Juneathon # Day 8

Had a great 4 mile run around Oaks Park today. It was pouring with rain, but I was under the cover of the trees so I stayed dry. The legs are completely recovered now I'm pleased to report.

I'm really enjoying Juneathon, this was originally supposed to be a sports blog, but became much more of a food blog, so it's nice to have a focus on sport for the month, and make new sporty friends.

I train alone, I have no training buddy. To a certain degree I like it that way, but every now and then it would be nice to train 'en groupe'. I joined South London Harriers running club so that I could go running in a group, but so far it hasn't happened due to other constraints on my time.

By the way, if anyone is interested  in meeting in London (or the South-East), for a London race, then that would be great!

Cupcake made this lovely dessert the other day. Healthy, but also very scrummy ! Oh and double good luck to CC for tomorrow in the school athletics team that she has been selected for, they compete against other schools after school tomorrow, and also Congratulations to her for being selected for the school swimming team yet again. She definitely has the sporting gene, and I'm pleased to report that she's just as into Juneathon as I am.

Juneathon #Day 7

The rain has stopped, which meant I was able to walk to work today, which I quite enjoyed. I jogged after work in the lovely Oaks Park - there were a few dog walkers out, but no fellow joggers today...

I only did one lap, which is about two miles, which isn't too bad after only one day of rest after the half marathon on Sunday- usually I would take a week off. Serious.

 Later I will try and map the routes, both the Oaks Park one, and the walk to work as I'd be interested to see how far they are.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the cake I made for my Cupcake back in April. She persuaded me to use Betty Crocker vanilla frosting (when I would usually make my own), and whilst it tasted  nice, it gave me the most horrendous heartburn that kept me up all night - oddly Krispy Kreme also have that effect...

Juneathon # Day 6

I'll be honest, after my little half marathon yesterday my legs are feeling like lead today. So, horror of horrors, as it was raining and I was achy - I took the bus to walk instead of walking for 20 minutes. When I arrived at work, I took the lift instead of taking the lift. I would have had a gentle run in Hyde Park at lunchtime, but it had been raining so hard, so I thought I'd take a late lunch.

We've been bunny baby sitting for the past week, and they were being collected tonight, so I cleaned them out and got their stuff together for going home. Then CC and I did her homework, some tutor work, some of her blog (http://thecoolcupcake.blogspot.com/). I made her lunch, her tea and I got ready for work tomorrow, folded the washing etc. Then started preparing my spag bog for myself and BB once the bunnies were gone home.

The bunny owners arrived, and left, and arrived again (the took an old hutch I had got off freecycle and was suprplus to requirements), then I swept hay, and rose petals and basic clearing up.

Now it's very nearly 10pm and I'll be up again tomorrow at 5.15 (yawning just thinking about it..) So before I get into bed tonight my Juneathon effort for today will be a very small set of crunches, and I;ll be grateful that it's even that. My abs are already aching I think that is due to the yoga on Saturday, but also maybe from all of the 'jogging' of my body as raced down those stony cliffs yesterday.

Tomorrow I'll be back on the walk to work and a nice run after work now that CC is back at school.

Day 7 tomorrow - one week done !!!

Juneathon #Day 5 - Seaford Half Marathon

After a late night, we had an early start and left for Seaford at 6.45 this morning. There was a lack of traffic and we arrived nicely on time for the 9am start. That's me at the start looking all and nice and fresh. :o)

I ran this race back in 2007, I have a loathing of repeating races, so I don't really know why I signed up for this one again.. Back in 2007 it was a swelteringly scorching day, today it rained and I was glad.

The official times aren't out yet, but I know I managed around 2:11, 2:12 which isn't bad for a half which goes across the South downs and has you  crossing stiles every few minutes. My time would have been about 3-4 minutes quicker, but I had to stop for a loo stop. I totally still haven't worked out the nutrition, which doesn't bode well for my marathon in October. Still, a few months yet to hone my 'skills' in that 'area'. I know that the stop not only cost me about 20 race places, but it also completely broke my stride. I didn't manage to regain my position. Maybe I just shouldn't eat anything for the 2 days before my marathon !!! Seriously, I'd be very interested to hear what other people's pre-race nutrition consists of.

Overall, I'm pleased that I'm not totally exhausted after this race, previous races have seen me finish the race, get in the car and sleep all the way home, and then go to bed when I get home.. I've no idea what that's all about ? Today, I'm fine, a nice long, hot bath and I am ready for a 'warm down' run tomorrow for Juneathon # day 6.

