To add house arrest to injury

Yet another post race lull.
The recovery was short and sweet, a little stiffness the next day, but nothing to stop my usual Buggy Babes session. Other than that it was a fairly quiet week taking it easy.

Got up as usual for my Saturday Circuits class. Shortly after getting up, I found I had a sharp stitchy pain in my shoulder. I went to Circuits, but took it easy with some of the moves; it was more the jolting jumpy moves that made it moan rather than lifting. Later on I stiffened up, and got crampy around my neck. My initial thought was that I'd slept funny. I later realised that I wasn't far wrong, I'd fallen asleep in the chair, and curled around the wooden arm, something I usually get away with.

Sunday was little better, but at least any shot at running was off the agenda as my husband headed abroad with work for most of the week, eliminating any chance of a solo escape from the house. I managed Buggy Babes, even with a stint of 4 year old on my back, but my main focus of the week became yoga and pilates in a hope of trying to ease the remaining stiffness.

 I headed out today with no agenda and few expectations. The weather wasn't inspiring, and I wasn't sure what my body would feel up to. It ended up being mostly a walk with some running intervals mixed in. I was in the kind of mood to pause and take pictures of the bluebells in the woods, and the fields behind. I'm getting better at accepting runs like this. I am a runner. I can perform on the day. Sometimes by brain and body aren't in the mood. I have found times like this frustrating. I want to run, but sometimes the mental battle of those first couple of miles is too much, and ultimately I need to enjoy my running. It shouldn't be an obligation or burden.

So onwards and upwards. Tomorrow is a new day.

The 10k

Sunday 19th April was race day. The local 10k, and my first event of this distance. The goal: an hour. The chances: promising with a small leap of faith.

I was dropped off near to the start, with a small warm up walk to wake my body up. I got into conversation with another runner on the way with a pleasant 10 minute friendly chat of runners' small talk. It was rather a chilly start, overcast with a bracing breeze. Fine once I got going, but I was rather grateful for the foil blanket I'd saved from my HM, especially as it folded up into my belt.

On my way to finding the assembly point for my wave, I bumped into my friend also in the same wave, so we stayed together for a little while, ending up at the front of the wave. The glitch of this was that on setting off, many people were passing me out, and no one slower ahead to pass. A little demoralising until I looked at my watch which showed a pace between 5-6 min kms, which was the right league for my goal. Slightly faster than I anticipated,  but I felt good on it so kept going.

The first couple of kms were a bit uninspiring around a commercial park, with a there and back loop before heading off to town. The return leg was better as I appreciated seeing the wave of people behind,  coming up in the opposite direction.

By the time we got to town, my body was in the flow and feeling very grateful for my osteopath beating, dragging and "massaging" the tension out from my legs earlier in the week. Before too long it was the halfway point and the drinks station. This was the more interesting section through the city centre. My pace was still consistent. At some point early on, S Club 7s "don't stop moving" started rattling through my head, a pleasantly distracting motivation that I was suprisingly happy to keep there.

The last zone out of town, the runners more spaced, people begining to flag. I was doing more passing than being passed. My thigh began to whinge so I lied to myself that pain is just muscles saying more please! " It was just a tired muscle ache, and the end was drawing nearer. It was mildly annoying, but wasn't looking likely to be a hinderence. The final kilometre,  my family standing on the corner to cheer me. My plan of psycadellic leggings for easy spotting worked! I had enough breath to enthusiasticly greet my children. The stadium came into view. I ramped up into my final gear, the finishers sprint. I was feeling good, my pace had been consistently better than my intended 6 min km. I passed the line. I stopped my watch as I walked the lap around the stadium. My chip time would be better than what my watch told me, and I was more than pleased with the watch.

The official verdict was 0:55:35, 24 seconds better than my watch's recording. My target of 60 minutes was smashed! The aftermath wasn't bad, a couple of days of routine muscle tiredness, not enough to put me off Buggy Babes the following day. I really enjoyed the experience,  a good combination of managable, yet remaining a challenge. My next event is the 8.5 mile fun run in a month, so this will stand me in good stead.

