It's probably no secret if you have been noticing my updates on Facebook, but for anyone who has known me since school (or shortly after), well, I hope you are sitting down - yes, I run!

So what has inspired me to do this? Wii, iPhone and Facebook. (There, is that the Chuq you are more familiar with?)

It started when I got Emma a Nintendo Wii (with WiiFit) for Christmas. That was an amusing story in itself, she asked for one and I was adamant it was too expensive. I'm pretty sure she thought it was a lost cause up until Christmas Day! We both started clocking up an hour each a day of running, slalom skiing, juggling, karate, boxing and flapping your arms madly like a bird. In any case it was enough for us to work up a sweat. It also lets you do a body test which measures your weight and BMI, and along with a balance test, your "Wii Fit age" - basically, what sort of state your body is in. I wasn't thrilled when it told me I was 41 on the first day, but I wasn't surprised either!

In January, my super fit sister-in-law Laura asked if I wanted to go running with her and Ben around Risdon Brook Dam. I thought, why not, lets see how the Wii Jogging compares to the real thing. I quickly installed Runkeeper on my iPhone - after seeing it used by friends on Facebook - and set off. As you can see from the map, after 3km I was buggered.

A couple of weeks later the boss of my department at work was asking around for volunteers - he had signed up for the Hobart Run The Bridge, a 10km fun run, but had to pull out and needed a substitute.  I knew a few others who were running/walking the event so I thought, why not? ("Why not" seems to be a common theme here!) I would only be walking it anyway.



The big day came and my plan was to alternate running 2km then walking 2km. I started off with a 500m walk (simply because it was too packed to travel any more than that) to warm up, then started on the run. In the end I walked from 3km to 4km (up Rosny Hill) and 7km to 7.5km (past the Cenotaph) but I shocked myself and ran pretty much all the rest! (Runkeeper map here)

Well, that was it - I had the running bug.  By having details of my runs (times, distances, speeds, calories burned) published to Facebook, it gave me a bit of accountability as I knew that everyone would know how much I was (or wasn't) doing. It keeps track of the totals for each week and month so I can set myself targets (either distance or speed).

Emma has started tracking her walks (which are a lot easier to do when you have two children in a pram) and so far she has clocked up over 150km!

I've set a few personal bests, which is why I had put off writing this post - I keep hitting new milestones!  The most recent has been averaging over 10km/h for 6km.  5-7 km seems to be my "sweet spot" at the moment.  This is just as well, since my upcoming schedule includes the Mothers Day Classic (8km on May 9) and City to Casino (7km on May 16).  I'm lucky to have a fantastic employer who pays not only for sports tops but for registration for events such as these.

Needless to say we don't get on the Wii much any more - usually only just for a quick weigh-in.  It doesn't seem to be hurting - between us we have lost 18kg and burned 19000 calories in a bit over 3 months!  I'm almost tempted to get some Withings WifiScales ... but that would be a bit geeky wouldn't it?

Or shall we call her.... Gastro G :-S

We had a fabulous long weekend... our first bout of gastro supplied undoubtedly by childcare. The first to fall victim was our beautiful baby boy... obviously infected by the love and kisses bestowed upon him by his sister immediately as she walks in the door from daycare of an afternoon.

Friday evening he vomited in his cot 3 times without a cry or any sign to let us know something was amiss... such a placid little thing he is that even on the third time (which I was standing outside the door for and recognised as a spew), soaking wet and stinking, vomit through his hair he didn't cry. I thought nothing of it other than, oh he's been vomiting so got him cleaned up, took him back to bed with us and fed him again.... and wore the lot. This is where I start to worry. My not quite 5 month old baby is unable to keep down breastmilk... something is seriously wrong! I tried again over the night, just letting him suck for a minute and then taking him off to try and just get small amounts of fluid over him, keeping him upright after feeds. In the end I threw Chuq out, propped myself up with a heap of pillows and just tried to rest with him in arms. He got a couple of hours sleep I got less. 5.30am and I try another feed. Wore it again and made the decision to take him to the hospital. Left home at 7am, him having not kept down a feed for nearly 12 hours I was starting to get concerned about dehydration. I don't know who it was who told me that if you need to take a child to the ED take them first thing in the morning but bless you.
We were processed and triaged pretty promptly... the triage nurse took one look at him and exclaimed with a huge grin on her face 'well, aren't you ugly' and managed to coax a smile out of my very flat baby boy.

So we were seen pretty quickly and I gave him another feed whilst waiting for the doctor. I caught my first letdown in a towel, thought it might be too much for him and then fed him for about 10 minutes and he fell asleep. Of course he didn't throw up one drop whilst in the hospital so we were off again on our merry way by 9am.
I went to grab something to eat, but a birthday present and wandered the city for a couple of hours as the little mite had fallen asleep and there was no way I was waking him. Still no spew, and no indication this was a horribly contagious, fast hitting gastro.

Arrived back at my parents' house where I was supposed to have spent the morning shovelling concrete and he had spewed in the car, only a tiny bit though.
The day went on, one more power spew, some small spews and then the other end started. Oh.my.goodness. Baby Beehinds Petite AI2s are AMAZING! How does a nappy so small contain a poo of such magnitude? As the day wore on, he was much brighter, almost back to normal. Thank goodness that was over. Oh how naive.
Sunday morning we wake to find that nobody has been sick overnight. Chuq heads out very early to do the 10km 'Run the Bridge' fun run. Mum and Dad have very kindly Kept G overnight so H and I stayed in bed until he got home.

Early afternoon I packed both kids up into the pram and did my 6km circuit, a couple of minutes faster than last time too! Felt pretty light headed when I got home but nothing a glass or two of fizzy soft drink didn't fix. Had continued light headed episodes over the rest of the day, just put it down to the walk. Wrong.

Dinner time... I looked at it and headed back to the couch. No, Chuq's cooking is NOT actually that bad. I just couldn't bring myself to even consider eating.
And thus begins another VERY long night. I doubt I slept a wink.. if I wasn't gastro-ing it up or feeding a baby I was laying down with such a bad headache there was no chance of me sleeping. Then half way through the night I heard footsteps in the hallway and the other adult spewing up his guts. Uh-Oh.

Come 7.30am I phoned my parents to see if they could take miss G for the day as there was no way we could look after an active toddler given that neither of us could stand without a headspin. No, Mum had it too.

G watched more TV on Monday than the rest of her life combined I think (OK, slight exaggeration but she has never ever before had the TV on all day... she actually asked to turn it off at one point!). I spent most of the day in bed physically not able to get out, Chuq was mainly on the couch watching G. By 5pm after a nice long nap with H I felt well enough to put on a load of washing. Didn't go to bed until late but ended up feeding H ALL night anyway. I'm guessing that after H being sick then me catching it my supply had taken a bit of a beating.

So, Tuesday... Chuq has stayed home from work in case he is still contagious. G and I braved the supermarket for a few things for lunch, rang Mum to see how she is and she tells us that Dad has caught it too. Fabulous... the man who cannot handle spew is vomiting. At least we feel OK Tuesday.

Wednesday everyone is better finally, Chuq back at work.

G is still well. She is now to be known as Gastro G.