I tried to discover.....

A little something to make me sweeter...

And it turned out to be a swim and a turbo :)))

I had to stop writing my blog this morning as I realised I was being a miserable twat. I am constantly annoyed by people moaning about the thing they do as a hobby and what do I do....yeah moan. I know running is my favourite thing but turns out it doesn't really matter how I get my fix as long as I get it. I am such a tart :D

Anyway, thinking on my leg I know what I did yesterday. As soon as I started running my piriformis was making me drag my leg. Rather than stopping like the sensible educated person I am I decided that I had to carry on because I said I would. So rather than pushing with my glutes I'm pulling with my hip to the point where it starts to affect my groin. To the point where I am shuffling, to the point where I am in tears.

And this is what I do for fun. Muppet!!!

Anyway, hot bath when I got in and a promise of wine and fish fingers for tea and I was happier. And I've been thinking about things.

The way I train is to go out and do what I want to do. If I have to do it it stresses me out. So I am going to take each of the events I have planned as they come. If I feel like doing them I will. If I don't that's fine, because I know what will make me happy.

I have many many miles in my legs. I have endurance. I'm also a stubborn cow.

I won't let running get me down, it doesn't define who I am, it doesn't make me a better person and I don't want it to. There's a lot more to me than that :)

Basically I'm me!!!! Like it or not. And I do.

Shoot the runner....(part 1 of a 2 part blog)

Or at least put her out of her misery.

I don't know if I'm injured in the head or if it really is my body. I recently ran two decent ish marathons, but I can't seem to train.

Is it because I know I must? Is it that stupid part of me that hates HAVING to do something? I wish I knew, it's driving me nuts.

Doesn't make sense either, I knew I had to train for the 10 and I did. Why when I am doing something just for me am I faltering?

Just because I can.....

Doesn't mean I always want to, or have to.

This weekend was a running/social weekend. Travel up to Birmingham on Saturday evening, stay at the ETAP, then get picked up in the morning to go to Gloucester where myself and my 3 chums were entered into the 50k.

Now, when I entered this race I didn't really think about it. An ultra in January seemed like a good idea. However on reflection, an ultra with a cut off (I think it was 5 hours but tbh I was totally confused by what it was and I think so was everybody else) wasn't a good idea. I am currently looking for a pace I can maintain over 100 miles (or as much of it as I can) and I happen to know that that particular pace isn't sub 10 minute miles.

So for the last few weeks I have been stressing about the race even though it's supposed to be a fun weekend I realise I dont really want to do the race. But then I wont meet up with my pals.....and that thought is what won out in the end.

My head however, is not in race place.

Bear in mind also that two of my friends are not marathon fit, let alone 50k fit (the other one is a lean mean trained racing machine).

So we go to Gloucester, and I see pretty much everyone I have ever met at a marathon, because gloucester is a race for PROPER RUNNERS. 10 in 10 ers everywhere, 100 club people and lots in club vests. (oh and Gaz who was picking up his headtorch and lent us some pins, thanks Gaz)

Marathon starts, 10 or so minutes later we do, 2 miles til you join the lap proper, then 4 x 7 mile laps.

I'll be honest. As soon as I started running I was thinking about last year where I had a bit of a rough time and decided that actually I hated the course. It was good to be running with my friends and having a chat but I couldn't see myself finish, I just didn't want to.

Long story short, when Mark started making noises about how far he would be able to go (bearing in mind he was staring a new job the next day and didn't want to feck up his back for it).......I decided that 2 laps would be enough, I was soooooo looking for an excuse to stop (this isn't like me).

And that's what we did, we stopped at the turnaround before you go on to lap 3. We took our numbers off and waited there for Jules to pass cos he had the car keys and then we jogged back to the centre. Quick (fucking freezing) shower and then off to the finish to wait for Jules. We didn't have to wait too long, he finished looking remarkably fresh within his goal time and we were all made up for him :)

I on the other hand, felt really empty. I honestly wish I'd never started. Thats not saying I didn't enjoy running with my friends I did and I have run fantastic marathons with both of them and no doubt will again, I just shouldn't have done this one.

The first time I did Gloucester I loved it. The second time it was a bit of a trial due to my piriformis (which basically just hurts all the time now you just get used to it) this time my head was completely against running it. I will not be going back, it's one of those courses I am done with.

I tweeted some silly rubbish after and I feel I should say, please dont ever take anything I say on twitter seriously. I would not tweet anything really important, and if something awful had happened I rather think you would know because of my silence rather than anything else :D My sister has been known to ring me because she hasn't seen me tweet in a while.

The view I had most of the day.

Anyway, thanks to Matt, Mark and Jules for the entertainment, and one of these days I will be up to run a TNSG run in Sutton Park :)))

I can't seem to face up to the facts......

