Monday 28 August 2017

A week of tapering leading up to the Severn Bridge Half Marathon

Abingdon Marathon training - 8 weeks to go 


Monday 21st August 2017 

This week was going to be a mental battle between wanting to train hard and run lots of miles and having to taper (reduce miles and effort) in order to give me a chance of a successful half marathon on Sunday. I decided to continue training as usual for the first part of the week before reducing miles and just focusing on recovery runs towards the end of the week. 

So I started my week of with a body pump class. I've done pump before, so I knew what I was letting myself in for, but not for a few years. Body pump is a class where you use a barbell with weights to do exercises in time to music. I enjoy classes with music in as I find it distracts me from the pain of the workout! This was an excellent class led by an instructor who clearly knows his stuff - definitely keen to return - hopefully with John as well. I also ran there and back to get some miles in. 

In the evening, John and I ran 3 recovery miles around the Harbourside before Yoga for some much needed stretching. 

Tuesday 22nd August 2017 

I spent today resting, tidying the house and starting on some planning for next term. One of the reasons I was resting is because John had planned a particularly challenging speedwork session for tonight. Once John was home, we headed back to the Bristol to Bath cycle path with the aim of running 10 miles with 5 at half marathon pace - which for me now is between 6:20 and 6:30 minute miles. 

The warm up run to the cycle path felt good. My legs didn't feel too bad and I was keen to hit the target and get a good workout in. The first 3 miles were 8:06, 7:41 and 7:34 so a good steady warm up pace. Once we hit the 3 mile mark, John started to disappear into the distance (his half marathon pace is 5:50!) As I said, I was keen to get a successful workout so really started working hard at what felt like a good speed. However, when I checked my watch I was only doing about 6:45mm. This first mile was uphill, so I knew it would be hard but, from the effort I was putting in, I felt like I should be moving quicker. Right - I thought to myself - what can I do? I thought about my form - I ran upright, I pumped my arms, I tried some positive thinking, I really worked at it. Mile 4 beeped and I looked down - 6:37. Not bad but not what I should be doing. I dug deeper still for mile 5 but it was just getting harder and harder - mile 5 passed in 6:34 better but still not where I wanted to be and I was quite simply working too hard. 

After mile 5 I stopped. Checked my heartrate (177) and took some deep breaths. It wasn't until I relaxed that I realised that I'd clearly been very tense. My shoulder was painful, my legs felt incredibly heavy and (despite not having eaten for the last 3 hours) I had a stitch. This is unlike me and I realised that I had two options. 1) Push on, try harder and keeping working - digging deep when everything hurts is good mental preparation for the marathon. 
2) End the workout there - I've still done 2 miles at a good pace and focus on the half marathon at the weekend. 

I chose option 2. I felt that I really wanted to give the half a good go and I didn't want to risk injury or simply tightening up my calves any more than was needed. 

I did the next few miles slower and steadier using them as recovery. Surprisingly, when I reach John at the end of the cycle path, he said he'd faced the exact same issues. After a bit on analysis, we concluded that that workout was simply too hard to do after the marathon paced efforts on Sunday. It was only then that I remembered we had the same problem during our last campaign - we really need to learn from our mistakes and plan better in the future.

 
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 

I'd booked a sports massage in today with Jenny. I ran there as well to get a recovery 4 miles done. I really feel that a massage in the week before a race makes a huge difference. It's lovely to stand on the start line with legs feeling (relatively) fresh! 

I also bought a selection of different brands of gels to try during training - a little experiment to find the type that suits me the best - I'll share the results of the test in a few weeks time. 

In the evening, John and I decided to walk to the running club as we were going out for food afterwards to celebrate Paul's birthday. We didn't run as we both had backpacks with changes of clothes in. However, we underestimated how long walking takes compared to running! We missed the start of the group runs so just did our own thing instead - another recovery run around the downs. 

Dinner was at Wahaca  which had an excellent, detailed gluten free menu. The waitress was very careful to explain which dishes might have cross contamination - she clearly knew her stuff. 


