My First 5k!

Today mother nature was kind and provided another gorgeous sunny but breezy morning.  This was a good thing, as I decided yesterday that today I would attempt a 5k.  I Planned the route using the Garmin website so I knew exactly where I was going for a change as I headed out the door.

I have attempted a similar route before when I was 'training' (I use the word training in the loosest possible sense!) for the race for life last year. I seem to remember it taking me just over 45 minutes then so to complete it today in  just over 37 minutes is quite an achievement.  The route is quite hilly though so that makes my time even more impressive for a tubby bird like me :)

        Watch out! There are snails about!

Another good thing about this morning's run was the lack of dog excrement and regurgitated kebab meat but as it was very wet last night I had the challenge of snail dodging.  Those little slimy interceptors were waiting around every corner but I refused to let them foil my run!

I love gadgets. Fact.

It is a lovely morning again, a little breeze but that's nice and you don't get that stuck inside the gym! 

I was a little bit excited about my run today because I have a new gadget.  Got myself a GPS watch and it's a grand bit of kit! Really simple to use and very accurate too, it's so nice to see exactly where I have been and how many miles I have covered.  Even though speed isn't that important, it was nice to see that i'm trundling along at an average speed of just over 5 miles per hour, which puts me on track for just under five and a half hour time for the marathon - exactly what i'm aiming for! Got to work at maintaining that pace for that amount of time - that's the hard part!

I was also surprised at the distance I have been covering, what I had previously thought was about 1.5 miles is actually 2.5 so that's a plus!

   Garmin Forerunner 10 - Lovely stuff :)

Uphill Struggle

Today I smashed through the 20 minute barrier! By smashed I mean limped through the barrier looking rather hot and sticky rather than skipping through it with ease like an Olympic champion. But still, I did it!

It also didn't help that I decided to try out a new route today which turned out to be almost entirely uphill so there was a bit more walking involved today.  But even though it was hard, I am still enjoying it and feeling stronger. Just got to keep pushing a little more every time I go out.

Checked the Brighton Marathon site http://www.brightonmarathon.co.uk/  only 333 days to go, that's only 11 months! Started to worry earlier if what i'm doing is enough then had to remind myself that i'm not trying to break any records, just get round the route alive and in a reasonable time!

Having a day off tomorrow then attempting to hit 25 mins on Saturday morning.

Need....more....water!

I'm not gonna lie to you, this morning was a struggle. Probably due to a couple of reasons, one being that I was wide awake at 2:30 this morning and could not get back to sleep (Grrrr!) and the fact that I consumed a grand total of 500mls of water all day yesterday! Running dehydrated is never a good thing.  Definitely need one of those beer hats for work when i'm scrubbed!

Despite all this I still managed to get another 19 and a half minutes of running in so not at all bad.

               
           More of this                       =               less of that!

Week Three....

Three weeks ago, I really didn't i'd still be here writing this blog! Got back yesterday from a lovely weekend away and four days of no proper exercise -other than embarrassing the OH by running up every little hill at Alton Towers and masterfully tackling never ending spiral staircases at Warwick castle!

Despite the time off, I found on Sunday that I was missing running desperately and have since vowed to take my kit with me the next time we go away.  I have had people tell me that it is addictive but always assumed that I would be immune as running addiction only happens to other people right??

Anyhoo, I was up at the crack of dawn this morning, raring to go.  I decided that I would see how long I could continuously run for, (previous best being just over 6 minutes) and to my surprise, happily managed 10 minutes, the latter 3 of those being uphill.  

Just got to keep that going for another 320 minutes and i'll be able to run a marathon!!

On annual leave now for a few days so had the chance for a well deserved lie in. I had set the alarm for 7am but oh no, my body had other ideas!  Found myself wide awake just before 6am and desperate to go running, but after 3 days on the road I thought it better to do a gym session instead.

So I trundled off t'gym to do 45 mins of cross training to keep everything ticking over.

Gotta go now 'cause i'm taking the old man to see Chas and Dave tonight...rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!

Hey - it's May!

The first day of May has provided me with another fine morning for running.  Tried to push a bit harder today as this is most likely the last run of the week due to the long bank holiday weekend so had to get the most out of it.  

Pushed my total running time up to just over 19 minutes with a little over 6 of that being continuous, which, for me is a PB when it comes to road running!!

Even though today is the end of my first week of running in the real world I can feel my fitness improving and finding that I have to add more distance to my route as I seem to be running faster. Result!



Happy runner :)