....I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax, I can't sleep cos my beds on fire, don't touch me I'm a real live wire.....

You know the rest.

Blimey, what's wrong with me? I'm at boiling point for no discernable reason, obviously I'm a woman and the way we work is very mysterious, even, to ourselves, well I'm assuming there, I've only ever been me, and I confuse the hell out of myself :-D

Anyway, I have had a think about it, and I think I'm a bit mentally tired. I really dont want to run today, like really not...........but physically I feel fine. Maybe I thought too much on Saturday eh? Also I keep waking up in the night thinking about stuff, you know, job stuff, house stuff all the ordinary things that I cant seem to switch off, and then last night it was the American Psycho dream. I had to get up, turn the lights on and check the wardrobes. Then give myself a talking to before I could go back to sleep! Mr H wasn't there, I always assume he has gone to work, and he buys me stuff so I guess he does :D

Hmmm work stuff. Thats it really I know it. Contract ends Oct, unsure of my next move. Getting too old to Post Doc. (over)Qualified for nothing. Publication record sucks. Science rocks dunnit.

So all this waffling on is trying to explain to myself why I havent run today and why I am not going to. Sometimes a good run when you are in a bad mood does you the world of good. Sometimes you just cant get out there in the first place. I'm deciding not to beat myself up about it.

The next time I run though I will wear the new 2xu tights I bought this morning. They look fab WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.

You can hide 'neath your covers........

..and study your pain....

OR.....

You can do what you said you would :-)

I had announced earlier this week that Saturday would be v long run day. My ideas of a very long run were unclear. At first it was going to be get out the door at 6, and run til 6....then I came to my senses, and thought dyou know what? I might be a bit of a lunatic but running that long is only for race day when I can get presents at the end. I'm not doing it for nothing you know!!!!

Then I decided that it gets light at 8 and dark at 4. That'll do.

So Friday I left work early so I could do some housework and get an early night without being tempted by the pub. I am weak, what can I say.

Went to bed early and set the alarm for 6, to allow me to get a good breakfast before I set off.

I woke at 7. Of course I had forgotten to set my alarm :-O ok no disaster you will just set off later. I dressed warmly and put water, jelly beans and money in my rucksack. I woke Mr H and told him I would be back every 2 hours to check in.

I set off.

I ran approximately 4 miles using 25/5 to a place called the chase. Basically a very small reserve, with trail paths running through it. It has a very nice mile long lap within it that I know like the back of my hand and I love because it is bumpy rather than just flat and I always see lots of birds there, even though it is in the middle of Dagenham.

I decided once there that I would do 25/5 to 2 hrs. The next 2 hours would be 12/3. So I got to 2 hours and then walked for 15 mins. I rang Mr H and said I was fine I would come back later. I had enough water and sweets and I didn't even need my iPod I was happy enough.

12/3 worked really well up to 4 hours, but I needed something different to eat and drink, so I ran to a shop about 0.5 miles away, bought a bounty and a bottle of coke and ran back. I rang Mr H and said I was fine but I would be really grateful if he would come along after 6 hours and walk a couple of laps with me to make it 7 hours.

Anyway, 12/3 worked really well until about 6 hrs 20 mins when Mr H turned up and we walked the final 2 laps to make it 32.6 miles in 7 hours.

Things I learned

When you need a wee, you really hate dog walkers

When it's really cold you think you don't need to drink, but you need more than I had

Cold tesco jelly beans are bloody hard

Lock laces are fab, but not for hours. Not being able to loosen your shoes when your feet are sore is horrid

Run walk from the start is essential for someone like me, it breaks it down into manageable chunks. I would do 4/1 if I found it necessary.

The bigger the dog, the more likely it is to jump up and try and floor you

On an ultra a change of hat must not be forgotten

Shock absorber bras work!!!!!

Always have a bounty and a bottle of coke in your bag

I bloody love running!!!!!

Today I feel fine and have run 8 miles. I am sure that is because of my sensible strategy yesterday. I have given myself a massive confidence boost just by spending so long on my own yesterday and keeping going.

If it had been pissing down with rain yesterday I feel this may have been a very different blog :-)

It's not always as easy.....

as I make it look you know :)

My last blog was about the Winter Enigma marathon. It was a week ago today.

Feels like 100 years!

Despite the fact that we all know I am a fabulous endurance athlete I found the week training after this bloody hard.

Tuesday, first proper day back at work. I hauled myself outside and ran a mile. A WHOLE MILE. If I told you that this was to stretch my legs after the mara and get things working again, I would be a liar. I ran it to have one of the Jantastic runs done. It may give you some insight here if I say that once, lots of years ago I was off work with a particularly nasty cold. At the time I had set myself a target of so many step classes a week (I had one indoors) I was going to miss this weeks target if I didn't do it, so I did. Well, I did half of it before I fainted. I dont think I need to say anymore there.

