running club - AnnaTheApple

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

Week #1 Marathon Training

Morning all. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on documenting every single week of marathon training (assuming I do manage to complete all the training without getting injured…there’s confidence for you). But as it’s the first week, why not.

My marathon training plan is HERE. Alongside this I’m also doing the ‘Ab Challenge’ which I started on the 1st June. This includes, every day (except for a few rest days), sit ups, crunches, leg raises and a plank. Each day the number increases (for the plank, the length of time increases). It’s no joke now having done Day 15.

Monday – no running, but I did a 45 minute strength workout after work.

This included:
– 100 weighted squats
– 3x 10 weighted calf raises
– 3mins toe lifts
– 2x 20 of kick-backs, leg swings and hydrant lifts

Tuesday – 3 miles easy run in the morning. For my easy runs I’m trying to keep to around 8.30mins/mile which is a comfortable speed. I also did another strength workout after work.

This included:
– 3mins calf raises (no weight)
– 3mins toe lifts
– 3x 1min side planks
– 2x 1min plank with leg touches to the side
– 3x 30 Russian twists

Wednesday – We had the RR10 that evening. This was an off-road 4.5mile race (the RR10 is a set of league races with all the clubs in our area).

I really wasn’t feeling motivated. I was in a bit of a bad mood anyway. Then they delayed the start by 15 minutes and that just furthered by lack of motivation. I ummed and arred about whether to run with Ben or on my own and push it. I decided to push it. Within the first mile I knew it wasn’t a good run. My hip was niggling (possibly because of the unstable terrain?) and I just felt tired.

One of my team mates who wasn’t running cheered me on but at this point (maybe mile 2) I was considering dropping out. She shouted “just enjoy it!” when she realised I wasn’t feeling it. This really helped. Suddenly I realised, “hey, yeah I can just run this as slowly as I want and it doesn’t matter. Just get the miles in.”. My whole mood changed and I dropped the speed and just ran comfortably. Loads of people overtook me but I didn’t care. Eventually my friend Matt caught up (I was hoping Ben would catch up and I could run with him but he was having a rubbish run as he was exhausted (*cough* and hungover *cough*) after getting back from Bucharest earlier that day). So I ran with Matt instead and helped push him along (well sort of, I’m not sure who was pushing who!)

I finished 39th or 38th position (can’t remember) out of the females. Previously I’ve been 10th and 11th but I actually didn’t mind. I’ve also come to realise I don’t like the RR10s one bit. They’re heavily competitive (you aim for position not time), they’re in the evening, they’re always a very short distance and they’re off-road so there’s a big chance of turning your ankle (which a guy at our club did). To me it’s not worth it during my marathon training. Sure it’s a good speed session but I’d rather do that with the club Tuesday night on road or on my own where the pressure (that I put on myself I hasten to add) is less. I know I sound extremely ‘sour grapes’ but the relief and weight off my shoulders felt when I decided not to do anymore was huge. I felt so much better.

Thursday – another after work strength session:

– 2x 1 min side planks
– 3x 30 heel taps
– 3mins toe lifts
– 3mins calf raises
– 3min bridge
– 10x 3 bridge leg lifts

[I’m focusing on areas that I know I’m weak and also making sue I have strong shins and calves as I’m terrified about getting shin splints – because let’s be honest, that’s the next thing I’m bound to get]

Friday – another easy 3 mile run in the morning.

Saturday – I didn’t get to Parkrun because my uni friends were down so I went for an earlier 3 mile speed run. I was chuffed with this. Not my fastest but on my own not too shabby!

Sunday – 5 mile ‘long’ run (fairly amusing but it will get longer later) I really enjoyed this.

I ran very comfortably, rarely looking at my watch and was happy to see my paces were around 8 minutes. Bodes well!

Total run miles: 18

After getting back from my run and Ben returning from his, we had breakfast and then (without showering – yep we’re that gross) we headed out for a 15 mile bike ride with our friend, Nathan. It was fairly hilly and we didn’t blast the speed so it was quite nice.

I was fairly shattered for the rest of the day. Onwards to Week 2!

Do you put pressure on yourself to the point you stop enjoying something?

What workouts have you enjoyed this week?

What workouts have you hated?

May 21, 2014May 21, 2014

Netley 10k

I think we can agree that the weekend was a hot one. Sunny, beautiful, but fairly warm. Ideal BBQ and chilling weather but not ideal running conditions. I’d rather run in rain or freezing temperatures than heat (and wind; wind sucks your soul away). Sunday morning, Netley 10k race day, began very warm.

