...you manage to fit in a run while on holidays.

Well I wasn't really on holidays but my Mum was over and she really wanted to get out to exhibitions and museums early and we did! And I still got my runs in! Yay! So my week last week was a bit higgildy piggildy as I needed to fit in my long run around my Mums visit. 10miles....dun dun daaah!

Thurs: Wake up early and eat breakfast. Check. Change into running gear. Check. See how hot it will be....um no. Ooops. The big mistake of my 10miler. So I put on my forerunner and stood outside for a minute until it found a satellite and then pounded my way along the road until I reached the canal. I had foam rolled so thought this would make me feel looser. It didn't really and my calves felt tight but kept going. Got to the canal and decided to add just over half a mile to my route taking the left and doubling back on myself. This was okay until about mile 6...mile 7.... I needed water. I had worn my flipping long sleeve top and it was warm! Run to the Beat warm! I was gasping. I decided I would stop in a cafe to ask for water. They were all closed. Yes all. The bar I was going to pop into was being refurbished. So asking the builders I thought? I wasn't brave enough so instead ripped open a gel and took the tiniest gulp of liquid sugar. Gross. Ah well I was nearly home. The ground was wet and all I wanted to do was roll around in it until I had soaked up enough moisture. But I kept going...10.4miles later in 1 hour and 31mins I got back to the house and downed my pint of squash that was waiting for me at the door! I know it was silly to not bring water. I just didn't have my head screwed on. If anything I didn't hurt from anywhere lol. 10miles ran. Check!

This just left recovery and tempo. Recovery didn't happen as I ended up doing a fast 4miles on the Saturday. My Mum wasn't really in the mood for waiting for me as she gets up the crack of dawn so getting those miles in was great! Felt great on this run as my Mum is a massage therapist/physio. Yes! Massage the night before my run. Check! Gotta keep her around more :)

Getting back on track this week I started with my 4mile today. Did I say 4 mile...it ended up 6miles. But a really great 6miles. No pain except the usual muscles-need-to-loosen ache at the start. Did it in 54mins and felt fantastic! I can't believe the half is so close now!!

Think I may run a little 3mile tomorrow to get my Feb mileage up a bit more...we'll see was thinking gym too. Oh the exercise options! That means though I have no motivation problems yay. It may also be because I'm going to be cooking 4 meals from the new runners mag that came last week. Will keep you updated on how they go!!

Happy running :)

...if your friends are starting to get annoyed by all your running talk!

So yesterday after reading my womensrunning magazine again (I got it Saturday morning!) I was politely informed that "Yes Aine, you do talk about running a lot!". Ooops. I was trying to inspire my housemate to start running home from work and I was told that it would be nice if I could take a break from talking about running for about an hour. I'm kinda glad to hear this though coz it means I've got the running bug again and am enjoying running!

This was mainly due to 2 things. 1) I got my awesome high5 gel pack in the post on Wednesday. It has so many gels and bars in it I didn't know what to do! You can check out the picture on my twitter feeds @trillionblue
And number 2) was the fact that I had a really nice 9mile run. Not my legs I must admit weren't as great as the first 8miler I did this year but I did really enjoy my 9.5miles on Friday morning! I took a gel with me and ran past ASDA and onto the canal. My IT band hurt for a bit so going to stretch is quite a lot before my next big run (10miles Thurs) as I really don't want to get injured. But yeah a 9min/mile pace on Friday and straight into lab. My legs did give up at about 6pm where they really really didn't want to walk home but putting my feet up on the couch for a couple hours sorted that!

A bad thing that did happen was I noticed my toe hurting even more. Now it seems like a really silly injury but my middle toe on my right foot is killing me! I think planking for a week without shoes hurt my feet and then not resting or icing it meant it got worse. But I'll delve into that in a but. Recovery Run!

