The Lone Runner

Yesterday I went for my first ever run *all by myself*.

Mark was at the football and I'm going to have to drive to Wales today so I decided to bite the bullet and just take myself out for a run.

I settled on the forest again, same route as last time.

The mud was even worse this time and I actually had to stop twice because I couldn't physically run in the stuff.

Despite this, however, I somehow managed to beat last week's time! Even getting distracted by a falcon at one point didn't slow me up too much (?!).

The final hill really was a killer though. Halfway up, I suddenly decided to take a look at my watch and see how I was doing time-wise. After the muddy-walking-saga, I was fully expecting to be way over 30 mins. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that I was actually making better time than last week.

Immediately I took things up a notch (despite being unbelievably knackered and halfway up an almost vertical slope) and the last few (steep!) yards of the run were like torture.

As soon as I reached the end, I collapsed onto a nearby wall. I felt sick. Really sick. In fact, I was genuinely concerned that I was going to throw up all over a passing family walking their dog.

But a few deep breaths later, the feeling had passed and I just felt my usual post-run-knackered self.

As I was trying to motivate myself to stand up, a woman walked past me and I heard her say to her friend 'Oh my God, she's just run up that hill...!'

For some reason, this made me feel rather proud of myself!

Stats
Distance: 3.4K
Time: 28 minutes 50 seconds
Average K pace: 8 minutes 28 seconds

Comments issue

Morning :-)

Have just realised that my blog was only allowing people registered with Google to comment on my posts... so I have now fixed this (go me!) so that anyone can comment.

Obviously, I am now expecting a positive deluge of new comments... ;-)

If you go down to the woods today

Well, 3 days ago actually (illness has prevented me from writing up this run sooner).

After another lovely (flat!) run along the railway track last Friday, I decided that I should push myself a bit and go for a run in the forest.

Now don't get me wrong, the forest is very beautiful and idyllic and I like it very much. However, it is also extremely hilly, there are muddy patches you could sink a landrover in (ok, slight exaggeration) and many of the paths are so riddled with tree roots that I'm amazed I emerged without, at the very least, a twisted ankle.

It certainly wasn't restful, meditative, I'll-just-switch-off-my-brain-for-next-half-an-hour-so type running. I had to be vigilant.

I was especially worried about the hills, as I've struggled with hills in the past and there are some ultra-steep ones in the forest. However, even though I did find it a struggle to regain a decent pace after I'd dragged myself up the first hill, I didn't at any point feel that I needed to stop and I managed to keep going right until the end.

So yay!

I'm going to aim for the longer forest route next time (just over 5K and scarier hills): wish me luck :-).

Stats
Distance: 3.4K
Time: 29 minutes 56 seconds
Average K pace: 8 minutes 48 seconds

On the right track

I've had the day off work today so have taken the opportunity to sneak in another training run (oh yes, I really know how to live ;-) ).

As lovely Mark was off work as well, he obligingly came along with me again and we revisited my first route: the old railway line (just as before: relatively flat... picturesque... lots of people walking dogs).

This time I set myself the challenge of running right to the end of the track before turning back and, despite the usual feeling about 1K in that 'Ugh! This is too hard!', I made it there and back again without too much trouble.

If I'm honest, when I first started out I was expecting this blog to be a bit of a whinge-fest. I was expecting to be constantly complaining about how difficult all this running malarkey is and needing huge amounts of encouragement to keep me on track. Bizarrely, though, this doesn't seem to be the case in reality. I'm actually (and this is the really really surprising thing) quite enjoying myself.

But hey, we're still only three runs in... ;-)

Stats

Distance: 5.9K
Time: 52 minutes 35 seconds
Average K pace: 8 minutes 54 seconds

Running or sleeping? How to choose...

Well, not that long ago, the choice would have been simple enough: S L E E P I N G.

But oh how times have changed...

Yesterday was a pretty tiring day (which involved me driving on the M25 for the first time ever - and I didn't crash or anything! Woo!) so this morning, sleeping in seemed like the sensible option.

I'm certainly not the kind of girl to say no to extra sleep :-).

Yes, I was planning to fit in a training run before I needed to leave to collect Jake. But hey, that wasn't 'til midday - I had loads of time.

At least that's what I thought, until Mark and I properly woke up and saw that the time was now fast approaching 11.00 am.

Oops...