Netley 10k was set in the beautiful location of Royal Victoria Country Park. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while you might realise this is our usual location for parkrun (and a recent RR10 race). It’s about 10 minutes from us so the morning was very leisurely, getting up at 8am.

This 10k was our club championships. Basically prizes were going to be awarded for the below categories:

Ladies Champion
1st, 2nd and 3rd Ladies Senior (under 35) <—my category
1st, 2nd and 3rd Ladies V35 (35 to 44)
1st, 2nd and 3rd Ladies V45 (45 and over)

Men’s Champion
1st, 2nd and 3rd Men’s Senior (under 40) <—Ben’s category
1st, 2nd and 3rd Men’s V40 (40 to 49)
1st, 2nd and 3rd Men’s V50 (50 and over)

As I said in my previous post, I wasn’t sure if I was going to run or not because of my [insert expletive here] hip. I woke up and it was the best it felt all week. In an ideal world I reckon 2-3 more days of rest would have 100% sorted it. But obviously I didn’t have that time. I decided to run it anyway. I popped some Ibuprofen and thought “to hell with it”. Kyle, the sports massage therapist, gave me some good advice and told me it wasn’t a tear or anything crazy bad like that and running on it would aggravate it, of course, but wouldn’t knock me out of running for weeks or months. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have run on it but this was important race only happening once a year and I had a shot at getting a prize. And nothing planned afterwards (apart from RR10s which I could miss if necessary).

Going into a race knowing that you’ve got a niggle that’s been nasty all week is not how I like to start a race, believe me. I did a warm up with Ben and some of the other running club guys and it actually didn’t feel too bad. Not as bad as before and not as bad as Alton last week. But the warm-up wasn’t at speed so I was still in a bit of turmoil.

The course was three laps of the park. We said goodbye to my parents who had found a good place to stand to see us and we headed to the start line.

The race started at 10.30am in a big pack of us. It wasn’t chip timed so I found a spot near people I knew who were roughly my speed – don’t want to be that annoying ‘plodder’ who gets trampled by the ‘elites’ 😉

I told myself to aim for around 7.20min/miles but see what happened (i.e. go slower if needed). The course had a couple of hills/gradual inclines which were annoying considering we had to do them three times, but otherwise it was a nice and scenic on-road race with lots of support.

To begin with I got really confused in my adrenaline-fuelled brain. For some stupid reason I panicked myself thinking it was 10 miles not 10km until realising no, no it was 6.2 miles. Thank God. Because each lap was around 2 miles I decided to segment the race that way in my head, trying to convince myself it was just a tough parkrun (yeah right).

I was so pleased that running felt fine. Maybe a slight hint of a niggle but nothing to change my gait or bother me. In fact, as the race continued I felt better and better (adrenaline? pills? magic??)

(Thanks to Gary in our club for the great photos!)

This was just after the first lap and first water station. I’d dumped a water on my head at this point as it was just so hot. I hate 10ks. They just go on forever and the pace is just so hard. I never enjoy them. Mentally you have to stay focused. I tried to keep people in my sight and either not lose them or gain on them.

There’s my dad in the background cheering everyone on, bless him

It was tough, I’m not going to lie. To keep the pace up and also mentally to just stay focused. I was chuffed to catch up to a few people who I didn’t think I could beat on the final lap, and then it was the home-straight to the finish.

I think I faded a bit towards the end but otherwise I’m over the moon with how I did.

My official time was 44:04, 14th female and 1st female in my club. I felt pooped afterwards.

Sadly Ben didn’t have quite as good a race as he’d hoped. In his words, he prepared badly the day before (bike ride, not drinking enough water, and drinking too much wine the night before). And with the heat and the undulating course it really did help.

He finished in a time he wasn’t happy with (48:10). Though obviously I’m proud of him regardless, I do understand why he was unhappy (his PB is 45:01). Us runners are too hard on ourselves about hitting targets and we’re perfectionists. We will ruthlessly beat ourselves up when we get a less than stellar result. When I saw people finishing that I knew Ben would ordinarily beat I knew he’d be unhappy. After he finished, he became the Grumpy Runner (like I was the entire week before).

