say cheese

i thought it was about time i post a few photos of 'my kids'. aren't they adorable?? it was photo-taking day at school and we were getting them to practice their smiles. not all of them were feeling up to it tho. hehe

i've just been to the gym. ran on the threadmill. varied my speed frm 7.5-10. but most of the time was at 8.1.am very happy cos its the fastest i've been able to run for 30 min straight. covered 4.5km and more importantly 2.4 in 13 odd minutes! i've always used the 2.4km run as a benchmark for my level of fitness. in secondary 4 i had to run it 5 times because i kept failing. things didn't get any better in junior college for i failed both years. the passing time in yr 2 was 16min. i missed by 30 sec! i can't tell u just how much i used to dread having to run in school. isn't it weird how drastically we can change? i felt so much better (i have been rather cranky these past two days) after the run. so alive, for lack of better word. i love running. its a challenge, where i am my only competition. hopefully my knee turns out ok (my appointointment with the specialist is on wed), cos i wanna take part in national running events, with my ultimate goal being half of the standard chartered marathon next yr; i.e. 20+km. i've thought about this a great deal and i think finally talking bout it here will help keep me accountable and help me walk the walk, so to speak. at this point i'm a little overwhelmed by the distance involved but i'm determined to see if i'm capable pushing my body that far. after all i'd never thought i'd be one to run 5 km and i've done it before quite comfortably in bout 40 min.

now for the not so good news...i've gained 0.7kg from 2 days ago! mostly because i've been baking and been having too many of these... (very poor quality picture to follow)

brownies! props to grace for the awesome (and oh so easy) recipe. i'm not too bothered bout this latest development tho cos i know where that weight came frm and what i have to get rid of it.

oh! i had a really strong cup of coffee an hour before my workout and i swear it made all the difference. din says that coffee before a workout helps to increase the metabolic rate, upping the calories burnt. what i noticed was that my energy level was much higher throughout the workout and i felt much less fatigued afterwards. what can i say, these trainers know their stuff.