Saturday 7th Feb 09

What a week!

The kids went back to school this week giving me the chance to get back into my normal work / training routine and I have to say I am LOVING it! The summer holidays are sooo long especially with high school aged children who finish up in November and early December - I can't think back to a time when they WEREN'T on holidays!

One of the first things I did this week was book all of our accomodation and rail tickets for our trip to France and Italy in about 9 weeks. Now that I have done that I am getting excited - before it was all about "the marathon" and making sure I was ready for that but now I can appreciate there is actually a holiday attached to this thing :)

Here is our trip:

4 nights in Paris in a lovely apartment in the heart of Paris - it is very chic and newly renovated(pic left). We land in Paris on 3rd of April and the Marathon is on the 5th so a good couple of days to rest and recover from the flight before "the big day" and then a couple of days afterwards to relax and recover.

From there we head to the South of France by taking the TGV train from Paris to Provence which should take us around 3.5 hours seeing some gorgeous countryside along the way. Once we get to Provence we pick up a car and drive to Aix-en Provence for a night in this lovely old hotel.

Our next stop is the Mirimar Beach Resort near Cannes for 2 nights. This place looks like paradise overlooking the ocean. Definitely on the cards to being my favorite spot of all.

From Cannes we head to Nice for 2 nights before catching the train to Ventimiglia Italy and then driving to Florence.

This is where we will be staying inFlorence for 3 nights before heading to Rome.

This little hotel in Rome is gorgeous and is owned by an older couple is seems to be run more like a B&B - looks like being another favorite.

After 2 nights in Rome I will head home to the kids and back to work and Chris will head to England to catch up with his brothers and other relly's for a week before heading home.

It is going to be quite a trip and I know I will enjoy watching the Tour de France this year annoying everyone with "I've been there" till they want to snack me.

This has been a huge weight off my shoulders finally getting all of this booked. It took me most of the day which is what I expected and also why I put it off for so long but not it is done I'm happy.

Organising the dates the kids stay at different places is next on the Agenda but looks like it is going to be pretty straight forward as our trip falls in the Easter school holidays.

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The older 2 kids started different high schools this week and towards the end of the holidays were getting a bit anxious but it has all gone very smoothly and they are now happily into the routine of a new school and new bus each day. Phew!!

Chloe B (little one) is now in grade 5 which still freaks me out - when did she get so big?? This is my baby!!

This week I also got to work off the 1.5kg I put on over the holidays due to decreased training load (kids at home) and increased wine intake :)

Feels much nicer to be at my ideal weight but also a good reminder of what my girls are going through each week in some way.

Tomorrows run is 25k and thank goodness we are only looking at 23 degrees tomorrow so it should be quite pleasant. Now I'm regularly running over 20k 9 weeks before the Marathon I'm feeling a lot more confident it won't kill me. My longer runs are becoming more comfortable as my body grows stronger and more used to the distances I am pushing it to run.

I have my first dead toenail at the moment - apparently the sign of a "real" runner :)

I am starting reformer pilates with my physio on Monday to help with my hip and associated issues and I am looking forward to that. The one thing I am feeling in my long runs is that I am not as strong in the legs as I would like for hills etc but any leg work flares up my hip so I am hoping we can get some additional strength in my legs on the reformer without flaring anything up too much.

Well that's about it for today; it is supposed to reach 44degrees today so the plan is to stay cool and rest up for the mornings long run.