To be fair though, the race wasn’t easy and barely anyone got a PB. I’m proud of how far he’s come – this is the guy that gave up smoking and struggled to run a full mile when he first started running just a year ago. One race is not an indicator of ability.

After chilling for a bit after the race (and obviously eating a slice of rocky road that our ladies team captain had brought – thanks Kelly! ‘No Cake’ is over!), we headed back to get showered, me to have an ice bath and then go back to Netley for a running club BBQ.

The men-folk obviously crowded around the BBQ doing men-things: poking and re-arranging meat – a far more complex process than the regular cooking us wives do 😉 (Stereotypes ahoy! Apologies).

Doing a fine job

And then the prizes were handed out. I was awarded 1st Ladies Senior and Ladies Champion. Obviously I’m over the moon but I must just add that one of our speedy runners is currently pregnant and therefore graciously allowed me to claim the prize 😉 She’ll be back next year to win it back I’m certain (and another speedster is suffering from shin splints).

And then I enjoyed a lot of chicken! And Fanta Zero…I could live off Fanta Zero, it’s my nectar. But I had a banging head ache the next day – too much sun and Fanta. Rock and roll, people. After a fun game of rounder’s we headed home and collapsed on the sofa. Job done.

Have you ever gone into a race knowing you’re injured? My hip isn’t necessarily a ‘proper’ injury, but running a hard race on I’m sure didn’t help it one bit. The next morning it ached a lot.

Would you give up a good race if you’re injured or just run it anyway?

How do you console someone who had a bad race/result? There was nothing I could say to Ben to make him feel better. I do understand as I know nothing would make me feel better; it’s all in your own head.

What’s your perfect BBQ food and drink?

May 14, 2014May 10, 2016

A long way to go

This year has been very strange in terms of running. I started the year feeling absolutely pants, recovering from a stubborn injury. I got back into running fairly slowly when my knee started to hold up and began gaining back speed and things were going well.

Then after the Reading half (not many weeks before the marathon) I was struck down with another injury (sprained ligament in my ankle). Luckily because it was such an acute injury it went away as quickly as it appeared (just over two weeks). But it knocked my training and made me readjust my expectations for the marathon.

The marathon happened and I did so much better than I could have dreamed. No issues, a GFA and a great experience. Off the back of that though it has been quite a tedious time with running. I love it still, don’t get me wrong. But gaining back speed has been a tough old slog. I’m nowhere near where I was this time last year in terms of my parkrun times and I don’t feel as confident a runner as I used to be.

I’ve been going to regular club training sessions, parkruns and the odd race but things don’t seem to be there as easily as before. I know it’s just time, but I’m so impatient. Though I’m over the moon for my running friends and husband getting PBs, it’s frustrating for me that my PBs were achieved last year when I was in peak condition so my chance of beating them soon are slim.

This was evident when I really tried to go for it at parkrun on Saturday. I had my game-face on, the course was the flat five laps around the cricket pitch, and I was feeling ready.

I got 21:32 (2nd female) which is over a minute away from my PB. I really pushed it and felt shattered afterwards.

I know I can get the speed back if I consistently train and do the right sessions, I’m just having a moan. I know I am very lucky to be able to run and enjoy it – don’t get me wrong. Since my numerous injuries, I am very grateful for every run and I know injuries are so easy to get. My runs could be numbered at any point. I just feel a bit useless at the moment with my running.

I also had the worst run of my entire life. I’m taking part in our running club’s league races (Hampshire RR10s) and we had one last Wednesday night. The races are typically 4-5miles long, off-road and undulating. This one was in the New Forest.

Ben and me met up with the rest of the club and warmed up.

Ah those happy faces, unaware of what was to come

I started ridiculously fast. Like stupid fast. It was downhill and I was just like “la, la, la, I’m so speedy”. Then hit the wall and the wheels came off spectacularly on mile two. It was painful, horrible and I thought at one point just to stop.

Thankfully, I didn’t. I zipped up my woman-suit (girl version of man-suit) and just persevered. There was so much thick mud to get through it was a nightmare. Then a lovely long hill for 3/4 mile at the end. Joy.

My lovely new Run Mummy Run compression socks fully Christened with mud on their first outing

I’ve never been so glad for a race to be over. I’m not joking when I say I’d rather do the marathon again than that race. Too fast, stupid pacing, too much mud. A silver lining at least was that I got 11th female and first female in my club.

