When the Cheshire emerges...

Travel sickness can be a bit of a pain. Travel injuries are a whole other story. And then those combined with a scare of nearly not making a flight is a good plot for someone's worst nightmare.

Thankfully I've never had anything serious in the way of these during my previous travels, but both injury and sickness were definitive in the final hours of my trip to South America - pushing me towards actually wanting to return to Australia.

Yeah, on the last day I really did just want to be home.

After being unable to meet with my friend in Santiago, all my sightseeing hadn't gone to plan on the second day there ahead of my flight. I was continuing to have issues with my bowels (which to be fair hadn't felt right since heading to Peru two weeks before), and I'd hurt my knee on day three of the Inca Trail, feeling a pain on the outside of my right kneecap as I completed the bulk of the downhill climb.

Not sure if the strap helped, but I wore it for the rest of the trek - thanks Hans!

I was grateful that the Inca Trail had been in the last week of the trip, knowing I would soon be able to see my physiotherapist at home. I could walk, but it was getting really painful and limping was a near necessity. As for the bowels, they worsened the later it got and toilet trips were becoming more frequent than breaths for air.

Then I almost didn't get on my flight because of damn Lan Airlines. Told at check-in I'm on standby - they apparently had 20 people over because of a change in the size of the plane taking us. Being told to wait there, and with the body not holding up, I sat on the floor before actually bursting into tears. I did not feel well. I had my Sydney day with friends planned that I was really excited about and a connecting flight. I did not want to stay an extra day!

Thankfully I was with two lovely sisters, Morgane and Armelle, from my Santiago hostel who I'd spent time with, and they were in the same boat. With an 11.20pm departure, 10pm comes and goes and there's no news like they said there would be. I'd been given a free food voucher so went to use it (where the people swarming around me were not terribly helpful). On returning I'm found and told they called my name. Then the woman at the counter says "You can't get on, you've missed it, it's past 10.20 and that's an hour before departure. You should've been here at 10 like you were meant to." It was 10.20 on the dot on my watch, but she tried proving otherwise on her iPhone. I then have back-up from Morgane and Armelle (who had received their tickets) arguing I was around at 10 - "but I went to use the voucher YOU provided me because I was told I wasn't getting on this plane".

And then she finally let me on. Miraculously with a seat letting me stretch out my leg.

***

I ended up losing any holiday weight and then some because I continued to have a lack of solid digestion during and after the plane ride. So there was good out of that I guess. Although that easily creeps back as I've found without regular exercise.



Yes, I can't exercise properly yet because of having to recover by doing these exercises with a foam roller. The knee pain is my showing of ITB Friction Syndrome, a common problem, so I have to ease my way back to fitness. And nearly three weeks since coming back, jogging for more than 10 minutes on a treadmill isn't going well. So I definitely can't manage weights or other classes, and it's killing me. I just want to sweat it out!

I am allergic to running.

This is not so much a revelation as it is confirmation, with my first-ever run in Dubbo confirming after runs in Adelaide that I can't handle much in the way of basic endurance exercise.

That's part of my left shin. Can you spot the red patchy bit on the left side? Well, that happened to be all over me like a rash, and rather than being puffed out and stopping I had to go to a walk purely because my legs were numb, sore and itchy all at the same time.

What's worse is that I found myself doing the following, all because I'd gone out the door intending to go to the gym and then realised it was a public holiday for everyone else:


Not the smaller loop you can see there (I thought I was fine at that stage, ha) but the big, newly completed part of the Tracker Riley Cycleway. Starting at the top right 'corner' of the loop where the CBD finishes, I thought it was only 6 kilometres or so but I was told it could be up to 17. So for now I'm confused, but what I do know is that I was out there for 90 minutes, I ran (re: jogged) for about 35 minutes of that and I'm SORE AS HELL. I can hardly walk. For goodness sake, I got out to the ZOO! For Dubbo, that's pretty far. Can't you tell?

But this is what it looks like - really pretty. I cursed myself for not having my camera, this one was online.


While the mystery of the allergy continues, in the end I was really proud of myself for getting there and now I can say I've done it. Although if I do a run again I'd be much safer with the smaller loop - I'm not looking forward to having to move tomorrow.

***

This all stems from habits over the last two months, when I returned to Dubbo after my birthday in July feeling a little bit heavier, having indulged in plenty of good food. In the weeks between that visit and my time away for a work conference (aka cadet camp), I made a promise to myself that I would really knuckle down and get into good shape for summer.

Went to Curves as per usual and I meet a new staff member who's really enthusiastic about the job and wanting to get me on goal plans and whatnot. I get my monthly measurements done and explain how I've been home, eating too well, and also how that hadn't changed at work. Let's just say there's always a cake around waiting to be eaten, we have some good bakers in our midst.

She took that to heart, bless - I still laugh looking at it.


Getting back into it was hard because I was preparing for my latest two weeks away, but now I'm back from that I can start my do-over. And finally blog to you all about my recent adventures, it's coming!

***

To end on a different note, I hit 10,000 pageviews today. Excitement! Although I'm sure the majority of those are just people Googling images. So if you DO read it for real and like it, share it to others who you think might benefit from my musings. And let me know what you think of course!

Going to the gym has predominantly been about keeping fit for me; I really only ever considered it in the soccer off-season of 2009-10 for the first time.

Finding Curves ended up being more than just going to a gym - for one thing it's not about treadmills or weights. The circuit ended up being a routine but remained a challenge, and an eventual job out of it didn't hurt either.

Holidays overseas shifted my focus slightly to regaining my former numbers. In 2010 I didn't gain much at all so it wasn't an issue. But in 2011 I found it a bit harder. Like, gaining a whole size harder.

With my move looming and no real employment I returned to Curves and did my best to shed the holiday kilos in what I call my 'unknown' month. Luckily for me I seem to do that okay. And a month or so after joining the Curves here in Dubbo I'd actually gone back to just under my pre-holiday weight.

And then I saw this.

I've never had anything like this before. I'd lost 20 centimetres on the road to recovery! I couldn't believe I actually had something significant up there, it was really encouraging. And it's still up with all of the others.

***

Before I went to Newcastle in early January the last time I wore my bikini I was a size bigger. It was in Athens, my last day before flying out of Europe where a really sleazy middle-aged Greek man tried to make me run away with him after coming up to me in the water. So I was experiencing a whole mix of emotions there.

I noticed when I had it on most recently (laying in the amazing Newcastle sand) that it was a little bit loose, top and bottom. Felt a bit smug there. But annoyed I'd stretched it out at the same time. And realised I felt no different to what I usually do.

Moral of this story: you work toward what you feel is right for you.

I could have stayed at that size. I had a lot of people telling me I looked healthier as that little bit bigger. But not fitting into my clothes did NOT want to make me be home. I couldn't even pick out three-quarters of my outfits as daily choices, which was for a short time a terrible loss. Curves has brainwashed me into thinking healthier thoughts about exercise and looking after myself - so don't touch me, I'm a star okay?