88 days 'til Dublin ... Eek!

For some reason, 88 days sounds much scarier than 3 months - I'm not sure why! I'm on the 4th week of my training plan: 3 'quality' runs and 2 days cross training per week. The last couple of weeks' running has gone well but finding it hard to fit everything in this week with various leaving dos going on for the big boss at work.

One thing I have learnt is not to go rock climbing the day before a 13 mile run! My arms only recovered yesterday and I'm not sure that my legs have yet ...

On the plus side, I received an email from Guy's & St Thomas' Charity yesterday officially confirming my place with them in the 2011 London Marathon. Yay! Although, I'm not sure that I'll still be enthusiastic about it when I'm dragging my ass home after the Dublin marathon in three months time??

Hot & hilly races and new trainers!

A couple of Sundays ago, I took part in my first 10k race of the year. Billed as a "fun run" and being conveniently located close to my mum's house, I thought it might be a fun thing to do whilst visiting my mum for the weekend. Luckily, I went online to check out the route a few days before and discovered comments from previous years along the lines of "very challenging" and "killer hills"! I tried to comfort myself with the knowledge that many of my runs are on hilly routes and perhaps the locals in flat East Anglia just weren't used to hills.

The race started at 11am - on the hottest day of the year so far! - on the village green with a real fete atmosphere. After a loop round the village and a brief stint on a busy road, the rest of the race was on quiet country lanes, footpaths and through farmland. Unfortunately, there was little shade and many of the hills were across open farmland with baked ruts and broken roots underfoot. What a relief it was to come back into the village and the see the finish line up ahead! For some reason, I was very surprised to see my mum waiting for me just before the finish, camera at the ready ... I think the heat had got to my brain by that point! I did enjoy the race and was very pleased to find out a couple of days that later that I was 20th woman (out of over 100, and 127/450 overall) although disappointed that I wasn't 8th as my mum had thought.

I was spurred on by the race to do an 8 mile club run a few days later followed by a 5k club race the next day, totally forgetting that I'd not run the previous week. My poor achilles really were knacked by this point and with my physio on holiday for two weeks, I decided to buy yet another pair of trainers and take it easy for a while. I went out for a couple of runs the next week but couldn't tell if the new trainers helped as my achilles were still sore from the previous week so rested completely for a few more days. Then my dad arrived from the US bearing even better trainers ... I cautiously went out in them this morning thinking about doing around 6 miles but felt really good so ended up doing a 9 mile run instead :-)