Because I knew that I worked very hard at the RR10 and I was also aiming for a good time on Saturday’s parkrun, when Ben and me signed up to the Alton 10 miler race on Sunday I knew straight away I didn’t want to race it. But Ben was keen to go for a PB (honestly, that boy is on fire. He got a PB at parkrun! I’ll be watching my back soon – he was nine seconds behind me). Ben’s 10 mile PB was 1:26:xx but that was last October and he’s made some great improvements since then so it was clear he would PB (providing all went well). It just depended on by how much of a PB it would be. He wanted 1:18. So I said I’d pace him as that was still quite a comfortable speed for me. Not an easy run, but not a racing speed (my PB is 1:15, of which I’m not happy with but let’s not go there).

The run was well organised and the course was very scenic – think traditional little British villages and farms. But undulating and windy on the day.

We ran fairly steady. I struggled a little bit due to a slightly niggling hip (let’s not talk about it) but other than that it went fine. Ben ran well and achieved his goal with time to spare – an 8 minute 1 second PB.

He was over the moon, as you can imagine. Two PBs in one weekend. Nice work, hubby!

Running is never easy. You really have to put a lot of hard, consistent work in to get good stuff out. I know I’ll get there again, it just takes time.

Have you ever felt frustrated with your ability?

Is your other half into sports or fitness? Do you compete against each other? I never want to race against Ben. I’m sure he’ll get faster than me at some point but I don’t mind. I’m happy that he’s doing so well. I never want to compare his performance against mine. It would be silly anyway considering he’s male and I’m female!

Have you ever been paced or have ever paced someone else in a race?

May 8, 2014October 28, 2016

North Dorset Marathon Relay

This week feels very strange to me. The UK had Monday off as a bank holiday and then I was only at work for Tuesday and Wednesday before having Thursday and Friday off (another wedding, hurrah!).

Anyway I mentioned in my last post that I ran the North Dorset Marathon as part of a relay team. There were four of us in total from (all female). Quite a few people from the running club were there as part of the relay (we had four teams in total), or part of the marathon, or to support.

Ben and me had to get up at the joyous time of 5.20am on Sunday to meet some guys for a lift at 6am. I ate my porridge in the car in a state of tired confusion.

There was a tiny part of me that was jealous of the marathon runners. I much preferred the idea of running slower for longer than faster for shorter, if that made sense. But the course is very hilly so in retrospect I’m happy I didn’t!

One of our team members had made us all hair ribbon ties to wear which were amazing.

A go faster bobble!

Coincidentally Ben and me were down to run the last legs of the relay so despite the race starting at 8.30am, we actually had around 2.5 hours until we were running. This was both good and bad. It gave my body time to wake up and get going, but also there was a lot of nervous energy coursing through me for an extended period of time. I sort of wanted to just “get it over with”, you know?

Before the race keeping warm in jeans – he didn’t run in them! (Ouch)

Actually though there really wasn’t much time to wait around and dwell. After seeing our first lady off for her first leg, we had to dash to the Race Mobile and get going to the hand-over point for the second leg. After getting there, parking, using the loo (I used each loo at each handover point – my pee likes to save itself up apparently), we stood there with the other running club guys and supporters and cheered on the super fast marathoners zooming through and other relay teams. It was a lot of fun to cheer people on and we saw our running club marathoners pass which was great. And it was also fun cheering on cyclists that happen to pass through too…and the odd car hehe “strong driving!”

Princess Leia, Darth Vader and some other Star Wars characters were out in force (tee hee) as it was May 4th (Star Wars Day). I am hugely impressed with them being able to run in full costume. Amazing.

As soon as our first lady appeared the hand-over commenced and then we rushed to the Race Mobile to get to the next location. This was a bit more hairy as we only had 4.5 miles (the first leg was 7ish miles). Our poor first team member barely had a chance to catch her breath! But she’d set us up well for a strong start.

The next location was fairly similar. At this point I was getting hungry. It was about 10am and having had breakfast a good four hours ago I was starting to wilt a bit. Luckily the other guys had the forethought to have brought more than just apples with them so I snacked on half a bagel.

The weather was lovely, though a little chilly in the shade. You just knew it would get hot on the run. Our ladies were running really strong and soon it was my turn to wait for the handover of the baton. I started doing a little warm-up as I waited. We knew only the rough time of when our runner would be coming in from working out predicted splits.

Warming up

After seeing my team mate in the distance I whipped off my long running top to reveal my superman costume…whoops, no, to reveal my vest underneath with the bib ready to go go go.