Wednesday, woke feeling rough because of my tooth probs, was toying with staying home but eventually got myself out for 3 miles and then onto work, I was glad I ran and it was a nice one.

Thursday was 3 days after the mara when the tiredness always gets me badly. No energy, barely able to concentrate at work so I called it a rest day and I realise I needed it. Friday was finally my appt to get tooth sorted. Now I love using running as a means to get chores done and to places I have to be which are walkable so I ran there. My 30 minute appointment was an hour in the end and I had so much local anaesthetic I am still dribbling (I am going to stick to that excuse). It was only that it took so long to get paid for it and sort out the next appt that I wasn't crying when I left! Yeah alright dentist maybe I am a nervous patient but I honestly dont see what the problem with that is. What you are doing is hurting me, I generally shy away from pain, especially the sort that dentists cause.

I do know that they are fixing something that we can presumably prevent by not actually eating anything or having saliva, or ,or well not having a mouth eh?. Do you remember those red tablets we got at school? you would clean your teeth and then chew one to find out how well you had done it.........which was always awfully.......because you need a flip top head to clean your teeth that well, and to not have anything else to do all day!!!! Anyway, I'm digressing aren't I......

Oh yeah, I ran home too. Small milage, but emminently loggable on Jantastic.

Saturday I planned to run to parkrun, do parkrun then run home. I woke up in good time but my jaw was so sore I decided to stay in bed and feel sorry for myself until eventually I worked up the energy to go for an hours run. Having not got to parkrun I had to rearrange delivery of my old garmin to a running club friend. This was made easier because my club were meeting at Hainault next morning for an off road jaunt.

So Sunday I left the house at 8.30 for what I thought was 7 miles (was 6.2) up to Hainault. I thought I would be late but no I was early......so got quite cold waiting for the off. Did around 4 with club mates then ran home...... my legs were shockingly tired and I struggled loads. I am hoping it was because I got so cold, because 15 miles really shouldn't bother me that much. I have been stretching since as piriformis is tight on both sides and 3 miles this morning didn't feel too bad.

So whats next.............well Gloucester in 2 weeks, then 2 weeks after that it's the Moonlight Challenge (I did my entry online this morning, I have received an email from the organiser this afternoon saying hi and telling me my number is 53.....good service eh?) then 2 weeks after that it is 4 in 4 days at the quadzilla and then ......

IT'S THE BIG ONE.

(Thanks to Steve Easleys dad for the photo which I have shamelessly ripped off facebook without asking)

New Year, same old me.....

So yesterday was the Winter Enigma Marathon at Caldecotte Lake.

I got a lift to Bletchley from Kaz on Sunday and she took me to my hotel at Furzton Lake. I pretended to be someone else and checked into my room. A lot easier than I thought it would be. The man on the desk remembered me calling last week and telling him that I would be checking in under my name rather than my partners, which was what the room was booked under. He also remembered me telling him I was going to run a marathon the next day ;D which was quite funny cos I dont remember telling him that, but I was taking lots of painkillers when I rang ;-O

I chucked my stuff in my room and then we went to the hotel at Caldecotte where we met Foxy, Davey Green and Sally. There were lots of other runners too dotted about all eating chips!!! So a couple (!) of pints and a burger later I wobbled back into my room tweeted some bollocks and went to sleep.

The alarm on my Garmin woke me at 2am. It took sometime to work out what it was. I got  up and pressed a button. Went back to sleep.

2.10am it went off again. I got up, turned the lights on and worked out how to disable the alarm. Drank quite a lot of water. Went back to sleep.

7.30am got up, had porridge and tea, got myself dressed to run. I put lots of vaseline where the band on my sports bra goes. At 8.45 I was picked up by Jon E and Andy N and off we went to Caldecotte.

Met lots of runners, the usual suspects and others. A guy was there who has just got the world record for number of marathons in a year .... wow!

Usual low key start, about 60 runners so not too congested. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do timewise here, it was a bit of a last minute decision and I hadnt run well at XC. So I just went along at what felt comfortable. Turned out to be 8.45s or so for the first couple.

Well I knew where I was until I got to 2.89 miles. My Garmin then played some sort of victory tune and informed me I had won.

I had reached my goal of a workout of 300 calories. I dont know WTF it had got that from, I wanted it to record my mile splits for a sodding marathon thank you very much! So I arsed around a bit and eventually reset it to go from zero and carried on.

I knew my pace would drop, the garmin issue was neither here nor there, I know I am not in the right form to sustain sub 9 minute miling for a marathon, and I will live with that for the time being. So I decided what I wanted to do was beat my time from the xmas enigma (4.10 something).

