A wobbly parkrun and my divorce party

Bank holiday weekends are such a gift. That one extra day just makes it seem to last forever.

I definitely needed it after a very poor night sleep on Friday. I was woken up at 2am by some bad hay fever, so took an antihistamine and eventually feel back asleep. Then at 4am there was a thunderstorm. Alfie hates thunder and lightning; he gets very scared and freaks out. For whatever reason he decided that sitting on my head would be the safest place for him. And then intermittently barking. It seemed to go on forever, so we were awake for quite a while.

When my alarm went off at 7am I felt like I’d barely slept. I’m normally the type of person who gets up straight away with their alarm, but it was the first time in ages where I desperately wanted to snooze. But parkrun waits for no one!

I didn’t feel particularly great or 100% when I got to Netley. I’d felt very sick the day before for some reason so wondered if that, with lack of sleep, just made me feel rubbish. The weather was very oppressive as well, humid and close. Anyway, I helped set-up and decided today was not the day to push it.As soon as I started running I knew it was going to be a bad one. I was running far slower than normal and yet the effort level seemed the same. People who I normally run with or ahead of were overtaking me and I just couldn’t seem to catch up. I would occasionally surge forward but then found this shattered me.

I also didn’t feel right in that I felt hazy and foggy and a couple of times lost my footing. It felt really quite awful. Several times I wondered if I should drop-out of walk. But being the stubborn idiot I am I just pushed on, trying to get to the finish-line as quickly as I could.As I got closer to the finish I started getting more and more foggy and when I finished and stopped running I completely lost my bearings and stumbled to the floor. I can’t tell you how embarrassing this was. I just suddenly felt so dizzy and out of it. Luckily someone helped me and got me some water. I was very grateful, though hugely mortified. A lot of other people were also feeling the humid and oppressive weather conditions too so I didn’t look like a complete loon. I should have just stopped when I started feeling off.I somehow managed 23:07, but it felt so ridiculously hard. I helped clear up and then had a hot drink at the cafe. I still felt quite hazy so sitting and taking a moment helped. I had quite a busy day ahead so needed to have my shizz together!I got back home and was so busy sorting stuff I wasn’t able to focus on feeling under the weather, which I actually think helped (tho I had a moment in the shower where I found myself exhausted and wondering if I should just go back to bed…). I had my divorce party planned for 1pm at my friend’s house and needed to get myself together. And as I was in charge of the food, I needed to have that together too.

The day before I’d made a beef chilli (I used this Jamie Oliver recipe and slow cooked pieces of beef shin for over five hours and it smelt amaaaaazing).I was also planning on making some guacamole and had lots of snacks to take too. After rushing around like a mad thing I eventually made it to my friend’s house. She’d made the most fantastic cake! Red velvet…divine!We got the food prepared and spread on the table. I made guacamole using avocados mashed with some spices and low fat Greek yogurt and lime juice – delicious! And we were ready to go.The reason for the party was just to have a fun little get-together to take light of the fact that I’m now officially divorced (well, I have been for a few months now but haven’t really been that free at the weekend to do something like this). Yes being divorced sucks (oh the failure I am, how sad and pathetic my life is, woe is me… blah blah blah) but I’m a half glass full kind of person and wanted to just have a bit of fun with it. You can’t sit in a dark corner and be sad about life events that happen, you just gotta pick yourself up and try and move forward. I think I’ve consistently tried to do that and Saturday was just a way to enjoy myself with cake. My marriage wasn’t a mistake and I don’t regret it, it just had a fixed time limit and that’s that!To be honest, I just wanted a reason to eat lots of food and have cake 😉 I made a divorce playlist (think N*Sync ‘Bye Bye Bye’ and Destiny’s Child ‘Independent Woman’) and a love/hate themed quiz (Round 1: Connect the famous exes…to Round 4: Connect the song with the singer – again themed as breakup songs). It was good fun. I obviously ate far too much (two slices of cake and copious amounts of chilli and dip).Now I know people hate this word…but the cake was so moist! It was very tasty. Louise, my amazing baking friend, did herself proud!

As Lou and Tom, the hosts, had a wedding party to get to that evening we all vacated and reconvened later for, er, more food and some drinks at Portsolent. Some of the friends hadn’t eaten (or eaten as much as me) whereas I, unsurprisingly, wasn’t that hungry but I still fancied going out. We went to Wildwood and I ordered the lightest thing I could find. Just a “superfood salad”. On any other occasion it wouldn’t have been enough, but it was just perfect.I also enjoyed a nice refreshing Sol beer and then Bud Light at the next bar (I love Bud Light!). It was a great evening of chatting, laughing and generally just chilling out. I don’t tend to do much drinking but it was a nice change.

I’ll leave my weekend recap there!

What’s your favourite cake? I keep changing mine, from carrot cake to red velvet to lemon…

Have you ever been to a divorce party? It’s quite an obscure thing, granted!

Have you ever felt a bit dizzy or odd at parkrun/running?

8 Replies to “A wobbly parkrun and my divorce party”

  1. I absolutely love that you held a divorce party! Although, sorry of course that you are now officially divorced. But you definitely went about it in style. Weddings come with cake, and so should divorces! Love the themed quiz and cake you had going on. Also, I wonder if your friends Lou and Tom mentioned at the wedding they went to that they had been to a divorce party earlier that day?!
    Dan was away this weekend and so I had Oscar. I’d planned on going to parkrun but it would have been too hot for him so didn’t in the end. I’ve had some runs in the past though where I’ve really struggled with the humidity and had to throw myself down on the ground at the finish. Make sure to take it easy for a few days. The lack of sleep probably didn’t help.
    Mary recently posted…My aims for 2017My Profile

  2. Oh, I have to try that chilli! Love me a marrowbone…

    I’ve not felt odd running per se – but I did need to get rescued part way through one of the longer runs while training for Manchester marathon. I just completely ground to a halt. There’s also been the odd run where I’ve wheezed round and just been entirely asthmatic at the end, and needed a bit of a collapse. Not so much fun. Glad you recovered!

  3. Girl – I LOVE that you had a divorce party. Your outlook on it is so positive too – I know it probably took a while for you to get to that place, but good for you!
    And seriously – I’ll take any excuse to have cake!!
    kat recently posted…Strawberry Shortcake CupcakesMy Profile

  4. Love that you had a divorce party. There was one on Gossip Girl so it definitely is a thing. That cake looks amazing! I think I’m also a glass half-full person and that life is definitely easier when we don’t take things too seriously (and have cake on the side). x

  5. The divorce party is a great idea- like you say, onto the next chapter of your life.
    That sucks that you were not feeling well at parkrun- I think it is tough when it is humid, and hayfever and lack of sleep would only make that worse. I’ve never felt bad like that but I am happy to slow down and run around in over 30 mins if I don’t feel great. I have had a few runs where I have felt terrible near the end but those have been long runs when I have not had enough to drink the day before.
    Gosh, favourite cake? I think lemon would win, so long as it is super zesty and lemony.
    Maria @ Maria runs recently posted…Half term is nearly here and some random photosMy Profile

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