Oh dear, I am here!

What can I say, exercise has taken over my life!  Not really, just lots of things going on, so many projects, so little time kind of thing.

I do want to talk about last Saturday.   Our fabulous 12wbt crew here devised another rolling workout, got to love these.  They set a route/activity/timetable and you dip in and dip out wherever you are able.  This time it was the east's turn.

And the work out was called "CRATER CRAZINESS".

The area I live in is full of volcanos, let's just say we live on the wild side, they're dormant, not extinct.  Okay so they probably haven't gushed lava in tens of thousands of years, but they're dormant okay, they could blow their tops at any moment, right?  tee hee.

So the plan for Saturday was:

7.30am : at Camperdown for Mount Leura
9.00am : at Noorat for Mount Noorat
10.30am : at Terang for the Volcanic Park Crater
12.00noon : at Warrnambool to the Blue Hole
1.30pm : A well deserved rest

So I decided to do the first three legs being that they were in my neck of the woods.  With the torrential rain we've been having recently we were keeping an eye on the skies, but Saturday morning, although f-f-freezing, was clear.  Yay.

First stop :  Mount Leura.  Lot of old faces, but we got to meet new member Melissa which was great.  So we ran or walked up to the top of the Mount and then down and around the other side.  I decided to do it twice, cause that's the way I roll ;-)  Total 6.02km.    When I got down the second time, the ladies were already at the bottom, towels on the ground, music pumping through the bush, doing their SSS program.  The activity was contagious.

I set up the phone camera on a post and used the auto timer to take this pic, loved it !!!  

At the top of the Mount, one might say it was a bit blowy!!   Loving the 'do' huh??  

Great view from the top though, right across the south-west.

And here I am with my beautiful friend Casey,

We always seem to take selfies of each other when we are together!!

After about an hour and a quarter there at Camperdown we headed over to Noorat.  A couple of our friends dropped out (goodbye to Melissa and Kate) and Tania dropped in (yay!)

Mount Noorat is a heck of a lot bigger than it looks.  You may remember last year, or was it earlier this year, when I attempted to run up it, I was with Mike who came along to take landscape photographs and we got to a certain point and there was a big bull in the paddock and I was too frightened to go past it.  Well this time no bull, literally!  The mount is privately owned and yet they open it to walkers or runners alike.  Such wonderful people.  You actually climb over a wooden access point that gets you over the electric fence, and then off you go.   

Here are some of the photos I took as I was heading up the side of the mount. 

Gorgeous countryside!

Debbie decided to say thank you to the Rain Gods for holding off the rain for our morning.

Now bear in mind it was windy. 

No ... I'm not kidding ... IT . WAS . WINDY !   

It was a plant-your-feet-and-hope-the-hell-you-didn't-blow-away-windy!!!

Almost at the top.

We made it!!!

Hey, I was there too!!!  ;-)   

There was no way the phone was being put down for a pic,

it would have blown clear away to Terang.

Ha!  I had accidentally hit the video button when I was trying to take a photo.

Now you can see what the wind was like!!  

What a way to know you were alive.

So while a couple of the girls went back down the way we came up, the rest of us decided to keep going around the top of the crater.  I really didn't realise how big wide Noorat was from the road.  It was a great circuit (2.74 km)

I really like this pic, you can see Kazz and Tania there, and far off in front of them a little speck

Debbie who was running! 

This is the top of the crater which dips down into the centre there on the left.

Back down to the bottom and the card table and a well earned coffee from thermos was set up, amazing how good it was after all that energy spent and the chill in our bones.   Then onto Terang. 

And then there were three.  Only Debbie, Kazz and myself were here for that leg.  I didn't even know this walk existed, it is right in the centre of town and goes around a 4.5 km loop, through paddocks (thank you farmers for letting us through) where you open and close gates, even through the nursing home grounds (I'm sure the sight of us in our leggings set some old hearts a flutter!!) and back in a loop to where we started.  

What a beautiful morning!

And back to where we started.  Myself, Kazz and Debbie.

Then a well deserved coffee in the nearest cafe ... skinny latte please and make it fast!  And then Debbie continued on to see if anyone was going to be at the Blue Hole to join her.  That was where both Kazz and I made our exits.

Absolutely phenomenal morning.  I went home to have a nice hot shower which will rank up there as one of the 10 best showers I've had in my life.  I swear my blood crackled as the hot water hit me!  

Super Saturday Session ... done and dusted thank you Ms. Bridges.    Phenomenal effort and fantastic morning with energetic healthy inspiring women.  So what's next I hear you ask ... you did ask?  Hmmm, you'll just have to wait and find out.  There's something very VERY fun coming up in the next couple of weeks.  Hope we get the numbers to pull it off.  Let's just say there may be feathers involved and leave it at that.   :-)