Thursday 24th August 2017 

Today I was going to check out my friend Julia's new house in Nailsea. I had planned to drive but not told John so he had gone to work taking our car park fob with him. This meant that I had no way of getting my car out of the carpark! Not to worry I thought - I remembered John telling me that the cycle path I take to school goes all the way to Nailsea. I used the Sustran's  website to check the route and sure enough, I could follow the Festival way - route 33 all the way from my front door to Julia's! 

It was a glorious sunny day and the route was fab! I started off rather slowly - I've started to find that (now I'm getting older) it takes my legs longer to warm up and get to a good speed (something I need to remember for races - must warm up properly first!) so I plodded along for the first few miles. The route took me through the other end of Long Ashton to the one I was used to. It's always surprising what a big village it is!  I then went towards and through Failand - another really lovely village. Then I was delighted to come across a beautiful cycle path between Failand and Backwell - all purpose built, away from roads, fields all around - stunning! There was a short 1 mile section on a country lane without pavements which wasn't ideal but the road was relatively quiet so not too bad. I would highly recommend trying it out for a run or cycle - 8.5 miles from Bristol to Nailsea - excellent! My pace got quicker for the last few miles but averaged out at 8:42mm for the run. 

In the evening, John and I did another few miles around the Harbourside before our 2nd yoga class of the week. 

Friday 25th August 2017 

Having picked up a new pair of running shoes from my good friend Clare, I popped out today to try them out. When Clare mentioned that she was giving away a pair of shoes she didn't use, and I realised that the pair in question are my favourite brand, I was delighted! New shoes feel so springy (especially as my current pair has done over 600 miles- oops!). 

Just the one run today - tapering sensibly!
 
Saturday 26th August 2017 

With John feeling under the weather, I went out on my own this morning for my last recovery run before the Severn Bridge half tomorrow. Legs felt pretty good. Not really springy but I guess that's to be expected having done a lot of mileage over the last few weeks. I spent the rest of the day with my feet up, eating and drinking sensibly and generally resting ready for tomorrow. 

Sunday 27th August 2017 

Today was the Severn Bridge half marathon. I was up at 6 am (I always have to eat 3 hours before the race) for my usual pre-race breakfast of homemade egg fried rice! I then went back to bed for another 20 mins before getting up and ready - excitement starting to build! 

Marcus, John and I have raced every single one of these races from the start in 2014 (the plan is to keep running it every year!). I find this race especially difficult because the course is very undulating with a couple of seriously steep hills. Last year I finished around 6th place so my aim for this year was to better that. I knew that prizes were given out for the top 5 and trophies for the top 3 so my aim going into this race was to place and get myself a trophy. 

We got to the start line in plenty of time and started right at the front. Marcus was planning to run a similar time to me, as was Woody (although we all knew he was in very good form) John wasn't feeling good at all so also decided to run with me so it was really lovely having a group of us running together over the iconic bridge. 

Standing on the start line, I looked around - sussing out the other girls - seeing who I recogninsed. Annoyingly, I quickly spotted last years winner (who I know is capable of a 1:24 half) and a couple of others who looked pretty nifty. Still, I thought to myself - you're in with a chance here! 
I planned my race tactics  - I wanted to get a good position from the start because this isn't a race where you can make up time in the 2nd half - the 2nd half is seriously hard! From the off, I counted the women around me and committed their kits to memory. I quickly got into a good position of 4th place and settled for a little bit. Then I decided to overtake two women who were clearly from the same club and working together (2 birds, one stone!) comfortable in 2nd place I felt good! Until I saw a lady, who I recognised, storm passed me. I picked up the pace a little to see what pace she was doing, but quickly realised that I couldn't stick with her for fear of burning up too soon. My plan was to try and keep her in sight - I was in 3rd position and happy with that for now. 

Mile 1 and 2 are downhill so I made the most of them with two relatively quick miles (6:23 and 6:23 - consistent!).   The first little hill comes in around mile 3 and then the undulation begin. While I'm racing, I split the race up into sections to make it more manageable. The first 3 are my "get into the rhythm" miles. Once those are gone, I feel better because I run 10 miles all the time. My next target point is 5 miles because mentally it's a nice number and it's half of 10...it works for me anyway! Then I set my target to reach is 7 miles because that's over half way, then 10 miles and then count down to the finish. 

