I am just slightly sleep deprived, my own fault of course. It isn't very sensible to get up at 5 am, go to bed at midnight, and then get up again at 6 am. (Had to drive kids in to netball carnival for 7am! photos.) I was about to say 'for someone who needs their beauty sleep', but it would be more apt to say 'for someone who really needs her brain sleep!!' (I gave up on the idea of beauty a long time ago!) Feeling just slightly 'gah-gah' tonight.

I am still trying to reconcile the 'I'm not a morning person' self with this one who is getting up before dawn to go bike riding. There was a very interesting conversation going on in between the voices in my head - for a good hour and a half yesterday morning - in fact, incessantly from 5 am till 6.30 am when we started riding. "You realise you could have stayed in bed till 8.00! That would be three hours more sleep!! How good would that be?... Yes, but you like the riding once you're there.... But you feel like shit later in the day!... Yes, but how much better do you feel for having got yourself some exercise... 30 something km!... you know you like how it makes you feel... yes, I know... and the social coffee afterwards.. that's good.... But THREE hours more sleep!... Wouldn't you like to have nearly 50% more sleep?!... Are you crazy?"

Nah.. I am proud of myself for these mini-achievements in overcoming a lifelong habit of morning sloth. At least once a week. Really, I am loving this bike riding. Once I'm there! And I love being a part of the community riding thing... (See! You're not a social outcast really.. you just need to find like-minded people..! ) It is certainly easier to exercise, in any way, in a group.

Hey, and there's something to be said for hydrotherapy. Swimming on Friday night was a bit tough on the creaky old quads, but I felt SO much better after my squad class, even if I didn't set the world on fire with my actual swimming. My legs were ok for riding the next morning.. I rode the bike better this week; riding in the pack (the peloton if you wish, albeit in a non-racing, small group situation) for the ride 'out'. I 'fell off' the back (again) on the way back - all the fault of bad timing with having to prop for traffic, and a bit of cautiousness on the bike path round a headland. That's ok. All practice. I am improving. And I chalked up another 33km on my new bike. And an hour and a half of exercise I wouldn't have done this weekend if I hadn't got up at 5am.

Since then I've spent several hours, in total, serving on netball canteens - both days - which, on top of the sleep thing is contributing to feeling pretty well stuffed. As I've said before, I would much prefer the feeling of 'stuffedness' from several hours riding to several hours standing at a counter, selling cans of drink, pies and sausage rolls, and endless cups of tea and coffee. It is just 'what you do' when the kids get involved in this level of sport, I guess. A certain level of 'duty' - and a certain level of standing around watching. We certainly wouldn't be doing it if the kids didn't love what they were doing. Even if those voices in my head today were having a lively discussion about what I'd much prefer to be doing with my Sunday!

So. Pizza for dinner... !! No energy left between either Marc or I to cook. A very mutual decision made there as we were leaving the netball courts - he did about 2 hours of BBQ duty, so wasn't particularly interested in lighting up ours tonight. Just hope he feels like driving to pick up the pizza. I should think about ordering it now, so that we can all eat, and then all get to bed to catch up on our beauty brain sleep. You would think our netballers would be tired, but you'd be surprised at how much nagging we will have to do to get them to go to bed - a combination of general fitness, the 'second wind' factor, and 'night owl' genes. No early risers in this house (yes, we had it good when they were little - no pre-dawn risers/waker-upperers). But we are paying for it now - eldest in particular is a sod to wake up in the morning - and I'm anticipating a sluggish one from all tomorrow! Including me.

Labels: daily, voices