Blogging is dangerous!

4.49 pm,  10 miles,  1:33:39,  Ave pace 9.22 m/m

9.48, 9.36, 9.23, 9.19, 9.13, 9.17, 9.07, 9.25, 9.23, 9.04

I have just poured boiling hot tea over my leg while putting photo’s on this blog with pacepusher.  My leg might now be more sore than after a 20 mile run.

I was meant to do this run on Sunday morning before going to the world cross-country championships but with being out late for dinner, the clocks going forward and noisy new neighbours singing I did not manage it.  There was no way I was going to be able to get up early enough before driving through to Edinburgh. 

I managed a couple of miles of running yesterday and some run/walking as well – I had woken up feeling like I had a hangover when there was no cause for it – that is always so unfair!

Really enjoyed going to to the cross countries and we had a great spot on the downhill just before the finish.  Pacepusher got some excellent photos – I think he is posting the mens and I am posting the females!  An amazing run from Bekele to win like that.  One thing we kept pointing out to each other was the number of African runners running barefoot – the majority of which seemed to be from Botswana.

So I had to run after school today and did not even get the chance to leave sharp as I had a meeting.  I was really not up for it and also quite worried about it after some disasters recently but the warm weather and the thought of the park spurred me on.  It was absolutely beautiful.

The average pace worked out fine, there is no way I am going to get sub 4 in London – my training has been nothing like it was before New York – so if I sustained that I would be pleased.  However it felt really hard, which it really, really shouldn’t have.  I am trying to stay positive by blaming it on the unusual time of day and less food and water than normal.  Plus that length of run is never going to be easy after a day of heavily using your voice in the classroom (that is the polite way to describe having to shout).  It was actually a good day to – 3 were off and I got better listening than usual – there is heavy bribery going on for a golden time session on Friday!

It just came to me that I could start a ‘How Wonderful?’ award to contrast with pacepusher’s ‘How Annoying?’ award which can be quite negative.  So todays has to be the weather, it really felt like the first day of spring despite the fact I had to scrape the ice off my car this morning!

Now I just have to hope the huge red blotch on leg goes away; and yes I do have ice on it!

Exhausted – in more ways than one!

 

What a busy weekend!  Our alarms went off at 5.30am on Saturday – how cruel is that – and we managed to get up less than ten minutes later.  I was ready to go at 6.00am, which is what we had decided but of course pacepusher wasn’t – he never is and we were a bit late to pick up John.

We were making our way to Tyndrum for the crazy folk who are doing the West Highland Way race to do a 42 mile run from there to Fort William.  I was going along as support for the first time and it was really interesting and great preparation for the actual race day.  I don’t really know why I am calling them crazy as those same crazy thoughts do keep running through my head and there are only two reasons why I am holding off – I do not think my knees would hold out and there is no way I could train for it while teaching full time.  I might manage the Highland Fling and/or the Devil of the Highlands though!

 They set off just before 8am and I was so glad I had asked my dad to come and drive (he is going to do that on the actual day) as I have never driven on single track roads and there were a couple of them.  The one to Lundavra in particular was pretty hairy!  I am glad I will be running that bit on the day and will not have to be in car.

We went to Bridge of Orchy first, after getting coffees of course, and met with Silke who is absolutely lovely.  It’s really interesting meeting new people and hearing different things, I loved hearing about her in-line skating.  We then went to Victoria Bridge, Kingshouses (plenty of time for photo’s and coffee there) the bottom of the Devil’s staircase, Kinlochleven (more coffee!), Lundavra and Fort William. 

I had books and school work with me and my dad bought a newspaper but we just had a brief look at the newspaper in Lundavra and that was it, as when you are spending time talking to other people the time flies by.  We did also keep up with the football scores and I think my dad took a bit of pleasure in telling Marco at Lundavra that it was still 1-0 to Rangers!

I had been out the night before (although only till 9.30pm on a staff night out because of the early start - my colleagues think we are totally loony)  and so I did not know which of the many, many bags of Neal’s food and clothes had what in it.  I will need to know that for the day.  Timings for driving between places etc seem to be fine.  The other thing we tried out was mobile phone reception and that was quite rubbish most places so my dad is trying to work out something for that.  I think he is getting quite into it as he was talking about getting a bigger zoom for their camera for it, driving the rest of the route to practice and driving me back up to the bits I will run to have a go.  He does think everyone is mad though.