Recovery run turned into a 4.5mile tempo run coz I met my friend Holly along the canal (@hollycall01). We talked about her sore Achilles tendon which held up for all her 12 miles and about running watches. I'm thinking a year on and it's time. Time to invest in a garmin GPS running watch. I think I've decided to go for the forerunner 110. Hope it's worth it!! Kinda scared coz they're expensive and feel it's a big commitment! Ran with Holly anyway for 2miles in the wrong direction for my recovery so hence the longer miles but felt great so didn't mind.

After walking around all day and sitting through a how-to-be-a-tutor seminar my foot felt a little sore. But what do runners do? Ignore the pain and that's what I did. It's only a toe! I took my shoes off though and all my toes bar my big toe were swollen including the knuckle area. Ooops. And that's when the icing began! 2hours later though and my toes were fine. Don't know what's happening but going to ice again this evening I think. It's sore when I bend it certain ways but not sore enough to be anything major. Will just keep in eye on it.

This weeks runs are being chopped and changed as my Mum is in town but got me 10miles on Thursday and may bring a gel again. It was very sugary but did give me an initial boost. Sure we'll see how it goes!! Getting closer to half marathon time!! :) Oh and booked my flights to it is official now!!

P.S. I love that I am excited about running again and it's funny the little things that can get you going again! :D

..you've lost a toenail. And you tell people, "It's not that bad."

Well I didn't loose a toenail but I had my first major fall during todays recovery run. The rest of the weeks training was cold and I did miss my Thursday 3.5mile tempo run. My hamstring was really sore from the treadmill on Tuesday night. I was hobbling while walking so I thought I should prob take it easy and get the long run done rather then push through and potentially hurt myself.

So going to sleep Friday night after staying in coz I decided not to drink to prep myself for a good run I knew it would be a cold night! I checked alternative routes in case the Grand Union Canal was completely frozen over as well that night. That worried me as I was slightly nervous of the alternative route. It was -4C when I woke up! Oh my gosh. I waited until about 12....It was only -1C then. So off I went. Fast unfortunately....it was cold. 4miles in I was on 8:40min/miles. Ooops, wasn't sure what the pace was but knew it was fast. I kept going though. And I was delighted to know the canal wasn't frozen! :) Yay! My legs were a little tired and sore but after 5miles I felt great. 8.1miles later I polished a 9min/mile run. Was glad to get home as I found it really hard to get out of the warm house. I decided as well to have a bitter cold shower after. It was cooooold on me legs but was nice and knew it was good for me. I then finished with about 30mins of planking, side planking, squats, butterfly sit ups. Felt fantastic!

So what about todays run?! Umm....complete opposite. Didn't sleep well so wasn't that excited about it but off I went. Tight legs, ah sure yeah grand, normal! Needing the loo really bad....not normal......and the pain didn't go away. Emergency toilet break was needed which was really annoying! But off I went and put it behind me. Was feeling a but tired and wasn't thinking then all of a sudden I was on the ground. Sprawled out after tripping on a cracked pavement. Damn! Grazed leg and both heels of my hands. I should have been paying attention but thought this is it, I need to push through. What if this was my long run or half marathon? So I picked myself up, my right leg was pounding and I began again. Wasn't the best but as me and my friend said, it could've been worse! It could've been my long run, my half marathon. I have fallen now and have pushed myself after. It hurt but I pushed myself :) No broken bones just bruises. Note to self! Pay a bit more attention :)

This weekend finishing with 11.65miles in about 1hour 43mins.

I'm going to kick ass next week! Already looking forward to it. What knocks you down only makes you stronger :) Running harder on that mean pavement!

xx

...you know all the roads back to your house in the area!

