Tag: Running

Snot funny.

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It’s been a funny old few weeks since my last post, very up and down. We had a death in the family on the Friday after my last post, my mum’s the next of kin and is trying to deal with what, at best, can be described as a chaotic estate. As a bit of a distraction, we went out to an art sale at a local charity that works with people who have learning disabilities, and then spent the afternoon with my sister and niece. From this we discovered that she (my 5 month old niece) does not like the sight of me wearing a large felted green bag on my head. Everyone else in the family appears to be bth amused and scared by the image.

Family priorities did push running off the agenda on Saturday evening, but we plodded out on Sunday morning for 3 miles in the fresh snow. Have I mentioned that I’m bored of snow?

I also had a scary scary job interview. It was for a sort of diagonal move into a more specialist job in another area and was the first time that I had made the leap of faith to go for a job at this grade. The presentation for it became an all-encompassing nightmare – the stress peaked at 1am on Sunday night/Monday morning when there were tears and a general outpouring of anxiety about my ability to do my job. This put paid to Tuesday club run as I was still trying to assemble my portfolio for the next day (organisation was not on my list of strengths that I can bring to the post).

The rest of the week went something like yoga, restore order to house, visted by friend, visit family, night out in Blackpool, sleep, funeral, club run, yoga, gig in Manchester, belated celebratory meal (I got the job) and then a lazy weekend with a husband-accompanied run on Sunday. What I didn’t plan for was feeling increasingly grotty and snotty as the weekend went on. It is now Monday and I’m tucked up on the sofa with hot lemonade and honey, several balls of wool and the sensation that someone is alternately whacking me on the head with a stick and then jumping on my chest. It is unpleasant to say the least and I can’t take more paracetamol for another hour. Bugger.

Back on the road

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A better run tonight in terms of the fact that I feel human and much better for going out. Not much better in terms of speed (especially as it was a far shorter than last week). Very little excitement to report, other than an overwhelming relief that the snow has melted.

2 more runs planned this week, Thursday and Saturday.

In other news, I tried on my suit (unworn since my last job interview over 12 months ago) – I’m relieved that I don’t have to add “buy new suit” onto my To Do list, but it was a bit a touch and go and as a result, my food diary has started again. I’ve also taken delivery of a book called Knitted Cakes, whether this proves to be a route to weight loss we shall have to see. I’m not sure of the calorie content of 4-ply.

Time: 00:44:11
Distance: 3.76 mi
Elevation Gain: 636 ft
Calories: 451 C
Avg Pace: 11:45 min/mi

Bum. I’ve managed to save this as a draft without posting it. Unfortunately this means I have to fess up to not running tonight due to more feeling off colour – absolutely knackered last light, refreshing pre-yoga nap started at half 7  and ended when I woke up at midnight. And then started again at 12.15 and ended at half 7 this morning. I like my sleep, but this is ridiculous. Still on for Saturday, but working on plan B to come up with a third run this week.

Rain + rain = puddles

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A certain amount of thickery today… Despite the fact that it has rained pretty much every day since, um, ages ago, my little brain didn’t click that this would result in the canal towpath being mainly puddles. We nearly gave up before we started as our usual route is closed for lock repairs, we had to fight through hedgerow to get past anglers’ brollies, got distracted by ducks and then had a mile of puddle dodging/near drowning. I don’t mind getting wet or muddy, but have wonky ankles and a poor sense of balance so muddy puddles are fraught with danger for me, especially when they’re next to the cold, dark depths of the Leeds-Liverpool. After a mile we gave up on the towpath and went on the road to run through the town centre instead. Not necessarily the rural nature run I had in mind, but we did 5 miles.

Time: 01:00:32
Distance: 5.01 mi
Elevation Gain: 595 ft
Calories: 600 C

At what point do you realise that you have no shame as a runner? I think I’m nearly there after going to Asda post run, mud-splattered tights, windswept hair, bright red face, soaking wet trainers…and I didn’t bat an eyelid.

And the experiement proved…

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That my hypothesis was correct – ran 3 miles before yoga, tom yum soup for tea and then yoga-ed. And managed to stay conscious for the entire relaxation at the end, no snoring, no drifting, no suddenly realising that I’ve not heard a word that the teacher has said since “lie down on your mats”. It was rather splendid.

In fact, I’ve come out of the class feeling completely blissful and chilled out. I feel like I’m smiling from inside for the first time in ages. It’s a wonderful feeling and having it has made me realise how long it is since I’ve felt like that.

The way our yoga class runs is that it’s an 8 week progressive course, but the courses run continuously so a new course starts every 8 weeks or so. New people join, old people drop out, old hands guard their mat territory like feral beasts (that’s just me then?) and we go back to basics again. I think this does us all good; I know that I pick up bad habits and it’s easy to slide into casually skipping through postures without thinking deeply about what you’re doing. This probably applies to more than just yoga and it’s maybe something I need to do a bit more through life in general. Maybe it’s something we all need to do.

In other news, I’ve finally discovered Garmin Connect. Whatever your feelings on Garmins, this appeals to my inner geek and makes far prettier graphs and maps than the training centre. I may even get brave and bore people with my (quite frankly embarassing) run stats, particularly since I’ve realised that I’m very coy about admitting what speed I go at (hint, it rhymes with ‘glow’. Very glow).

In wool news, I went to Whitby and sold a kidney to buy vast amounts of lovely but pricey yarn. So I now have 3 pending projects from the new wool pile, 1 planned from previous escapades, 3 half formed ideas, 1 half baked idea (thanks to a link on Beanz’s blog I now have a pattern for knitted cupcakes. It scares me how much this excites me) and lots of stray balls with no future plans. I must stop buying new wool.

Where’s the last month gone?

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Um. Hello. I’ve just realised that I’ve not posted anything for a month. Crikey.

Suffice to say, I’ve still not found my running mojo.  I’ve been trying to get out at least once a week so I don’t give up entirely. In fact, I had two cracking morning runs on 28th and 29th October; I had 2 training days for work which resulted in the lovely combination of late starts and nearer location. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity (and the sunshine) and went out at 7.30 doing 3 miles each day at a not too bad for me pace. The problem with this is that although I really enjoyed them and they reminded me just how much I enjoy running (once I’m out there…), they were freakish one-off events that didn’t really help me get back into a routine. Even my club running has petered out a bit, but that just seems to be because life has started to occur on Tuesdays recently.

Having said that, I did a club run tonight and it nearly killed me. 3.5 miles, a bit hilly and I’m suffering with “decorating thighs” at the moment. The last two days have been spent balancing precariously on ladders, mainly using my quads to support myself (in yoga terms, it was a bit like doing a half camel four foot in the air) or doing a lunges with one foot on a rung and one on the meter cupboard. Poor ladder safety, but excellent end results. Next good intention is to go out on Saturday, club run Tuesday and book an after-work run midweek.

On the knitting front, The Big Knit hats are now on sale in Sainsburys. I remain very jealous of other people’s hats. I’m knitting a twirly scarf and have plans to run amok in one of my favourite wool shops tomorrow or Thursday. This will mainly involve running around touching yarn and dribbling wildly.