Yesterday I went on a guided wildflower wander at the Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve. Our council has put on a series of these wanders through various reserves in the area. This one was not far from me and situated in the reasonably new Wildflower Meadow. The guide was involved in the building and planting of the Meadow and I learnt a lot about the thinking behind it, the local environment and the increase in biodiversity the planting brings to our area. After the explanatory talk we went a walk through the meadow and identified various plants. I need to fill in some gaps in our native sections of garden at home, so this was really useful.
I received a reply from the council regarding my inquiry about getting a council waste FOGO bin. Apparently the Waste Management Plan (WMP) submitted to planning at the council stated that a private contractor would be used for all collections and would also provide a bin for FOGO and so our body corporate is not following the approved WMP. Our annual body corporate meeting is at the end of this month so I’m going to raise it at that meeting. Meanwhile G and I took two boot loads of green waste to the transfer station last weekend, so the garden is mostly back in shape.
I’d been trying to work out the best way to schedule my running with my strength training. I have a regular Personal Training Session on Wednesday mornings and, if my daughter is running, I usually go to group training sessions every 2nd, 4th and 5th (if there is one) Tuesday of the month. So my schedule had been: Monday – rest, Tuesday – session, Wednesday – PT, Thursday – Easy run and Strength at the gym, Friday – rest, Saturday – Easy run, Sunday – long run. I was finding that it was hard to do Thursday’s session and run because I was tired and sore from PT. I also wanted to make myself available to play keys at church more often because my friend who mainly plays keys is really too busy to do it. Since my schedule is flexible I don’t need to do my long run on the weekend so I decided to try the schedule Stacy Sims suggests for endurance runners, but moved one day earlier. The new schedule is:
- Monday – Heavy lifting at the gym followed by some SIT on the treadmill
- Tuesday – Session. At the moment, I’m alternating Monafartlek one week with 1K reps the next because my daughter isn’t running and I’m trying to get my 5K time back to a decent level.
- Wednesday – Easy run then heavy weights at PT
- Thursday – Rest
- Friday – Long Run
- Saturday – Recovery run
- Sunday – Rest
I do this for two weeks with the second being higher volume then have an absorption week. So far (after almost 2 weeks, LOL) I’m liking it, I especially like having most of the hardest work done by Wednesday mid-morning.
Do you find you have more energy to get stuff done early in the week? Do you like front loading your week (or weekend)?
Comments
11 responses to “Wildflower wander, Green Waste, New Running Schedule”
I do tend to front load my week, although I also do a long Peloton ride on Fridays, so I guess it’s a double-humped week? I don’t know, I like it.
I love wildflowers! There is a hike in the Rockies, around Sunshine, and if you hit it at just the right time – depending on the year, usually mid-July – there are meadows just filled with wildflowers. It’s absolutely stunning. There are tons here as well and it makes me so happy.
It sounds like we are quite similar in how we roll—except for the early mornings. Over in Western Australia, they have the most beautiful wildflowers, I’ve also enjoyed the display of wildflowers in our alpine areas. It’s great to have a nature reserve with wetlands and wildflowers just a short walk from our place. I do love being in the city and its wonderful to still be able to get my fill of nature.
I hope your new workout schedule continues to work. My workout schedule is entirely dependent on my work/travel schedule and there is not rhythm to my life these days… That is hard for someone like me who is a creature of habit! I am starting to do Orange Theory Fitness classes which is a combo of a treadmill workouts with intervals of faster speeds or higher inclines, and then there is a rowing + strength part. Ideally I’d like to do those twice/week. And then do one other run and one other strength training session ideally. But figuring out how to do this is like playing tetris. I am doing a OTF workout while I’m in Chicago next week, though, so it will be good to fit one in while traveling. But overall, I would say my weekends end up being very full and that is always when I did my long run. When I am not working anymore, that will really change but that is a ways off still.
The travel must make scheduling really hard. You are right, that it’s much easier to be consistent with exercise when you can stick to a regular schedule. The orange workouts sound like fun, and a good way to get a balance of strength and cardio.
Oh, well done on the progress on the green waste situation front! Hopefully raising it at the body corporate meeting will lead to a smoother solution.
Those boot loads to the transfer station must have been hard work!
Your new running and strength schedule sounds really well thought out. I don’t like doing my long run on the weekend either, as it’s usually too packed with other stuff. I use Sunday as my rest day and do the long run on Fridays like you!
I hope this schedule works well. I will miss the post-long-run brunch on Sundays with our friends. If I’m not playing at church though, I will probably go to brunch anyway.
My work days are so long that I usually end up fitting a lot more things on the weekend. It’s just how it works out right now – but I think having kind of a structured weekly schedule is super-helpful.
I am incredibly lucky to be able to choose when I do things. It would be much harder if I needed to be in an office at set times, and working fulltime.
I hope your presence at that meeting will help the resolve the situation or get their attention.
I manage my workouts based on my babysitting schedule. I have less flexibility now that Coach works every morning. I also have a big enough stroller so I’ve been able to take babies on walks. Great news – I started running again. I have a new baby starting tomorrow so my morning workouts will be less productive. I try to devote more time to workouts on the weekends when possible, because my Mon- Thurs are sitting days. I do have Fridays off and I can usually workout a long time then too.
I can imagine it’s a difficult juggle for you to fit in exercising with everything else going on in your life.
I like to keep my weekends as open as possible. So my rest day is on Sunday.
However I enjoy the long walks Saturday morning. We’ll see how that feels like now that we are heading into the darker season.
That wildflower meadow looks really great. The blue ones are planted at my house entrance.