I've had a headache all week that won't quite die: it gets better when I'm lying in bed and worse when I'm walking around. It's nothing like my experience of migraine and it's not even particularly debilitating, though it is distracting. Neither paracetamol nor ibuprofen do a thing for it.

A very nice friendly doctor checked me out yesterday and eliminated swathes of scary things I don't have and thinks it's most likely a tension headache, caused by stresses mental and physical (e.g. having had flu 2 weeks ago and a full-time job and a small child). I am instructed to sleep more and rest more and go easy on myself. Try codeine to see if works any better than the NSAIDs (which I haven't yet but might this evening). And go back if it hasn't gone away in 10 more days.

So I have continued getting the bus where possible and walking slower-than-usual (which means I need a coat) and slacking off on the housework. I do feel much more myself this week though, which is great.

( More general health and fitness )

I am very overweight. My initial attempts to lose my pregnancy weight just sputtered out after a while: regular hard exercise has been a hard thing to make time for in the post-baby world. Since last October I have been slowly trying to "get my act together" generally: eating better, sleeping better, and exercising.

My weekday routine includes 4 miles a day of walking, but I kept being tempted to take the bus some of the time, and the walking was not a very challenging pace. Other activities (ballet, swimming) were hard habits to establish and tended to unestablish very easily. When we went on holiday in June, I had time to think out clearly what I'd been feeling fuzzily for a while: I needed a challenge, and I needed exercise I could do when it suited me.

I thought about running for a while but I'm very paranoid about my knees, and my ankles like to twist at the mildest provocation. Then I was reminded of the "London MoonWalk" and I've always enjoyed walking, so I decided to give power-walking a go.

I realised that next year's MoonWalk was too far away to effectively get me moving right now, so I settled on the Bristol half-marathon, which gave me 10 weeks to train. I've followed a power-walking training plan more-or-less faithfully, apart from 3 weeks in the middle when I kept getting summer colds. Until this week I wasn't really sure I could do the walk in the time required (the race is primarily for runners, and timed accordingly), but checking over the final information this week, I reckon I can complete the race before they stop guaranteeing support. So we're off to Bristol tomorrow and I'm racing on Sunday. Hopefully Tony will manage to take some photographic evidence which I can upload on our way home.

In the mean time, I've lost no weight at all (if anything, I've gained 0.5-1kg), but I've had to start wearing belts with some of my trousers, and I'm keeping up with Tony much more easily when out and about. I've mostly-established a habit of regular high-heart-rate exercise, and will be working towards the full marathon next year.

(And if you want to sponsor me for Sunday, you're very welcome.)

Exercise has not been going very well in the last month, although in general my organisation has been improved and my Inbox occasionally reaches Zero. Hard to get too many habits established at once.

Today was the first day of the new ballet term. I don't think I've been to ballet since the Great Norovirus Plague, because the habit got thoroughly disrupted then and hadn't been sufficiently bedded in beforehand. There have been classes all summer, run on a "we'll set the level when we see who comes" which was just a bit worrying for me in case I turned up to a class full of really good people apart from me. Just enough to make it easy to find an excuse every day not to go.

Recently I've been updating the big family wall calendar I bought for the house and started by writing in all the Saturday and Monday ballet classes that were not already ruled out by existing commitments, and today I got Tony up in time to look after Charles so I could make it to class.

Ballet makes me happy. Also tired and slightly achy but I generally feel happier when exercised, and ballet works brain and body together. It probably helped that there were two genuine real beginners there so a) I didn't feel completely rubbish and b) there was more explanation for their benefit. There were also four very good people taking the class as extra practice. I realised today that apart from the extra money they bring, they are also useful extra models of How To Do It, so they benefit the class and the teacher as well as themselves.

I will be going again on Monday and the following Monday, but not next Saturday as we're committed elsewhere. I don't think I'll ever be able to make it every Saturday or every Monday, but hopefully a good percentage of each is possible. This is what I hoped to do last term and never quite had the commitment to do so. Having it written on the wall planner makes it that bit harder to wimp out.

Now to work out a weekly family-swim schedule, as it was so much fun at DWCon.

Sunday: took Charles to the rec for >1 hour
Monday: mowed lawn (bit pathetic, wasn't anywhere near 30 min, but did get me out of breath)

Tuesday: spent HOURS taking part in silly "corporate team bonding" games on inflatable torture devices in the rain. I did mostly enjoy the games, especially the last one which involved climbing and thus I was able to be vaguely competent (unlike certain other games - good thing I don't feel overly attached to my dignity). My team came 2nd! I have a pretty rosette, which Charles already broke the safety pin off.

No idea about tomorrow, but I have an Exercise Menu on a card in my diary now. Picking something is much easier than being creative, especially when I'm tired. I already worked this out about food, which is why we try to have supplies of ping in the fridge/freezer.