RunEveryDay

Firstly, apologies for my delay in posting, I have had a really busy couple of weeks, which included my daughter Dotty’s 2nd Birthday. When it comes down to training or writing about training, the training has to come first. It is one of those things in life that I just can’t delegate I have to do the training myself.

As the title of this post states RunEveryDay you may have noticed that I am running a lot, which is mainly down to my upcoming marathon but it’s also due to my Runstreak and No, this does not involve running naked through any public places. The official definition of a running streak is to run at least 1 Mile (1.61 Km) within each calendar day. Today I completed my 110th day of running. I was also surprised on Saturday with this lovely t-shirt from up and running that Liz and Tony bought for me, so I guess I won’t be stopping my RunStreak any time soon.

Back to Parish training, I have been putting in a few mile over the last couple of weeks, concentrating on shorter walks at pace, as my legs are starting to feel the effects of the ever increasing distance in my marathon plan.
I have scheduled an 18 Mile walk on Friday night, with some friends. We will be walking from Ramsey, Parish Walk Route to Onchan. I like this section of the walk, and it’s a regular route in my training. now I find it almost easier and shorter on the day as I know it so well But it hasn’t always been the case. Rewind to my 2008 parish walk attempt when I retired at Laxey, officially Maughold as I refused to continue to Lonan Church. My heavily pregnant sister got out of the car to try and help me as I was sitting on a wall at the side of the road, when I quickly moved to sit in her seat in the car, the next thing I know I am waking up outside my friend’s house in daylight. I said to our Marie wasn’t it dark when I stopped she kind of laughed and said that it had been, and for the last few hours they had been trying to wake me to get me out of the car so she could go home to Port Erin .. Sorry Marie.

In 2008 I was really surprised how quickly I went downhill, I had walked for around 70 miles feeling great, no bad patches but when I hit the wall, I hit it hard. There is only one word to describe how I felt after my second attempt and that was Gutted, I had really wanted to finish. I spent the following 12 months thinking of little else apart from completing the full 85 Miles.

I learnt in 2008 that if my support were to see me struggling, under no circumstances should they stop the car, let alone get out of it leaving doors opened or unlocked, so for my 2009 attempt I prepped my support that if I looked like I wanted to stop they were to drive on a mile and see how I felt then.
124 days to go

A week of celebrations

We had lots of celebrations with Lee’s Birthday and my 50th parkrun!

This week saw my earliest ever training walk on Tuesday, Lee and I set off at 5.20am to get 10 miles in before breakfast. Neither of us are morning people so it was a very quiet walk I don’t think we even spoke a word to each other till the half way point. This could of have been a bonus for Lee having a bit of peace and quiet. Overall I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but I was definitely glad I got it done.

Wednesday was long run day! It was also the coldest night of the year so far. 16 miles I set off from Douglas and Craig set off from Onchan, we met somewhere in the middle. It was really cold out, I had forgotten my gloves and energy gels, I thought I would be fine but I was wrong, just after we met Kathy at the 7 mile mark I started flagging she said she could tell I wasn’t right as I wasn’t talking. At around the same time Craig had started suffering with stomach problems, which he said was from the gels. Craig had a spare energy gel that he wasn’t using so he kindly let me have it, within a few minutes, of taking it I felt great! And carried on happily. At around 10 miles the temperature seemed to drop again, I asked Kathy if it was possible for my fingers to drop off in the cold, she laughed and said she often wondered this about her ears. Thankfully none of my fingers did actually fall off and I survived the distance in a good pace, but I learnt I need to refuel better on these longer ones.

Saturday saw me and Kathy run our 50th parkrun, it was lovely we had cakes and prosecco at the finish line. I was very proud that my eldest daughter Caitlin ran with us on her first ever parkrun. Kathy and I met at the first parkrun practice run so it was great that we hit the milestone together.

Sunday nights have become our main group walk night, Liz had chosen the distance of 16 Miles. We were lucky with the weather, that was until 13 miles, when I said “we have been so lucky with the weather today” and it pretty much turned immediately to the wind in our faces and rain belting down on us. It could have been worse and reminded me of the parish walk I 2008 (I think) when it rained pretty much the whole day.

138 days to go..