There was a moment there where I had a very clear choice to make: part of me was thinking 'oh, forget it - just stay in bed. You can go running some other time. Ooh, it's so warm in here... mmm lovely... why do you want to go out in the cold, you silly thing??', whereas the other part of me was thinking 'Get up now, while you still have time! You can't waste this opportunity to go for a training run - you might not get the chance again for a while. Come on come on come on!'

And, surprisingly, I actually did get up.

Admittedly, I was fairly reluctant and whingey about it but I got up all the same.

This run felt far more difficult than my first training run. First of all, this run was on roads/pavements rather than a lovely, squidgy woodland path. Secondly, there were quite a few hills to tackle (not least the ridiculously steep slope that leads up to my house). And thirdly, within a few minutes I started to suffer from a horrible running-induced headache.

As a result of all this, I found it harder to maintain the cheery outlook I had cultivated during last week's run. Plus it seemed to take more effort to keep my shoulders relaxed and to stop my feet from dragging.

Still, our imminent departure for Wales kept the run relatively short and I at least now have a little bit of experience of running on roads.

And, you know, I could have just stayed in bed :-).

Stats for this run:

Distance: 3.78K
Time: 32.06
Average pace per K: 8.29

We have lift-off!

I am happy to report that Operation Fun Run Training is now underway!

Yesterday I went on my first training run and, to my rather surprised delight, I managed to run non-stop for 5 whole K without too much trauma or difficulty.

Yay :-)

The lovely Mark came with me (although, to him, it was less of a run and more of a brisk walk!) and we ran along the disused railway (which is actually far prettier than it sounds).

The path was almost entirely flat (which figures, I suppose, given the whole railway thing) and, although it was a tiny bit muddy and squishy, it was pretty easy to run along. Having endured a few runs in the forest last summer, where there are twisted tree roots waiting to trip you up at every turn and a horrendously steep hill to scale right before you finish, I really did appreciate just running along a flat, non-treacherous surface. I have a feeling that this may become a regular route :-).

My legs are aching like mad this morning and I've ended up with a blister on the inner arch of my left foot, but over all I'm very happy with how things went. I didn't once reach the point of whining pathetically that it's too hard (which has happened more than once in the past!) and the initial feeling of being painfully out of breath passed far more quickly than I was expecting.

So, to summarise, here are the stats for my first training run:

Distance = 5K
Time = 45 minutes 18 seconds
Average K Pace = 9 minutes 3 seconds

This is now my starting point, which I will (hopefully!) build on.

All in all, I can say that I am feeling far more confident about Operation Fun Run Training than I was this time yesterday :-).

Behold my Master Plan!

Ok, so I know I gave 2 January 2011 as my estimated ‘going live’ date and that today is clearly not 2 January 2011. It’s not even that close to 2 January 2011.

But, in my defence, I was in bed with the flu on 2 January 2011, along with the days before and after it, and physical exercise was the last thing on my mind. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be on my mind at all was Peep Show, which I kept having weird, feverish deliriums about.

Anyway, dragging myself back on topic…

I may not have achieved my desired launch date but this is by no means an indication that I have fallen at the first hurdle. No indeed. The Plan is still in place and I am fully committed to seeing it through (even if I’m not feeling wholly enthusiastic at this stage).

Right, to summarise: The Plan is to train for the Great Midlands Fun Run (an 8 mile course), which is taking place on Sunday 5 June 2011. Along the way, I hope to raise some money for Mencap, which will go towards helping to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities and their families. That, in short, is The Plan.

Now 8 miles might not seem like a particularly colossal distance (especially not to someone like Mark (my partner) who regularly goes on longer runs than that just for ‘fun’ (?)) but if you’re me (and I am), it really is, trust me. Which means I’m going to have to put in a correspondingly colossal effort if I’m going to have any hope of seeing this through.

My life circumstances don’t really allow me a huge amount of free time for scampering about the countryside in running shoes, so my current plan is to go on at least one training run a week (probably during weekends and hopefully with Mark in tow to drag, I mean encourage, me). I can then use the cross trainer at home during the week to keep my general fitness levels up.

That, at least, is my aspiration. Whether or not this will actually be reflected in reality remains to be seen.

At the moment, I am still recovering from the last remnants of the flu so have been holding off getting started.

Hopefully by the next time I post here, I will have some progress (however minimal) to report.

Wish me luck!