Hillyfields, Team Shape-U and sunshine make it better

07.10.2014
Day 176
Team Shape-U with the lovely Erik and the lovely Tyre Slam (above), followed by a soul-restoring game with Izzy.

Weak as a kitten, I risk braining self with Erik's number 2 mallet this morning. I berate self for patheticness, but Erik stops me in my self-pitying tracks with one of his inimitable aphorisms
'you're the best thing since sliced bread...you've got to keep saying that to yourelf because exercising psychological strength is as powerful as the way you slam that tyre.'
Amen, Erik. So I go through the motions, with medicine balls battle rope, blades and balances, dumbbell swings. Luckily there're no sprinting or jumping to exacerbate my throbbing plantar fasciitis. Nonetheless, I am not firing. I'm a bit snivelly and feverish and though the sun shines brightly, the breeze is sharp through my fleece. Autumn is here. I hope my weak, softy self, all craving indulgences and nights in with hot drinks and chocolate, does not last as long. My jeans are already snug, and I do not believe the 2kg gain is all muscle.
I hope, too, the sore throat allows for my planned lido run tomorrow.

Hurt

Meanderings around the park

06.10.2014
Day 175
Walking recovery. Ineffectual stretching

This is the pits. My head hurts. My ears hurt. My eyes hurt. My hip hurts. My knee hurts. My heel hurts.
My heel especially hurts.
I have sat at my desk but could not make writing happen, nor words I read make sense.
I achieved nothing at all.
Should I stop training and try to set my life in order?
For the first time, I feel this is all making a worse person of me. It's because I do not feel good, so my confidence has fled.
The only answer is unconsciousness, in the hope that the symptoms abate when I stop brooding and fretting. Perhaps it is only fatigue.

Out of order (this is Day 173) In Poole

Down to the coast to celebrate

04.10.2014
Day 173

A rest day, supposedly, but somewhat active and alcohol soaked. A deal of cake eating, which should help tomorrow's half-marathon fuelling

My brother in law turned 60 a week or so ago, so we had a big family do at his place in Poole. This was why I very keenly took up a fellow Kent AC-er's spare place for the Bournemouth Half Marathon. A coach journey meant plenty of feet-up preparation, and the aforementioned cake-fest dealt with the carbloading. It's a shame that the sensible behaviour didn't run to moderation in alcohol consumption and a more generous sleep allowance. My heel is really paining me. I must address this plantar pain. After next weekend there will be a break from long running. Soft 5ks only: Parkrun and club cross countries. Some less jarring muddiness would be good.

Fun on the pier

 

Scoring a PB puts you in Happy Land

I am no Caroline

05.10.2014
Day 173

Today was the Bournemouth Half Marathon. I ran well, plantar fasciitis and extreme fatigue notwitstanding. I bathed my aching legs in the English Channel and tried to ease my burning sole. Then I walked four miles back to my sister's house.

Yesterday's carousing resulted in a truncated night's sleep and an upset stomach on my 5.45am waking. I had no illusions about my performance today, but the conditions boded well. The 8am start meant we all set off in sharp autumnal sunshine, under clear blue skies. An hour in, I was still enjoying myself, and was knocking out steady 7:52 miles. However, the last four or five miles were slow, most just over the 8 minutes, which was disappointing. My new trainers caused an unpleasant burning on the ball of my right foot. So I really needed this dip:

The last few miles saw us hurtling down the pie and back twice. The return sprint down the wooden floor above the sea made up the final 400m or so.
At the finish, a man from Enfield came up to me and said I had been his ideal pacer, and my mile splits had been 'perfect'. I was inordinately proud. This was the best half marathon I've run so far (I think I've done about eight in a running career that is now about seven years old). This was the  result. I was running in a friend's place. She is young and gorgeous and faster than me, so I hope she won't mind this slow time in her name:
Day 174

577

[Ronnie Haydon masquerading] (10514)

01:45:36

Female

Stair crazy

250 stairs available to climb in the Blue Fin Building

 

03.10.2014
Day 173

After only four hours sleep - desultory stretching/planking/Swiss Ball, tricep dipping duties, plus cycling commute. Hungover with the resultant voracious appetite, which I can excuse as carbloading, although Haruki never does. Lots of stair climbing. Chinese meal, beer and ice cream for dinner. It really is time to revert to Serious default.

This past week I have taken the stairs, two at a time, to my seventh floor office for subbing shifts, wondering where I'll find suitable flights that take my fancy over the winter. The reason for the stair obsession is this. I ran Vertical Rush for Women's Running magazine last March, and my editor would like the same again, but this time I'm running as part of a two-woman relay team with my super fast Editor At Large Fiona Bugler. It will be too shaming if I'm as slow as I was  six months ago, so there's another reason for Training very Seriously. Yet I seem to be going backwards in my resolve. I'm being lazy, eating huge amount of the wrong things and averting my eyes from my burgeoning pot belly.
The problem with working at home is that the staircase is a little paltry. Today I managed to climb about 440 all told, going up to the roof and down to the basement during my lunch hour, as well as the morning flights.
Perhaps I will find gainful employment in high office to give me more stair practice in the coming months. One thing's for certain, if I carry on in this soft centred way, I'll be on a stairlift before I know it.   

A good read

Blue sky thinking

02.10.2014

Day 172
Cycling: 10 miles to and from work, with diversion to Streatham adding a few more
Planks and bridges and stuff before breakfast. In fact I always do those, and will elaborate on my daily stretch-and-yoga stuff to remind myself that it must be done. Every single day, until I die. This is supposed to be a training blog, after all. 

So there's a development, I will mark up my training stuff in a colourful box.

Cycling swiftly back from book club, with a bellyful of Prosecco and ratatouille, chocolate cheesecake and coffee, I pondered the drunken conversation I had with our coven. (we'd discussed Miss Garnet's Ghost, by Salley Vickers, but that is not relevant to my training blog).
What is relevant is the voice I want to put out here on the blogosphere. Not everyone can be Haruki Murakami but I am desperate not to sound like one of those ubiquitous 'I run to eat cake, I'm a running mummy, I love my life, I promote gels or anything else that'll get me noticed' bloggers. This little 365-day project is something I want to read back with pleasure when I am old and spavined. Writing stuff that keeps people reading is a lovely thing, and the style and voice that really bewitches a reader is such a gift. I think Ashleigh Young has it. But have I said this before? Probably. Still, it can be said again.

Old Crock

They got my age wrong and these new trainers hurt.

01.10.2014
Day 171

Through the post comes the VLM confirmation of a Good For Age place and that exciting magazine that I remember from running London before - in 2009 and 2010.

A mix up on the day and month of my birth in 1962 has me down as being 53 when I run on 26.04.2015.

That small irritation is just one more in a series that have made this day one of those grindingly uphill ones that keep you on the edge of tears from wake up to bed down. The Asics Gel trainers I though would alleviate the plantar fasciitis make the ball of my foot throb. I do not know why. Work was horrible and the bicycle ride in to the office where no-one speaks to me except to give back my pages with amends all over them, was wet and rainy.
I ate too many biscuits to try to sweeten the fatigue and frustration, so now feel wired and fat.
The negativity, I am sure, is caused by chemical and hormonal events inside me, and the way to deal with it is to keep active and resist the urge to wallow and hang hopelessly round the peanut butter jar.
But lo! There are baby bunnies to make me smile. And they did, for a while.