Week 4? What week is this now? It's the week anyway that the snow hit us in the UK! The weather outside is awful as many other runners will know! But I can't start about my long run last week without apologising for no blog last week due to me being sick! I was hungover sick and proper sick. It was not good. I had had such a good week of running and cardio and I went out for one little drink on Friday. One...I kept saying over and over again I have  to run 6miles tomorrow. For some reason this worked any other time I wanted to spend the night out with my friends when I had a lovely long run the next morning. This wasn't to be one of those nights though. Waking up with a sore head and sniffles Saturday meant pulling on my running clothes was going to be harder. I decided though that I would try and sort my head out in the morning and run in the afternoon before my house mates birthday party.....yeah...birthday party. This meant making 150 vodka jelly shots, decorating a whole room with balloons while she was out and baking 36 chocolate cupcakes that also needed icing. Sure I'll do the 6miles tomorrow....this is far more important! If anything my house mate, Kate, loved everything! She was so surprised at all the effort we went into and celebrated by forgetting the night with the help of alcohol. Waking up for my 6/3miles on Sunday wasn't great. I was actually sick now, everything hurt and I couldn't get warm. This meant that I was stuck in bed all day Sunday feeling sorry for myself. I do aplogise as I know it was half self inflicted but one weekend of running wasn't so bad! As long as I could beat this cold and get back out during the week!!

Monday and Tuesday were even worse. I had to take a day off lab and all! I love Science, that never happens! Though by Thursday I was feeling myself again. I decided to kick start my training again was going to be with my long 7mile run Saturday! The weather was cold. Wait, bitter. It was 10am and -2C outside. I decided to wait until 12pm....it was only -1C then! 3 layers of clothes on and a new map routed on fetcheveryone.com and I was out the door! Up I went to ASDA and then met the canal on the opposite side of the shop. It was completely frozen over! I didn't believe the hype but it was! There were birds and people walking on the ice it was very different to any run I'd done before! Halfway through the run I forgot my route and couldn't remember if I going one way would make it longer or not but I was feeling good so went for the "longer" route. I was sure I was headed for 10min/miles the way I was feeling. I didn't feel like I was running slow I just felt so good! As I was turning up the road to my house I thought about pushing for another mile but thought better of it. Don't want to injure or stress myself. Logging into fetch to see how far I ran I was delighted to see instead of 7miles it was a nice 8.11miles with an overall pace of 8:55min/miles!! I can't believe that I am still able to run under 9min/miles at the moment and not feel like crap. My twitter friend Running_Bucky told me to believe in myself and it seems I may be able to get this half done in a good time!

Recover run? Um....no. The 4inches of snow stopped that. Oh well. I think next time I'll try get to the gym for it even though that stresses me out a lot!

So for this week, this bitter cold week I've been forced into the gym. I hate the dreadmill. As in I would prefer to run 10miles outside then 1mile on that thing. But I don't want to hurt myself since the council aren't clearing the paths so I had to run 4.23miles on the dreadmill last night. I did it in a good time though of 37mins. My shins hurt for the first mile but then they got used to the boring black floor beneath me.

Tonight is cardio night, which means cross trainer, stepper and rower! May do some weights but depends on how many people are in the gym ;)

8miles this weekend and I think I'll do the same route. We're supposed to get snow on Friday but I think I'll run on the roads if it comes to it. My motivation is back and with 8weeks to go I can really get into shape for the half! Getting excited about it!!

Oh and finally, the title of this thread does have significance I promise. So with the bad weather on Saturday and 4inches of snow falling in about 4hours, the transport in London was an issue. So much so that the train I was on back from my friends died on the tracks twice. This was after there was a fantastic electrical show thanks to the traction, ice and electricity under us. Quite scary so after the train driver had 1) rammed into the ice twice to try and break it with the trains force so we could keep going and had 2) moved everyone from the smoking carriages up front to ours, we decided it was time to get off. There were no buses running, obviously and this meant walking 30minutes home. But this was okay! I had run here this very morning so I knew we were safe and near home. I was so happy even with the wet gloves and freezing temperatures. Running saved my butt that night! Thankfully for me and my friend I know my area pretty well now after running all over it! Phew! This just means trying even more new routes in future!!

Week 3 and 4.....half check?