At mile 4 ish I started to see the lady in 2nd place slow down a little as Woody overtook her up ahead. This gave me some encouragement to dig in through the difficult undulating section. John had spotted my target and ran with me and at this point Marcus started to drop back a little. So it's just me and John now working together to catch 2nd place! Miles 3 - 6 were - 6:44, 6:51, 6:37 and 6:48. In this race, I knew that 'The Hill' was in mile 7. But, I'd done it before and so I knew what to expect. I really struggle and get anxious when I don't know the course and don't know what's to come. However, I'd done my homework on this one - I spent a lot of time analysing the strava data so I'd reminded myself of where the big hills were. I got up the hill - slowly but surely (and with lots of positive encouragement from my number 1 man). I didn't stop to walk and was rewarded with a lovely long downhill. A 7:55 minute mile did however spoil my pacing somewhat - but I didn't dwell on that, I just wanted to achieve my aim of getting a trophy! 

I managed to pick up my pace on the downhill of mile 8 (6:24). I was feeling strong and felt like I could run forever. This positive mental attitude continued in mile 9 (6:41) although, as I had slowed a bit I decided to try a gel. I wont reveal anything about the gel or how I found it as I want to wait until I've tried all the different brands so I can make a fair comparison - I will also blog about my results. 

Miles 10 and 11 I knew would be hard. These are the mile which climb steadily uphill back over the bridge. I knew I'd slow down and just tried to keep the pace as much as I could. I did remember to look over the bridge (for the first time in 4 races!) and admire the view! Despite John trying to encourage me to go faster, when I'm into a long gradual hill like that, I find it very difficult to get any acceleration at all. Instead I focused on when the downhill would arrive - I counted the pillars on the bridge and again, broke the mile down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Miles 10 and 11 passed in 7:04 and 7:26. Mentally, I knew I wasn't on for a especially impressive time, although I wasn't really keeping a good check of my splits I remembered seeing too many miles pass with a 7 at the start! Nevertheless, John was still encouraging me and mile 12 was downhill (mostly) so I managed to pick up the pace a little to 6:44. Mile 13 had a couple of hills in it but I managed 6:53 before sprinting down the hill and towards the finish (beating a man in the sprint finish - always nice!) crossing the line just behind John with a time of 1:30:20 - while this would have annoyed me not so long ago, as I was focusing on the position, I really don't mind those pesky 20 seconds (I'll leave the OCD worrying to John!). 

I was hoping to see someone at the finish line giving out prizes (as advertised on their website) but none of the race officials were in sight...slightly confused by this, John and I went to investigate and found a little table, tucked out the way a bit, with trophies on...after nervously asking the race organiser if one of those was for me, I was told that I had finished in 3rd place and was handed a beautiful wooden, hand crafted trophy, another medal engraved with my position and the date and an envelope containing £60 in cash! Really over the moon with my race today. I feel like I worked hard but didn't over-do it and I'm feeling more and more confident that I'm getting stronger and fitter- looking forward to the marathon! 




Really well done to all the GWR runners  - especially Woody who got a PB! Really impressive on this course. Good effort from the Maestro ...even if he did get beaten by me (1st time ever!) a great run from him as he wasn't feeling 100% either. The GWR men won the team prize for the 2nd time and the women's team came in 3rd. A huge thank you to John who ran with me despite the fact that I'm notoriously difficult/ annoying to run with! 


Another week done - 56.1 miles total for the week. 


Sunday 20 August 2017

The running bug is catching! Watch out!

Abingdon Marathon Training - 9 weeks to go 

The title of my blog this week relates to this picture...read on to find out more! 