As I grabbed the baton and headed off I felt exhilarated and ready. I knew that my section was fairly hilly (well, the whole course was really) and it was 6.8miles. I’d set myself a very loose target of a pace 7.30-8minute miles and just see how it went. It was a strange race if I’m honest as it wasn’t just my race, it was the team’s race. So that added some pressure but also relieved me a bit as it wasn’t just my time that mattered.

With a very small field of runners (less than 500 I think) it was quite lonely out there. I settled into a nice rhythm around 7.30min/miles and felt that I was comfortably pushing it but nothing extreme (not a Parkrun/5k exertion if you know what I mean). This did mean however that I quickly came upon marathon runners. Obviously I’d just started, my legs were fresh and I was only running about 7 miles so it made sense I’d be overtaking marathoners. But I felt very bad. I made it very clear when I ran past I was a relay runner and tried to encourage them (not sure if this was the best thing to do but I felt I couldn’t just overtake them).

I ran with one guy who was lovely and we chatted for about 0.5 miles until he told me to push on as he was trying to keep up with me which was ruining his pacing – he said something about a “male ego” 😉 I ran past another guy who grunted “hmph, relay runner” when I overtook. When I asked him if he knew how far we had left to go (as I couldn’t do the maths from my Garmin) he said in a very clipped voice “no”. I quickly apologised and headed off. Don’t annoy the marathoners, Anna!

After passing the 25 mile marker I knew I could push it on. I’m so pleased with how I felt during this race. I never once felt like I was dying, or it was too hard. It felt good.

This gives me huge confidence for my upcoming 10k (worst distance) in a few weeks.

I finished literally as my team arrived after getting to the finish and parking the car. Fairly amusing. We came second female relay team and our overall time was 3:23:05. Amazing, super running ladies! But it seriously made me realise I am so far away from that sort of time doing a marathon on my own.

One of our speedy marathoner’s had finished already in a very nice time of 3.17.xx (he did Paris as well…oh and he was the one who cycled with us on Monday – fresh as a daisy!) We then stood to cheer our other relay teams and marathoners.

Our other marathoners did amazingly too. Seriously impressive times considering the course profile and warm/sunny conditions. To be honest, I’m just hugely impressed at anyone who completed that marathon – my leg was hard enough with those hills! Paris was hard but that was flat. Not sure how keen I’d be to do this marathon…maybe when I’m a bit more experienced.

Strong running from the hubby

Ben’s relay team did great too with a time of 4:02:22. The morale was just brilliant and I loved supporting everyone and hearing how everyone’s run went.

As our team came second we got a little trophy (wish I’d have taken a photo) and a bottle of cider each. Not bad at all!

I definitely recommend a relay marathon to anyone; the morale within the team, the fun of driving off to the next location and supporting the marathoners is just a brilliant experience.

Have you ever done a relay?

What’s your ideal course profile in terms of terrain, popularity, length and elevation? I think mine would be a half marathon, off road with no more than 500 people (Cheddar Gorge half anyone…?).

Do you talk to people in races or do you like to be left alone? If I’m pushing hard then I tend to not be able to chat away but I do like a good natter in a race.

April 28, 2014January 5, 2017

Last week’s workouts

Last week was a weird running week. I sandwiched a tough run (the first RR10 race) between two fairly easy runs.

I took Monday off as a complete rest day. I think it’s so important to rest your body. It can be so tempting to just run all the time but I know from experience that this never works out well for me.

Tuesday I could have gone to the interval session with the club but I had the RR10 on Wednesday night and really wanted to try hard. So I went for an easy 6 miles after work. Nothing remarkable.

Wednesday was the RR10 in the evening. This is basically Hampshire’s set of league races that are around 4-5 miles long and tend to be fairly hilly and off-road. Like clockwork the rain started as soon as I left work about two hours before the start.

Ben dropped me off at a fellow club friend’s house so I could do a mile warm up run. I can’t just start flat-out race speed without warming up first. My legs de-friend me that way. Ben’s knee was giving him a bit of grief so he declined the extra running.

The RR10 was located at our local Parkrun in Netley Abbey so I was familiar with the area.

Sadly the toilets were locked at the time of the evening and I was desperate for a wee (sorry for TMI) It wasn’t even like a safety wee, it was a ‘genuinely-required-pee situation’. I had to dash off to find a bush, which was such an effort as most of the bushes were a bit scarce in their foliage and there were so many flipping dog walkers. Anyway, I found one of the necessary criteria. Hmm a whole paragraph on my peeing situation – apologies.

