Jaspers first jog with mummy

Well I am three weeks into the training and its fair to say I have used the fact my treadmill broke, as an excuse not to train but don't fear, ever the daft optimist I have forced myself back into my trainers.

Markles and his friend have organised a sponsored relay run of 201.2km around Norfolk in aid of Greenpeace. He had a team of 10 runners each doing 20k, until one confessed to not having done enough training. Silly me comes to the rescue and says no worries if your desperate I can split the leg. So I will be doing my first 10k run on Saturday 2nd June. What Mark forgot to tell me until 2 nights ago was that my leg starts at 2am! Given I need 10 hours sleep to operate like a normal human and 11pm is considered very late, it will be interesting to see whether my legs run faster in the knowledge that the sooner they finish the quicker they can go to bed :)

Like a good girl, my alarm went off at 5:45am and Jasper and I set off on a training jog to Whitlingham. Bless him Jasper was most bemused, but equally happy not to have to go in the car. As I jabbered onto him about the importance of a consistent pace and asked him not to stop and sniff everything as the stop/start approach resulted in a bad running style, we soon got into a flow and happily jogged along listening to the birds and looking at the dappled shadows. It was really rather beautiful, especially compared to the garage wall I usually look at while running.

 I must confess though I had a hidden agenda in bringing Jasper, you see the last bit of the planned run is a long stretch UP Bracondale, which is bad enough to walk. I was rather hoping Jasper would pull me up if I was tired. The reality however is that I pulled him up, but hey its just another form of exercise :)

To conclude I did 3.5 miles in 35 minutes. The longest I have ever run...until Saturday that is!

Do sponsor me if you can, it would be nice to know the polar bears get a longer lie in even if I don't.


http://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/team/Norfolk%20Loop

Now whereas Jasper is crashed out, I have to get my bum in gear and go to work. Have a great day!

No scone + rain = sad Maria

Day 3 - Well what a wash out day. I overslept and missed my swim, so felt naughty from the off. Then pottered down town with happy dreams of buying even more shoes, but at the crucial moment resisted. A coffee with friend, where I had to endure watching him eat what he assured me was a truly wonderful scone and then a wizz back on the bike to eat snack-ca-jacks and an apple for lunch - wow riveting! What I need to find is some sort of low fat wheat free cake and fast. My cake withdrawals are causing me to be sad :(

On the plus though being stuck in the house due to the rain meant I finally sorted my wardrobe and now have 3 bin bags of assorted shoes, handbags and clothes to take to the charity shop. I also had a lovely lounge about reading a great book on art history (nerdy I know) and then at 9pm forced myself out of my nightie and into my running gear to face the garage torture equipment. It has decided to break....more fiddling required and I got it fixed....23 minutes into my 25 minute run and the belt just stops mid flow. Had Markles not be there to grab me I would have been sent flying!

Hmmm so maria the mechanic will need to have another look and try and fix it. Fingers crossed I haven't bought a second hand dud :(

Boom Chack-ca-la-ca!

OK so its day 2 of my adventure into the world of running and after a long day at work, and a lovely glass of wine after work with an old friend, did I really want to hop on the running machine to do my 15 minuets  - well no actually I didn't. But being a good girl I forced myself off the sofa.

3 minutes into my run and I'm conscious that my short attention span may cause me problems, especially in later weeks when I have to run for longer. How do I know this? For some unknown reason I had started singing - Boom chack-ca-la-ca repeatedly and in time to my running step. Honestly I can't remember ever having sang those strange words ever before! However once aware of this I decided it would be fun to try and swing my arms in time and do a sort of jog dance....I'm not sure it will take off, it is rather cumbersome and in the end I decided it was best to stick to just singing my daft song. Well it helped me get through it and the silly song is still stuck in my head 2 hours later. Boom chack-ca-la-ca-la-ca!

Haha I have just googled Boom chack-ca-la-ca and found out what distant memory my brain had dug up. What my mind appears to be thinking about it is Boom Shaka Laka by Apache Indians. It says something about my mind that the closest version to how I was singing it is the Muppet Treasure Island version!

Now there is a random trip down memory lane! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peJhJMciSXE

Enjoy :)

Another daft idea....

Well you all know me and my daft hair brained ideas, well I've had another one. This one though has come out of a good cause, a slight panic on reading an old 'things to do before I'm 30' list and a virtual kick up the bum from some old friends.

Those alert and eagle eyed facebook friends may have spotted a couple of odd status updates, hinting at training and a possible end to naughtiness (again - really the cake will never cease to rule my life). Well here it is....on the 30th of May I signed myself up to run the London Marathon 2013.

OK so yes I can't actully run, and the longest distance / race I have ever managed was a santa run around Eaton Park, but hey, lots of people manage it dressed as various random creatures, so there is a small possibility, if I get accepted ( I wont find out until early October) that I could finish it. I've taken the plunge, there is no going back,and the training has begun. Oh yes and I'm obviously doing the beginners training plan.

Only 348 days until race day!

Oh and I won't be too cheeky and ask for sponsorship now but I will hopefully be raising money for The British Heart foundation, as they did a good job of helping patch me up, and look after my late grandad.

Day 1

In another blog entry I will tell you the story of how the treadmill came to live with me, and how I ended up stuck out in the freezing cold garage but for now....heres my first ever training session:

On the left - how I should be feeling prior to my first run, on the right how I actually felt - cold!

How to turn the treadmill on....5 minutes later....how to speed the treadmill up.....15 minutes later and 1.6 miles completed. Yay and a mini whoop, I have ran a little!

Follow this with a healthy fish supper and a couple of bicep curls and I'm feeling positive....haha its only day 1!

In fairness another thing I'm not great at is keeping to these hairbrained ideas, and as especially daft as this one sounds I think this one is worth sticking too. However to make it more fun for you I am going to run a sweep stake on how long it will be until I give up. The winner will get a lovely bottle of wine from our wine closet :)
Markles guess - April 22nd - aww bless, you got to love him (race day is April 21st)

Now for some possibly more realistic ones? Nah honestly he is going to win the wine and fingers crossed let me share it!

Roll on tomorrows fun :)