Holiday Work Outs

I'm back! Home from the holiday, back at work and trying to hold on to that sunny  lying around by the pool or sea feeling. Suffice it to say we had a fab time, the resort in Phuket, was, well, mad! It deserves a blog all to itself really, the funniest part is that we got it on a timeshare exchange and the week we own is in a small motel in Turangi which is great for us for skiing, but I can only imagine the shock and horror of someone who owned a week at the Phuket resort if they swapped a week and ended up in Turangi ... they probably wouldn't quite believe it! Just to summarise briefly about the resort (and then I'll shut up about it and get on with the real subject of this blog!)
- Our appartment was roughly the same size as our house (I'm not kidding...)
- The daily room service included the creation of small animals made out of towels (Thai take on origami ?) - I decided to return the favour but not sure mine were quite of the same standard....
- There were 3 swimming pools just in case you couldn't manage the 100 metre walk to the sea
- When you arrived at aforementioned pool(s) the pool staff would bring you towels and iced water, which they topped up regularly, and occasionally bowls of fruit
- The onsite gym was better equipped than the one I'm a member of here in NZ

So on that note (the gym) you'll be delighted to know that the holiday wasn't all about lying on the sun and cooling off in the sea or pool, we did actually get some workouts done too. BIP couldn't afford time off training for hockey masters and I thought it would be rude to make her train alone so we got to the gym 5 days out of our 7 in Phuket and I did a variety of treadmill runs and a few weights. They also had hot/cold plunge pools in the changing rooms which I took advantage of on the last day, but should have checked there was no one else around before jumping into the ice pool the first time as I realised halfway through some rather choice language that I was not alone....!
We also had a gym in the hotel in Bangkok so even got a workout there too. I therefore feel somewhat virtous and it's nice to get back from a holiday not totally fearful about having to get back into running from scratch. Having said that I'm sure next Tuesday's marathon clinic will still be a killer.

Hay hay hay!

There's nothing like throwing a few hay bales around to get a total body workout, cardio and all sorts of muscles, some of which you may never know you had. I got home at 4 yesterday to the joyous sight of our hay being baled (weather had been up and down all week so it had been a bit nerve-wracking). BIP was due home at 5.30 and her older brother was also coming over with the car trailer to help out, so I was prepared to do nothing until they all arrived. Until I looked out of the window. Enormous black clouds were brewing and all heading straight for our paddock, uh oh! So I raced out and at 4.30 began loading up our little farm trailer and dumping bails into the hay barn. The small trailer can carry about 7 bales comfortably and our mini four wheeler can manage to tow that quite well. I was on load number 7 when BIP got home and took up position in the hay barn as stacker so I could just dump each load and head back to the paddock. By now the sky was seriously black and loud thunder was rumbling all around. After 10 load BIP's elder brother arrived with the other trailer and between us we got in the last 50 bales in record time, there were 9 left in the paddock when the heavens opened and between us BIP and I managed to balance all of these onto the small trailer and persuade the bike to tow it up to the barn - phew!! It was a realy downpour and I was drenched - as were the dogs who'd been running round their pen barking like fools at all the activity rather than staying dry in their kennel.  So all gathered in in record time, and I'm surprisingly not that sore or stiff today, I suspect it will hit me tomorrow. The good (and somewhat amazing) news is the spa pool is finally in, delivered, installed, filled and (as I'm sitting at my desk typing this) heating up. I don't care if it's not hot enough when I get home, if necessary I will put my wetsuit on to use the darn thing as I'm determined to get at least one use of it before we head off on holiday tomorrow morning! Oh yes, btw I'm off on holiday, so blog posts will be few and far between and mainly along the lines of - spent the day lying on the beach..... you have been warned.