Everyone did really well and I was really impressed with how fresh everyone looked throughout (till Lundavra anyway) and how quickly they recovered afterwards.  We had to rush off afterwards and I drove back from Tyndrum.  It was my first time driving the Loch Lomond road and it was not anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be – although I did not meet any buses coming the opposite way!

We were going for dinner with friends and when we got there I got a belated birthday present and card from them (thanks for the Gore top Crazyboy, Mrs Crazyboy and baby Crazyboy!).  The card was written by Crazyboy and I immediately thought that I had to post it on my blog.

A recent study commissioned by the Stefani (aka Crazyboy) institute revealed that 30 year olds ran faster marathons than any other age group, and are also allowed to eat unlimited cake and biscuits.  The scientific community have met this claim with scepticism citing some nonsense about a lack of objectivity in the study.  Chris Stefani, 30 year old cake and biscuit lover and head of the Institute responded angrily to the scientists criticisms:

“30 year olds rule, FACT! Now leave me alone while I eat my biscuit.!”

There was also a picture but I cannot be bothered to recreate that.

 How ironic that my longest post so far has nothing to do with me running!

Playing it safe!

There I was, all prepared to keep up this blog now and I have not actually run since Monday!  Nothing feels right – my knees are sore (I think they are trying to tell me to stop all of this nonsense), my calf if really tight and I have a bit of shin splints which I have not had in a long time.

So, I am just playing safe and not doing any running just now and letting everything have a rest as it is only 16 days till London.  It is always odd the feeling now that you do not have to do much, in fact you should not be doing too much although I always feel guilty and I would usually still have a usual programme this week.  I always feel like I am going to lose all my fitness in this taper period although I do not feel I have much to lose in the first place at the moment.

Any hints on weight loss?  I am terribly frustrated at the moment as I am a reasonable amount over my usual weight now and have been since New Year.  I have lost some but am really struggling with the motivation to lose the rest – I do not usually find it this hard, although I had been my usual weight for ages so it is a long time since I had to try hard to lose weight.  I eat all of the right things at meals and could not get any more low fat then, it is when things are in front of me in the staffroom or I go to buy petrol and am tempted etc that I have no willpower.  Help!

It’s The Good Girls Who Keep The Diaries; The Bad Girls Never Have Time.

Yes, I have been bad at keeping this blog up but not in the way I am sure Tallulah Bankhead means!  I have just been so busy with work that this fell by the wayside.  It has been hard enough keeping up school ones without this one too.  I am having a new start though and am going to use this instead of have my own written training diary which will help enforce me to keep it up I think.  And it saves paper too!   Although I am not sure which is worse – using more paper to write on, and I am talking about for lots of things here not just a running blog, or using more electricity by getting a wireless laptop to do my blog on more easily!

One of the reasons I have not been keeping this up is that the laptop I have at school I cannot use with the internet at home and I hate sitting for ages on the computer in our spare room, besides which pacepusher is so obsessed with his blog that I barely get a look in!  I need to point out that this is my own fault as I was already keeping blogs at school and suggested he start one; primarily for my school website.  If you have not checked out his blog go to the link at the side of this page.

So for my 30th birthday (I might not have admitted to being 30 but pacepusher has done it for me on his page a number of times!) I am getting a wireless laptop, in bubblegum pink of course, which means I can not only do this blog but also spend every other waking moment that I am not at school or running working on the school website, GLOW, work for kids etc, etc!

So to running.  Everything was going really well up until that first 20 and then I had a week off with being in Inverness, then a 15 with Louise as I had a cold so I was happy enough with that, then an 11 the next week for no apparent reason but I just could not run at all, then 19 today with Louise.  Today was the most awful long run I have done in years for reasons females will be able to relate to!  Still at least I did it although I have no idea what to go for in London now. 

I have also kept up really well with going to the running club on a Wednesday night which I am really pleased about as that was always my most dreaded training run and I have come up with every excuse imaginable not to go.

And I did get a place on the global teachers programme so I can’t have been as rubbish as I thought.  I have been calling up the favours from people to ask them to look after pacepusher for 5 weeks!