Monday 14th August 2017 

After a really successful week last week, I was keen to continue making the most of my summer holidays to train as well as I could. Today I was meeting a good friend Fliss and her daughter (my God daughter) Amelia in Leigh woods for a walk. I decided to run there and back as well. My legs were feeling quite achy after yesterday's long run but not too bad so I managed to run up Nightingale Valley (a VERY steep path in the woods). We probably walked a good couple of miles (with lots of meandering to look for dens, mushrooms and sticks - all very exciting to a 2 year old!) which really helped to loosen my legs up a bit. 

Amelia is also getting pretty good at running now - exciting! Looking forward to when she can try parkrun! 

When John got home from work we ran around the harbourside (3miles) before our usual yoga class. 

Tuesday 15th August 2017 

We were up early today for our morning run. John wanted to get some speed work done to get his legs ready for the Towpath race on Friday. I also did my own speedwork. 4.6 miles with 6 x 0.1 mile strides. I've not done many strides yet this plan and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy them. Strides are basically sprints for a short distance where my aim was to get my heart rate up and think about my running form. I find they really help to pass the time - I will try and do some more in the next coming weeks. 

I had a lovely lunch today with John's mum in Banco Lounge - brilliant for vegans and coeliacs because they have separate menus with loads of choice. 

In the afternoon, I went to a pureabs class at puregym on the harbourside. The class was alright - as I've often found with puregym - the staff come across rather bored and lack the enthusiasm that I've been used to at other gyms. Still it felt good to work on my 'focus area'. 

John cycled home from work today so I ran out a couple of miles to meet him. It was a lovely evening so we stopped off at the Cottage on the harbourside and enjoyed the sun and a cheeky drink!

Wednesday 16th August 2017 

Today I did back to back classes. Yoga first - another great class - really loving this at the moment. Followed by a CX class at Vivo gym.  A really excellent class with a very enthusiastic Australian leader who clearly knew his stuff. This class was also ab based but to music and had a great fast pace about it - I'll definitely try and do that again next week. 

In the evening, John and I ran to club as the plan asked for a medium-long run. We ran The Maestro's new 11 mile route which I enjoy but find very challenging as there are about 3 miles into the middle of the route which are all uphill and on very rocky uneven ground. By the time we got home, we'd covered 14miles in 8:40mm pace which isn't bad for a hilly route. 

Thursday 17th August 2017 

Up early today to run with John before he left for work. Just a gentle 3 mile recovery run. During the day I went to Clevedon to meet my good friends Steve and Fliss and their son Sam. Really nice to catch up with them. 

John cycled home again today so, in the evening, I ran out to meet him on his bike to add another few miles to the total. 

Friday 18th August 2017 

My sister Amy came up from London today to stay for a couple of days. I told her to pack some sport clothes as I had a cunning plan in mind! I eased her in gently...I managed to convince her to try my yoga class. She actually really enjoyed it! 

We then met my Aunty for lunch before going to Harbour and Browns a new restaurant in Cargo 2 at Wapping Wharf. They do a bottomless Prosecco lunch (usually only on Saturdays and Sundays but I managed to convince them to let us have it on Friday!). The food was fantastic and the service excellent - we had hardly drank half a glass of Prosecco before it was topped back up! After spending a good couple of hours chatting and drinking, I realised that running today wasn't going to be a good idea! And actually, I felt really good for having a rest day - my calves were certainly thanking me! 



In the evening, it was the last in the series of the Towpath races. Amy did a fantastic job of helping John and I take entries (hopefully she'll come and help again next year!). Then we moved to the finish line to wait for John. He ran really well and managed to secure 2nd place for the series - awesome! 


Saturday 19th August 2017 

Today, was parkrun day! It was even more exciting than usual because we'd managed to convince Amy to give it a go as well! The 3 of us ran together and Amy did brilliantly. I really enjoyed running with her and (despite her quote of "Worst morning ever" to Marcus when asked how she was finding it!) I hope she'll give it another go. 



Sunday 20th August 2017 

Today the plan called for one of the hardest workouts - 18 miles with 10 at marathon pace. 
John thought it best to split the efforts into groups of 4 miles, 3 miles and 3 miles (and because I always take on board his advice, I decided to do the same). We met our friends 'The Woodys' near the start of the Bristol to Bath cycle path - a really good route for marathon pace efforts as it is relatively flat. 