Postscript

Later in the week,  a Brownie parent who had also been in the race commented that she'd seen my picture in the paper. I thought she meant the Buggy Babes picture, but no, it was the 10k. I'd noticed a gaggle of photographers near the start, and being about 3 peopke deep in the wave, they'd got a clear shot of me and published it in the suppliment. Two photos of my athletic prowess in the local paper in a month! Not bad from the girl who came in a lap behind in the 1500m on sports day 20 years ago, wheezing over the finishing line as requests for a first aider were made!

Preparing for the 10k

I have my 10k race at the weekend. The timing is quite good as the start of school term is a natural time to taper, and the 2 weeks of Easter holiday was a good chance for a last boost to my training. I'm capable of running it all, so I've been trying to concentrate on that 6 min km pace to try to reach my goal of an hour. I've been close, so I'm hoping that the race day atmosphere, flat course (compared to my training) and lack of roads to cross will make that subtle difference.

I've had some good sessions. On one, I ran the 10k, and just felt really good. I came in slightly off my target, but it was a really enjoyable run with little resistance from my body. I went for a longer run/ walk into the countryside on another day, 8 miles in 2 hours, bearing in mind, it's hilly, muddy and lots of gates and stiles to slow me down. I wanted a hit of countryside, and thought a longer session would be good for stamina. I also drove to an interesting park and ran a couple of laps. I normally run from home to maximise my time, so a change of scenery is a nice novelty.

My main gripe at the moment is tight calves and thighs, so hopefully a visit to the osteopath will ease those out. It's the time of the month when my body reminds me I'm due for a visit with random niggles and tension.

My 4 year old wants to go and spectate. He's getting into my fitness bug. He's even been in the local paper! A couple of weeks ago, our Buggy Babes class were working out as a reporter for the local paper passed by, so he took some pictures of the class, and last week we had a spread of pictures including one of me pushing the pram, accompanied by my son jogging along with us. I hope this is the start of a long term love of active living, because fitness helps you get the most of life in all areas. It's good for me to have the motivation of my time goal for the race, but in the big picture, the key thing that matters is that I am fit and able to enjoy my life much more than when I am not. But I won't argue with the bonus of meeting some goals along the way!

I have also achieved my 100th run. Permission to feel smug please.

Still Marching on

I've been quiet of late. Mainly due to the tablet lying hidden at the bottom of the toy box for 6 weeks. In good news, my running hasn't been so badly neglected. It's been a plodding phase of one or two runs per week, plus my usual cross training. Hopes of more strategic training  for my 10k have been thwarted by feeling poorly, and a busy phase at work. A weekend away meant none of my usual fitness routine, but that was more than mitigated by it being the International Fitness Showcase. The Saturday saw 7 hours of aerobics, dance and urban bootcamp. The Sunday saw some restorative pilates!  I enjoyed it much more this year as a result of my improved fitness and stamina. This time last year, I was completing the C25k, and had less than 3 months of serious exercise behind me as I recovered from the toll of baby 2.

One of the attractions of running at the moment, is that it's a measure of my fitness. I've kept a log since the start, and have done about 95 runs now. By the time I've do the 10k, I should have done my 100th. My current plan is to use the Easter holiday to polish pace a bit more. I can do the distance,  and know that I mentally find races easier for keeping going in a pack and having a crowd of support. This one will also be easier for being flat compared to my neighbourhood. No up hills will help my pace on the day. I'm still hoping to run it in an hour.

Last night I focused on pace. I was slightly under target, but that wasn't helped by strong head winds while running up hill. My other challenge of the evening was losing my gloves. As I lapped past the house, I pushed them into a bush, but failed to find them on my return. Fortunately that was down to struggling to see grey gloves in dark green foliage by the LEDs on my cap, as I managed to see them easily enough by daylight.

