The first four...

If  you follow me on Twitter you would have known that from Monday 14^th July 2014 things got serious – serious in the sense that it’s just over 12 weeks to the half marathon. 12 weeks seems like ages right? That’s a whole 3 months, a quarter of the year, plenty of time to build up to 13.1 miles. But a big lesson I've learnt about turning a year older, is that time flies by…like literally you blink and it’s the next month (what happened to June?).

So it's time to step up the training, form a routine training plan and give up alcohol (except for my four scheduled alcohol-allowed events; this weekend, Machofest, Kyle’s birthday and Carnival), the rest of the time I shall be T-Total (and probably quiet grumpy and boring on weekends now).

The Training Plan:

I’m using a mix of training plans I've found online and fitting them in between my body pump classes (as we've got to keep the muscles strong and lean right?). As it’s just over 12 weeks, and I’m away this weekend (it’s a surprise trip, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to go for a run whilst I’m away, hence the '?' in my plan) I shall be repeating week 1 twice – it will also help build  the plan into my routine that I have to stick to for 12 weeks. I’m notoriously bad at sticking to things, so hopefully shouting out about this on my blog means that it’s making me accountable for it, and I have to do it, plus its for charity and I’m running with a team, and I've told loads of people, and spent a lot of money on running shoes etc, etc.

Monday's are the toughest day, and I originally had the 30 minute easy run on a Tuesday, but trying to move the day after a Body Pump session can be tough (I barely make it up the stairs at work), so I've put my two rest days the days after body pump. It's also an easy run on the Monday (as legs are still recovering from Sunday's long run), so I can do it just before my body pump class on the treadmill, in the comfort of an air conditioned gym.

As I have created the plan, and I’m not a fitness expert I shall be changing and adapting it as I see fit (with the 13.1 mile goal in mind). I should probably run this past someone who knows what they are doing; so if you are an experienced runner/athlete/personal trainer who is reading this and can see massive flaws in the plan – give me  a shout.

I’m not going to bore you with the full 12 week plan so far (partly because it scares me a little to look at the full 12 weeks at once), so I’m just going to post the first four weeks on here.

Want to join me? I mainly run just after work around 6:30 / 7pm in East Oxford - so drop me an email / comment / tweet and we can meet up :).

Birthdays, Cake, Loved ones and Sunshine

Birthday Lemon Drizzle Cheesecake - 100 times better than Birthday Cake

On Saturday I turned 25, and like all good birthdays it consisted of lots of cake, loved ones and sunshine. July is popular in my Mums family, as 5 of us celebrate our birthday within 7 days of each other, so on Saturday evening we celebrated an 18th, a 21st, a 25th and a 55th birthday...we were hoping it would be joined by celebrating a new arrival in the family, but she seems to want to stay put for now.

For the last two years I have dreaded my birthday, blaming a wonderful childhood of excellent birthdays parties and being thoroughly spoilt by family, making slightly 'older' birthdays a bit of an anticlimax. However this year I was looking forward to spending a day with my family, and partying with the extended family in the evening, and it lived up to every expectation of feeling absolutely loved and appreciated. The 100+ messages, phone calls, emails, tweets and texts helped too - I really do have a great bunch of people around me.

As was the plan, I didn't start my 25th year on earth with a 10K around Dorney Lake, with a busy day planned a head, and not wanting to wake up any earlier than I normally do on a Saturday, I relished the extra time in bed and substituted 10K for a lie in. Though I will make up my miles this week :).

More post to follow this week on my new FitBit & my 3 month training plan...so watch this space.

I'm still Standing, well running....

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and I’m going to use the lame excuse of not having enough time,  which I hate as an excuse. Everyone has the same amount of hours in the day, choosing how you spend them is what makes it matter. With that in mind, I have been choosing how to spend my hours not updating my blog, as I thought generally no one really cared about, but lately a lot of people have been asking ‘what happened?’, ‘are you still running the half marathon?’, ‘how’s the training going?’. So I thought I’d give you an little update with what is going on.

I genuinely thought no one read my blog, or cared that I was pounding the pavements, eating healthy and generally improving my well-being; aren’t we all trying to achieve that? – so I thought this ole’ blogging malarkey was fairly boring to the reader. But then I realised that it’s a bit like a newsletter (or extra-long facebook status) for your family and friends, to inform them of what exactly you are getting up too; especially the ones who are a little far afield and we don’t have that much time to catch up with.

So, YES – I am still running a half marathon, I have signed up, I have told people, I've even encouraged a whole team of 8 of us in the office to run with me for charity, there seems to be no turning back, I’m in this for the long run (pun intended).

The Beautifully Flat Dorney Lake

Training is happening, though the schedule at the moment is not very structured - and with the crazy amounts of pollen this year, training shifted to the treadmill for a while. But thanks to Boots and a new anti-hestamine I am back in the great outdoors. With 3 months to go I’m having to devise a more structured (but not too boring) training plan that will get me to the finish line. So from this Saturday we are in full time half marathon training mode (FTHMTM). FTHMTM starts with a 10K jog on Saturday morning, around Dorney Lake, which is twice around the lake, it’s a nice flat, scenic route and a great way to start a birthday weekend.

How are you kicking off your weekend?