We did 4 miles to warm up before starting our first block of efforts. I felt really good - my legs felt fresh having had a couple days of little or no running - and my breathing was steady. 

mile 5 - 6:43
mile 6 - 6:38
mile 7 - 6:37
mile 8 - 6:38 

The next mile was recovery. Whilst it was great to get my hear rate down and settle my breathing and recover a bit, I found it difficult to get back up to pace again - something to consider for my next marathon pace workout. 

The next block of 3 miles was the hardest because this section of road was quite undulating. This highlighting the importance of me doing more marathon pace miles on undulating ground. 

mile 10 - 6:45
mile 11 - 6:47
mile 12 - 6:48 

I took another mile recovery before starting my last block of efforts. Once again, I found it really hard to get the legs back up to speed. Luckily, the last 3 miles were downhill - hooray! 

mile 14 - 6:44
mile 15 - 6:37
mile 16 - 6:32 

I finished with 2 slow miles to recover. 18 miles done at an average pace of 7:29 mm. Feels really good to have hit 10 miles at marathon pace. It wasn't easy today but I managed to push through. I definitely feel stronger than ever and after a week of heavy exercising, high mileage and lots of drinking, I feel really pleased with that run. 

Total for this week - 61.4 miles 


Plan for next week - I'll be taking it a bit easier as I'll be tapering for the Severn Bridge half marathon on the Sunday. I'm really hoping for a good position so going to give my legs lots of recovery in the second half of the week. Still going to keep up the weight and strength training as much as possible and probably aim for around 50 miles. 

Monday 14 August 2017

My results from trying out a Vegan diet for a week.

Abingdon Marathon Training - 10 weeks to go!


In last weeks vlog (video blog for the less tech savvy!) John and I explained that we were going to try out  a Vegan diet initially for 1 week to see if it had any impact on our training. Our reasons for doing this:
1) We've been following an athlete (Jason Cherryman) who has been trying out this plant-based diet and had successes. 
2) I'm concerned about the environment issues that arise from eating meat. 
3) I put on a bit of weight during our holiday so need to shift that and I'd like to reduce my body fat percentage. 
4)Lots of our friends are doing it! 
5) For fun! - Something new to try! 

So for one week we planned to only eat foods that were plant based - no eggs, butter, milk, cheese, meat and of course everything had to be gluten free as well. 

Monday 7th August 2017 

Today John went back to work so I was left to fend for myself. Those of you who know me will know that I don't like being along and I have to be doing something all the time. So I had to think of ways to fill the hours between 8am and 6pm when John got back from work. The first thing I did was head to Asda to do our Vegan, plant based, gluten free shop! This took a while because I had to read the back of every packet - I was amazed at how many products you expect to be Vegan have milk powder or butter in. Anyway, I still managed to buy a considerable amount of items in what was probably my healthiest ever shop! 



I filled the rest of my day by tidying, ironing and watching the athletics - very inspiring. 

I want to make full use of these next few weeks of summer holidays; I can actually train like an elite athlete. My aim was to run twice a day and do an element of weight training or cross training every day. I am aware that this is a more than I usually do so I planned to listen to my body and stop or reduce the mileage if I feet it was doing more harm than good. 

Today, I used moveGB to book into a pure 'abs' class. I ran 3 miles there - nice and steadily as my calves were especially tight after yesterday's efforts in the long run. Unfortunately, when I got to the gym the class wasn't on. Instead I used all the weights machines do work my arms (which are often neglected). 

For my first Vegan lunch, I had quinoa which I boiled with a vegetable stock cube to give it some flavour. Once it was cooked, I fried some mushrooms, courgette, olives and  spinach before adding in some hummus and putting the cooked quinoa back in the pan to mix it all together. I ate it with rice cakes - it was really good! 



In the evening, it was a GWR committee meeting so John and I ran to club and back which added on an extra 4 miles for the day. 

For dinner, I cooked a vegetable stir fry. I used rice noodles and sweet and sour sauce (the only packet sauce which was both vegan and gluten free). 