For my birthday a few weeks back, I got a GPS watch with HR monitor.  I'm finding it more reliable than my previous one. Also the GPS signal is being more reliable, and not creating some random declartions of sucess like 3 minute miles. Being able to break the recordings into sections is quite interesting for my inner geek! Hopefully I can use it in a meaningful way to boost my speed.

A little bit faster

My January total of runs now equals November and December.  I'm finding two runs a week sensible to manage, plus my cross training. Circumstances conspired against my usual activities so I headed out for a short, quick run, and short and quick it was! I did my fitness test loop and got a PB of 00:10:34 for a 1.34 mile run. That's 4 minutes quicker than last year. Back in 2008, before there were two twinkles in my eyes, I did it in 18+ minutes with a mixture of running to a lamp post and panting to the next.

Since the HM, my runs have been fairly short, usually around the 30-40 minute mark, so I felt it was time to go for the hour / 6 mile zone, and I did! I've changed my pre run preparation as I've noticed that dairy seems to have inconvenient side effects, so today I went for an energy drink which seemed to give the right amount of fuel for the job without creating too much digestive work. My energy remained good, and I managed to maintain a good pace of running without burning out or needing to walk like usual, and that had a really positive effect on my pace. Most of my miles had a pace of 10 mins or less which bodes well for my 1 hour target in April.

Today I used my usual combination of Zombies app and music, but to encourage faster pacing on my shorter runs, I've recently downloaded some tracks aimed at specific paces. Not my favoured style of music, but it seems to be having a positive effect to getting to target.

Snow fun

On Boxing Day it snowed. Properly. Then froze and stuck around. No gritters ventured in to the neighbourhood so the roads and pavements were in dreadful condition. I'm proud to say that I was not thrawted. I decided to do a short, fast run, doing laps of the local wood where there was more give in the ground. I couldn't help but say "wow" at the view of the fields behind, pristinely white and sparkling against the sharp blue sky. Alas, I didn't have my phone in me for a crafty picture.

One of the things I love about running is the freedom combined with the rebellion of being severely underdressed compared to the booted, hat and gloved walkers in their snug coats. Two long sleeved t-shirts and my windstopper, gloves and a fleece headband were more than enough to keep sufficient body heat for the occasion,  a strong contrast to my sledging gear!

I then had a couple of days off as the state of the ice got worse. By New Years Day it had thawed so I hit the roads aiming to do 3x3min interval runs. I need to work on the recovery bit as I tend to end up at a walk rather than gentle run. This was the weak part of my HM training, so I'll focus on this type of work before starting a 10k plan (excuse to rummage through my magazines)

This morning was a return to circuits. I've noticed since the autumn that I'm able to put a bit of power into burpees for the first time which I think can be attributed to the running. All in all, a productive start to 2015.

AWOL

So two months have passed by with a total of four runs notched up. Typical. The usual reasons/ excuses apply... recovery, a holiday, OFSTED, colds, seasonal social life... The regular cross training has been largely unaffected, so it's not been a total fitness wasteland. The current goal is the usual 10k in April, so no pressure at present, and it's been lovely having a few runs with no agenda. Hopefully the extra time over the festive season will restore a bit of mojo. The 10k is attainable, so I'd like to focus on boosting speed which will be developing new training skills as that was my weak spot of my training in operation 13.1.

I've enjoyed the change of season which feels more sudden with the gaps between my runs. I'm not a natural ally of winter, but I appreciate the openness in the landscape, especially in the woods nearby. A couple of months ago I treated myself to a running jacket/ hoody, and that's fab for keeping to a comfortable temperature- notice weather wasn't in my list of excuses... I'm looking forwards to the prospect of longer days though. I like to celebrate the shortest day by hugging a mature oak tree on the edge of my neighbourhood, so that was my main motivation to get my trainers muddy this morning, and muddy they got too!

So hopefully the next couple of weeks will see some more entries on my neglected log, and a promising start to 2015...