I shall begin with an apology.
I have been a horrendous blogger. I fully intend to blog and update the wider world of my running malarky and suchlike but alas and alack that wretched miscreant Proscrastination and his wingman General Lackoforder have thwarted my best intentions. Sorry. I can only assume that this is the online version of lateness. I'm perpetually late. I blame it on a late birth. I was born two weeks late and seem to have spent much of my time trying to catch up and this is the virtual embodiment in our computer based world. Much like Gandalf I arrive exactly when I intend to... it's just unfortunate this rarely fits in with the rest of the world and is usually after the balloons have been popped and the cake eaten. To conclude, I run better than I blog!
The running is coming on some though. I think we've got about 5 weeks to go now and it's a little scary to think how quickly it's come round. We've had a few ups and downs and not all on route. Tor's blood pressure was truly scary for a while but she soldiered on totally awesomely regardless. Infact she's a total inspiration and i really couldn't run without her. We've ran in a variety of weathers - sunny, scorchio, windy, humid (also known as no-airy), drizzly, windy (yes that's repetition as it's been really windy) and rainy. My favourite is the rain by far. Although it makes it a bit hard to see (could do with window wipers - we make do with a cap. I was tempted to get a visor a la poker stylee as my head gets very hot in a cap, but I simply couldn't be that fashion foolhardy!) it's just so gosh darn it refreshing. You don't get too hot and the air seems to be much easier to breathe making the run much easier. It's also much more fun as we can dash about in muddy puddles and generally splash around acting like the crazy spritely folk that we are. So I love the rain running. Wonder what we'll get come half marathon day?
My main running issue has been my back which reduced us to walking a bit last week which made me feel poo and like a cop out. Apparently it's gone into spasm and I should do shorter runs if I must run but there's no way I'm cutting back this close. So spasm, schmasm! I might look into pilates classes this week to see if that will help. It must be bad - I've worn flat shoes to work all week! I'm also hoping some weight loss will help. Have started a new plan (which as a Weight Watchers leader I have to trial before I launch it to my class) and it does seem to have given me my mojo back. It'd be nice to lose half a stone before the run and then at least I'll be carrying less of me around! My physio said to try a hot water bottle (for my back that is not the weight loss) which I did after last night's run. I was then disturbed at 1am by the fact I had a soggy back and a not so full bottle so feel I may need to replace it (my bottle not my back) but it did seem to help until the flood!
It's also getting dark for our evening runs now which is very exciting. I love this time of year. It's so electrically charged it's like the tide is changing. It makes me want to giggle like an over excited 5 year old on orange smarties waiting for Santa! We have needed to invest in some reflective and high visibility gear though so I have a lovely running gilet (or whatever they're called) in fluorescent yellow... feel a bit like a traffic cone on legs now! We also have to run with torches as part of our route takes us through parkland and we can't see where our feet are going. That may not sound important until you hit a drop you aren't expecting and suddenly your hip is best buddies with your collar bone or you turn round to find you've lost your sister in a Vicar of Dibley puddle moment. We got a torch each as I run ahead a little which is a bit daft really. You see as I mentioned we go through parkland which is dark and somewhat secluded. However, whilst the torch is fantastic for picking my way through this treacherous terrain it suddenly struck me one evening, as I imagined the Crimewatch music in the background, that it may not be so effective at fending off knife weilding assailants or the like. It was with haste I doubled back on my route to the safety of numbers in the form of Tor and Paul (who now sometimes joins us in the week too).
So in this changing weather safety is the name of the game and the game is paying off. Last night we did our best time to date. We flipped our northfield run and ran it in reverse managing 6.04 miles in 1hour, 9 minutes and 27 seconds. Definately running better than I blog!
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