rooting for you. xx

Thanks for asking about the dissertation, sylvestra. It’s early days yet to focus on a specific theme, but it’s going to be about film and I’ve been lucky enough to persuade a charming younger lady who specialises in modern French cinema to supervise me. If our first two meetings are anything to go by, I’m going to have to work hard but it’s also going to be fun.
Almost certainly the dissertation will have something to do with 1930s French cinema, specifically a trend known as Poetic Realism, which is usually about a proletarian hero who fights the system and ends up dying for love. One possibility is to compare and contrast PR with the British New Wave, things like Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life, Billy Liar,etc., all made in the 60s, and seen when they were first released by the now ancient Hermaj who was then a very young reporter on an evening paper in the industrial North of England and living in a street that came straight out of Saturday Night. If I choose this angle, which is very tempting, it will be quite a nostalgic trip.

I still prefer black and white even now. Juliette Greco was too young to be any part of showbiz in the 30s but she probably went to the cinema as a kid and would have seen many of the Poetic Realist films, many of which became classics. I have also thought about French filmmaking under the Nazi occupation and haven’t dismissed it. For the moment it’s just about reading around, exploring the various libraries in London, especially the BFI (British Film Institute) on the South Bank, watching movies again and again and seeing how the cookie crumbles.

The book is staying on the back burner until the MA is done and dusted. I shall then let the old brain rest for a month or two, as well as doing some of the day job to make up for the non-earning time writing th dissertation, then start serious work on the book in Spring 2015. This of course will mean more time in Scotland, mostly Glasgow and Helensburgh but the NTS archive is in Edinburgh and I’m sure to have to go there once or twice. Although I’ve got a hell of a lot of stuff, it’s going to be a complete reworking. For example, one of the most interesting, and moving, twists to the story emerged about 48 hours before I was due to deliver the research report. In the new version, I may very well start from that point.

And of course, on a day off, a trip to Kirriemuir could be on the cards…

WOw Amazing! Congrats sylvestra!

Hi Sylvestra,

You have spurred me on to start the coach to 5K app which I have had downloaded on my phone for a few weeks now. Im going to start the fast diet on Monday and so plan to do my first run then. I will let you know how I get on if I get through it!

Claire

How are you doing, a month or so later?

Every year I say I’m going to do the Race for Life and every year I don’t. Please inspire me!