We did a bit more warming up. Anyone else just feel terrible during warm ups? Like every ache your body has ever experienced rears its head. I felt so de-motivated and tired.

Anyway we all headed to the start (our running club was looking strong with it’s red white and blue vests and such a great turn out). I planned to line up fairly near the front so I wouldn’t get caught behind people (RR10s are based on positions not time). Then we were off.

It was painful, fast, muddy, slippy and the whole time I was just thinking “this is hard.” and “I could slow down, that would be nice”. I decided not to look at my watch because a) I was concentrating on not falling over with all the mud and b) I just didn’t have time. It was one of those races I just kept my head focused the entire time.

Amazingly I came 10th female, and first female in my club. Judging from how tough the race felt and my race photos, it’s clear I worked hard for it!

Source

Still have my name on my vest from the marathon. All the cool kids are doing it 😉

Source

Are race photos ever flattering? This is on the last 100m. I remember seeing the photographer and in my mind briefly thinking “Oh jeeze this is going to be bad” as I desperately tried to sprint to the finish.

The next photo is one of my favourites. Not because I look nice or anything like that. It’s just the evil daggers I’m throwing at the photographer.

Source

I look seriously grumpy!

I was so chuffed with my position and after grabbing a drink I stood and cheered as other club runners finished.

Ben finished 192nd out of the men. There are always a lot more men than women unfortunately for Ben. He was chuffed though as his knee hadn’t caused him any issues. Whew.

Safe to say it was a very muddy run!

Then cakes appeared. Well, obviously I was there in a nano-second. Would you be surprised if I said I had four cakes? Yeah I’m not either. To be fair though two of them were quite slim biscuits. The other was a regular sized (amazing) cookie (with mini eggs in it?? WOW) and a slice of iced sponge.

I went home buzzing as you can imagine!

Source

It took ages to fall asleep that evening. Maybe it was the cakes or my aching legs but I really struggled.

Thursday I woke up tired and achy, but in a satisfying way. That evening I went to running club with the absolute iron intention of an easy run. I ran the mile down there at a nice relaxed pace enjoying the sunshine. I tagged along with the normal group I go with but telling myself over and over again not to go to fast. My options were limited with groups – it was either an off-roader (the one I went with) or a 7 mile 8-8.30min/mile group, or the much slower (than me – it’s all relative!) groups.

In the end I think I’d chosen well as we took it nice and easy and the terrain was very similar to the previous night’s RR10 so speed just wasn’t an option. Whew. But my legs felt very heavy and tired. I almost dashed off home as we past near where we live. It was a good 8.5 miles though in the end with an average pace of 9mins (a couple of those miles 10mins so that was good).

Friday was another rest day. I had intended on a strength workout (this week has been terrible for that) but it just didn’t happen sadly. You win some, you lose some. I did have a sports massage though on my calves. My left calf was feeling tight and almost a little niggly so I wanted to nip that in the bud quickly.

Saturday I got up earlier than usual and ran the 4 miles to Parkrun to help set up. I ran the extra miles because Ben and me were off to a wedding later in the day so a Sunday run was never going to happen 😉

On starting the run I felt so tired and my legs so heavy (still!). I was not feeling it at all. I made Ben make me a coffee that he’d take with him so I could drink it when I got there. He’s lovely like that.

He took me a black coffee and my water bottle. Very handy having him go by car. I saw him pass me when I was about 0.5miles away and it definitely made me run faster “need coffee!!!”

I got to parkrun, we helped set up and I was dragging my feet a bit. It was cold and I just wasn’t in the mood. However, when we lined up I put some music on and just got into it. I ran 22 minutes flat! It was crazy, I suddenly just decided “let’s do this”.

Not my fastest, but the course is the three laps with the hill and some fairly boggy grass so I was chuffed. The effort was definitely there! I was pleased I went for a speedy run.

After that, it’s two days off and then strength workout tonight (Monday night) and then hopefully intervals with the club Tuesday evening.

How was your week in terms of work outs?

How do you motivate yourself to work hard? Music tends to help me and also the ‘race environment’ gets me going.

How often do you work out and what’s your balance between cardio and strength? I try to do at least two strength sessions a week and usually 4-5 runs.