Tuesday 8th August 2017 

Today's I decided to try out a class at the Vivo sports gym on the Welsh Back. The class is called 360 rig and is basically a circuits class using this large multi-use piece of gym apparatus. The best thing about it is that it's given me lots of ideas for how to use this rig (which is available for anyone to train on in the gym). The class was 30 mins and definitely got my heart rate up. I ran there any back to get an extra 4 miles ticked off. 

In the evening, John and I ran to the river Avon path which is a relatively new discovery for us. It is dead flat and relatively quiet so idea for speed work. Today the plan called for 10 miles with 4 at half marathon pace. We planned to do 3 miles as a warm up, then 4 quick (turning around after 5 miles) and 3 miles steady back home. I am hoping that my new half marathon pace is going to be between 6:20- 6:30mm so for today's workout I wanted to aim for around that and see how it felt. After a hard run on Sunday and lots of training already this week, I knew this would be a challenge but I was keen to give it a good go. 

We ran the first 3 miles steadily to get to the path. When my watched beeped at 3 miles I picked up the pace and hit 6:31mm average. It felt like I was working hard but I was pretty sure I could continue this for 3 more miles. Unfortunately, the path then got very muddy so despite putting in the same amount of effort, I wasn't hitting the pace I needed. Trying not to let this bother me, I focused on not slipping on the mud and falling into the river! The next two (muddy) miles were 6:44 and 6:50 - a little disappointing so, when I reached the paved path, I really picked it up and hit 6:22 for the last mile of effort. 

As soon as I finished the speed work, my legs had had enough. My calves were tight and legs felt really heavy. I ran one more mile (8:44) before John took pity on me and suggested that we walk the last two miles home. 8 miles done with some good efforts - pretty pleased overall. 

When we got home, I cooked Vegan burgers with mushrooms, onion and lettuce - yum! 






Wednesday 9th August 2017 

I met my aunty for lunch today and had the first experience of just how difficult eating out can be for vegans. We went to a cafe and every item on the menu had bread, eggs or milk in. Luckily they had gluten free bread - but what to put in it when you can't have any meat or cheese. I chose humus and roasted peppers and it actually wan't too bad. 

In the afternoon I ran to purgym and tried out a 'legs bums and tums class'. I have to say I was not very impressed. The class comprised of us running back and forth accross the room carrying a weight and occasionally doing an exercise (eg: squats, plant, press ups etc). The instructor (who was about 21) clearly couldn't care less about technique and just wanted to act like an sergeant major! 

In the evening we just did 6 miles with the GWR crew before heading to Hubbox (a new restaurant in Clifton) for Marcus' birthday. I had pre-checked their menu online and knew that there were a couple of vegan gluten free options. I would really recommend Hubbox - the food was great, nice atmosphere and excellent service. Also - the sweet potato fries were gluten free - a rarity! 


Thursday 10th August 2017 

Today I met with the Maestro at lunchtime for a run. We did 7 miles around Ashton court which was lovely as they were just getting ready for the balloon fiesta. 

In the evening, John and I had a PT session with Jules. I ran there which took my daily total up to 10 miles. PT today was BRUTAL. Jules started by giving us a range of exercises to do eg: squats, sit ups, press ups (all with weights) probably about 10 different activities in total. we did 25 reps of each exercise which was pretty hard. Then he announced that we were going to do the whole thing again but with 50 reps of each! Seriously difficult - 50 reps is a lot and really pushed us both to the max.

When we got home we treated ourselves to gluten free vegan ice cream with vegan chocolate sauce!

Friday 11th August 2017 

We were up early today to see the hot air balloon launch from Bristol's annual balloon fiesta. By 5:30 am we were up and about running up to the observatory where we knew they'd be a good view. We were not disappointed. Over 50 hot air balloons were launched and drifted through the sky and towards our flat!






 We chased the balloons home and enjoyed watching them glide past our balcony.


During the day today I went to yoga at Cargo 2. I'm really starting to notice results from it. For example, when I first started, I couldn't do the side plank at all - today I held side plank for a good amount of time on both sides.

