Kingston Breakfast Run 2008

I had only 2.5 hours sleep the night before due to a spontaneous theatre trip and the clocks going forward the night before, but I got myself up at 5am and found my way to the race start line in Kingston yesterday morning. While waiting to set off I found the Run-Walk pacer and ended up running it with a small group of people most of them, like me, were preparing themselves to run their first marathon in 2 weeks time.

We ran for 5 minutes then would rest by walking for 1 minute and pretty much repeated this around both laps of the race route. I found it extremely helpful running with people instead of by myself, especially near the end of the second lap when it was getting harder and harder to keep running. Even with the finish line in sight I still wanted to slow to a walk but the pacer ran beside me and urged me to keep running and as I approached the last 20 metres of the course and had the crowd cheer us on, the pain throughout my body magically disappeared (until I crossed the finish lin and then my legs turned to jelly). It must be the performer in me!

Today I'm feeling a little worse for wear. The pain in my right thigh is still there and my calves hurt when I try to run, but a couple of days rest (no long runs) will sort that out. I was a little worried about the pain and feeling so tired immediately after doing 16 miles, aware that in 2 weeks I'll have another 10 miles to do on top of that. However now I can continue to build on the strength that got me through this run and on the day of the marathon itself I know that I can't even begin to feel tired before I reach mile 16. There's another 10 miles in me somewhere, I just need to find it and pull it out of me on the day.

Dublin Marathon 2008

I've decided to do the Dublin Marathon later this year. It'll help me keep up the running and fitness when the London Marathon is over. Maybe next year I'll do the New York marathon. 'Tis a distant dream...

The fun nevers stops! :-D

Somebody Shut Me Up

Feeling a bit too hyper and talking too much about the marathon, training, nutrition, gels etc. and boring everyone around me so I'm writing here now to calm myself down. Came back from my personal training session and told some co-workers how my trainer thought I might be able to do this marathon in 4 - 4.5 hours based on the 10 miles I ran on Sunday and they agreed and made encouraging noises so I think that set me off and I could quite happily talk nonsense for the next 2 hours. So excited! However, I need to save my energy for tonight's big, hard, scary Interval training session. I've got lots to run and I've got to do it quickly, turning myself bright red in the process. So shooosh!

Saint Patrick's Day

I've got less than 2 minutes to get this one out before it become March 18th.

Greeness, shamrocks, leprechauns, Guiness, greeness.... again!

Happy Final Minute of St. Patrick's Day.

Edit: Beannachtai na Feilie Phadraig - it means something in Irish!

Ra ra ra

Testing bollards.... don't mind me.