Around 8 or 9 miles in I knew I was having chafing issues. I thought about stopping to sort things but once I am running on my own and I have a rythym I just dont stop so I figured it would go away. Or the pain in my legs would take over or something. (that seems so reasonable when you are running)

Anyway, I ran alone the whole way for the first time in I dont know how long. I concentrated on not letting mile splits go too far the wrong way, and how cold it was in the wind (icy). I finished in 4.07.47. So mission accomplished.

I went to get changed and I was alright until I took off the black tshirt covering the white top underneath. It did indeed look like someone had stabbed me. Made me feel a bit sick.

I'm typing this, sitting very upright at my desk wishing I could find one of the 5000 pots of sudocrem I have.

But I am happy to have done marathon number 1 this year AND to be happy with my performance. I am not going to be where I want to be in terms of that until the autumn, but........for now, it'll do.

HAPPY NEW YEAR :))))))

Groundhog Day...........

Well here we are NYD 2012. Olympic year. I remember when they got the Olympics, do you? July 2005. Just before the bombs. Sticks in your mind.

Many blogs are reviewing the year just gone now. Well I don't want to be too different do I. So....

Started the year running the winter Enigma round Caldecotte Lake. I ran it with one of the nicest guys I know :) though good God he moaned. Being serious, I first met Matt in Sept 2010, and since then he has achieved bloody loads. He has a sub 4 marathon and he made Outlaw look easy. It was a real privelige to watch him do it. I really hope he can do it this year. I want us all there.

Then up to Brathay for training weekend. Good to meet the folks I would be running with. Did have a laugh. Hated doing the video.

Then it was Gloucester. I don't feel good about this one. Aiming for sub 4 tied up with PS halfway and felt I had let a friend down.

Feb was Moonlight challenge. I love this race. I got lost, I scared myself shitless in the dark. I laughed at myself. I met Eszter.

March appears to be pretty much just training, ran 15 mile xc with Legless and Jen which was fun. Did 2 times 20 back to back. Just running.

April was London and Good Friday Enigma. Felt like London went great. GF was good but bloody hot. Ran it with Noel which was nice. All of these things are training for next month.

May - I've been working towards this ever since throwing my bike at the volunteer in Nottingham :-D First it was Stratford ......I don't think I have ever had so much fun doing a marathon, and I think the first of 11 marathons I watched Mark blag.

Then the big one the ten in ten. Tbh it now all blurs into one. I did it, I finished them all, I found out how much easier it is with friends. I found out that far from being a twat twat, Mark is one of the nicest people I will ever ever meet :) I still hate him for being able to just run like he can. I admire him greatly too. I saw fellow runners at Brathay put themselves through a lot to complete the challenge. I admire them too. I feel I know I can do more. Maybe that's what I learnt. (just try to comment MR R)

June, well I was going to say I rested, but I appear to have been biking and swimming.

July decided to try a 50 miler. It was fun. I love Mikes events.
Supported at Outlaw. Saw Matt do a blinding time, was ace.

August, decided to try another 50, yknow just in case I dreamt the one before. NDW 50. Well if the one before was a dream, this was a nightmare, was proud of myself for finishing

Sept - BRAT oly tri. We all got it wrong! That's all I'm saying. Was fun though.
Also sept was the JW Ultra. This year a double. Had a brilliant chilled first day with Gavin, Mark, Matt and Gus, and Sharon supporting.
Second day I went for it and was really pleased with my performance. Was very touched to recieve the lovely mug, even better to spend the weekend with such good friends.

Oct - supported at 100 miler to see how it goes. Ended up running 30 miles - 10 in the morning before the racers set off and then miles 70 to 90 with Eszter the girl I met at the moonlight. She finished her hundred the only female finisher. Was delighted to have been able to help her.

Nov - Poppy day enigma. Ran with Mark and Gus. I didn't run well too much piriformis pain, have to thank the boys for slowing up for me. Still a nice run though.

December - Xmas enigma day one. Got a spare place for this decided to have a go. Ran with Noel and was quite happy with my performance :) finished the year with a 10 mile xc race put on by ilford ac. I was PANTS!!! But at least it got me out the house and running. That's all that matter really :) and I am enjoying running with my club again.

What sticks out at me when I read this back, is that it isn't the running that made the year it's the people I meet and have met. Some of the people I haven't even met yet......twitter is a rich source of like minded people, well I can understand the scientists, runners and triathletes following me, I'm not too sure about the babes who want to meet me :-O

I need to keep doing this stuff cos I meet the BEST people.

Tomorrow? I am doing the Winter Enigma Marathon round Caldecotte lake :- D