I rested for the rest of the day as I wanted to give parkrun a good crack tomorrow.

Saturday 12th August 2017 

Due to the balloon fiesta taking place in Ashton Court, parkrun was cancelled so a group of us took a trip to Riverfront parkrun in Newport. When we arrived I was delighted to see that the course was flat and concrete - my two favourite things in a run! It was also an out and back course which I love, because, I like to know where I am going and I look out for landmarks on the way out that I look forward to seeing again on the way back.

My aim for today was to get a parkrun PB (sub 19.23) so I knew that all my miles needed to be under 6:10 mm pace. That shouldn't be too hard because it's been aaages since I've ran a flat parkrun. I set off, running along the river, and got into my rhythm. But because I'm so used to running at marathon pace, I'd got into my 6:45 rhythm! Pleased that I noticed early on, I quickly upped the pace and stormed passed a whole host of men (always fun!) until I hit 6:05mm pace. This felt comfortable so I tried to maintain this pace...until I saw the Maestro not too far ahead! Ahha! The chase was on. I picked up the pace again in mile 2 (5:55mm) and was gaining on him for a while...until the turn when he clearly spotted me and panicked that I was so close! With him speeding up, I couldn't catch him but I did manage a 6:11mm last mile which got me a 6:03mm average and a new all time PB of 18:44.


We spent the rest of the day relaxing and napping before heading out in the evening for an engagement party in Clifton.


Sunday 13th August 2017 

After a rather heavy night yesterday, we quickly decided that it would be best to run in the evening -after we'd recovered. We spent the day eating, hydrating and napping before heading out to run about 5pm.

I wanted to do a run of over 20 miles today but wasn't sure I'd be up to it given that about 60% of my body was still made up of Prosecco! However, once I got started, I actually felt really good. My legs felt strong and I felt like I could just run and run. Unfortunately, John wasn't feeling quite as spritely. He did 10miles with me and we averaged around 8:30mm pace. Once John left I decided I wanted to challenge myself to run the last 11 miles at all under 8mm pace - this was so that I could practise pushing myself to run faster towards the end of a race (negative split). Up to about 14 miles it felt really easy. There were balloons overhead, it was dry but not too hot - perfect running conditions. From 14 miles onwards it was a bit harder but I pushed through the pain by ticking off one mile at a time. One strategy I use when running is to bargain with myself. My deal today was that I get a sip of water after every mile that was under 8mm. This helps you to forget the pain that your body is in and just concentrate on the time and distance, it also helps you not to focus on how far you've got left - I just think about each mile one at a time.

I arrive home to find that John had a delicious dinner all ready for me! Risotto with onion, white wine, mushrooms and spinach with home made sweet potato wedges and asparagus - seriously good!


I finished 21 miles in 2 hours and 49mins with an average pace of 8:04. Really really pleased with that run - I'm really feeling the benefit of eating healthily, upping the miles and cross training.

Total for this week - 70.01 miles 


Next week, I'm going to try and do much of the same. Similar number of miles, trying to weight train regularly and run twice a day where possible. John has also advised me to try and run more longer runs so I will add that to the mix as well. 

So how did I find the Vegan diet. 

Well, I feel very healthy. I've lost all the extra holiday weight and dropped a couple of % of body fat. My friends however have had to suffer my increased windyness! Furthermore I've spent a lot more time on the toilet than usual! Have I missed anything? Yes. I really miss hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream. Also eggs - on of my favourite things are John's eggy breakfasts! 

So next week, I am going to continue to eat as much vegan food as possible to continue to eat healthily. I am however going to re-introduce eggs, cheese and milk to my diet. When I am shopping or out at a restaurant, I am going to look for vegan options first and foremost and I am going to cook vegan food at home. I've really enjoyed the challenge and would recommend others to give it a go. For health, weight loss or just for fun! Why not?! 

Monday 7 August 2017

First ever Vlog! 11 Weeks to go!

11 Weeks until the Abingdon Marathon 

This week, we thought we'd try something new - a vlog! Enjoy!