Only 8 weeks to go!!!

The colours of Nellie's garden (that's my mother-in-law in Ireland by the way)

I went out on the one sunny day and snapped this lot - don't know what half of them are (below is definitely apple blossom) but they were beautiful.

Heather....see I told you I was not a gardener..

Some sort of azalea??

shrugs...

no idea but gorgeous with the sun behind (I'm a better photographer than gardener)

Clematis (montana?)

I hadn't realised just how quickly this TV programme was passing. We had our second weighing, measuring and time trial last night, 4 weeks after the first so it was our first opportunity to see how we are getting on against objective standards. I'm not going to go into the exact measurements as I don't want to spoil the programme etc but I can reveal that I have lost a reasonable amount of weight; shrunk in centimetres; lost a good amount of fat from the skinfold test sites and got faster in the 1km time trial round the velodrome.

So all good except I think we all felt we could have done a little bit better. It has taken time for us to find our feet and really knuckle down to the programme.

The psych, cycling coach, fitness instructor and the strength and conditioning coach were all there last night and they were all pushing the mesage that we have to really "bring it" now. We have only 8 weeks to go until our final time trial and measurements and we need to make sure that we don't leave anything in the tank.

It was very inspiring and upbeat, not judgmental or negative at all. The psych told us not to dwell on disappointment but to learn from it, which is obvious when you think about it! We realised that we have not met the "olympic" standard of dieting as yet but at least we now know what we are aiming for and we've all had a taste of sucess to prime the pump.

The time trial was amazing. I was the fastest to start with and I'm still the fastest now but one of the other women is catching me fast. The pressure was on and I was determined not to have anything left when I finished. The psych guy shouted at me as I flew by "you've got all night to recover - go for it" and that spurred me on. I felt as though I was flying round the track (although in reality I'm sure I was pretty pedestrian) and it was a great feeling to be lung-burstingly knackered at the end. I was wimpering as I sailed round my slowdown lap but I knew I had given everything.

One of the women was quite emotional about it. I realised that it is pretty rare for grown up women to really push themselves in a physical arena (other than childbirth of course!) and it is a wonderful feeling to find out what your body can do. I know I'm pretty active etc and do walks and even runs but, even so, I don't habitually sprint, flat-out, just for the hell of it. Maybe I should. It's a great feeling.

And having a team of people shouting and cheering on the sidelines and the coaches getting so hyped up by our improvements was great too. I understand that for elite athletes, improvements from their heady heights are measured in tenths of seconds but for us it was several seconds so I think they got a bit over-excited!

One downside is that I haven't got much time so I hope you'll forgive me for not posting as often but I'm really devoting a lot of time to this thing. For example, I'm not long back from work but I've already tidied up, done some home admin, fed the dogs and the birds, recorded a brief video diary, done this post and am about to get changed and go for a run then do a strength and conditioning workout while watching the Champions League Final.

Then I'll think about supper - I've got some homemade soup in the fridge which needs eating so that'll do. Food - it's just fuel to me now!!! he he

Hope you're all getting on well - keep it up and keep those pesky chimps in order!!