Official Results

Wow! I didn't think the results would be out today, but they are!! I did 2:12:51.

This means I was: 65th female overall (out of 160 female runners)
41st female under 40 (out of 100 females under 40) I also out-run 37 guys in my age group.
Overall I was 272nd out of 484 runners.

What did we learn ?
I think we all take something away from every race that we do. Today, I learned that I definitely need to sort out my tum, but overall I'm happy with the stats.

PS> No joggy-bloggy-loggy thing today, as I couldn't find the html to be able to put it on this page. I added the race a while back, and added my results just now, but it doesn't show up on my training 'record'. No idea why this is, and frankly right now I'm too tired to worry about it. Now, where's that red wine ? :o)

Juneathon - Day 4

It's Saturday and it was always going to be difficult for me to be able to fit in some exercise today. I went and made it worse by having arranged to spend the day in Birmingham with my family, seeing my sister, my parents and my brother all at  my brother's house. Birmingham is 140 miles from South London, so I don't get up to Birmingham that often.

We were tempted to do Banstead Woods park run before we left, but with it not starting until 9am, and having already promised my lovely sister-in-law that we would arrive by 11.30am we knew that Banstead Woods would be a non-starter..

Just over a year ago, my brother reached a milestone birthday and was feeling overweight and he said how he was struggling to reach his feet to get his socks on in the morning. 'You need to do yoga' I said, it's great, it makes you flexible, it tones you up. It's a perfect workout. But, it wasn't just yoga, we talked about running, the gym, spinning classes, healthy lifestyle. Well, what a turnaround, just over a year later my brother has completely turned things around, and he now even teaches yoga ! When I arrived there this morning, I said 'Right Bro, please can you give me a little taster of your yoga please - I need to do some exercise today - and here and now is the only time I've got'. At first, he thought I was joking, but then I said about mats and he got a CD out, and, well, about 40 minutes later I was nicely warm - and well, day 4 of Juneathon was absoluutely well and truly in the bag. I never thought I would say this, but  this is the first time I have practised yoga with my brother, and I have to say he is a fantastic yoga teacher. I was truly impressed.

Here are some photos of the session, I have to thank my lovely nephew for patiently sitting and taking over one hundred photos as we worked our way through it. If you are lucky enough to live near Birmingham, I suggest you give the classes a go. Here's the site: http://www.yoyoga.tv/

I'm loving my toned arms on this one.

I think you can tell we're from the same gene pool in this one. Funny.

How does he do that ??

X-factor pose (according to my bro) well, that's what he was doing...



At this point, I should say bid Good Luck to my bro, who is starting a 14-day raw diet starting tomorrow. He was trying to persuade me to do it with him, but what with Juneathon and everything else going on, I just laughed in his face.

Half marathon tomorrow, and I'm feeling good ! Bring on Juneathon day 5!





Joggy, loggy, bloggy bit:

See the activity on RunSaturday

Type:	Cross - Yoga
Duration:	45:00:00
Distance:	0.00 mi

Juneathon # Day 3

I guess I was a bit silly yesterday, cake for breakfast (when I would usually have a banana, yoghurt and a cereal bar) and  cake for lunch (when I would usually have veggie soup and a wholemeal roll) - that's right -  no fruit and veg, no dairy, no proper carb or protein, just sugar. Not good! Add to that a lack of fluids, and a hot day. However, I thought I had turned it back around later with homemade fish pie and 2 portions of veg, but no, it was too late.

At 4am this morning, I woke up screaming with the most amazing cramp in my right calf. Owch ! Not what I need when I'm supposed to be exercising every day, and certainly not good with a half marathon this Sunday. How stupid am I ? You would think I would have learned by now. The cramp was that bad that I've been left with an aching, sore calf all day. Very depressing. Of course, my leg feels like it is going to cramp again, and I must admit I have a little bit of a phobia about getting cramp. It's a pain thing I guess, my muscle just spasms and tightens and it hurts like hell.

Anyway, enough whingeing. BB has kindly offerered to take my race place, and do my half on Sunday. 'Over my dead body!!' was my reply, but I guess in all seriousness it's a rather tough race over the South Downs and if it's hot again like the first time I did it, it may be more sensible to sit it out... but then it's only 13 miles right.. ?

Moving on, for my day 3 Juneathon I decided to do a short run of  2 miles. I would be tapering this week for the half anway, me and my silly calf muscle took it easy. Here's my 'proof I did it' photo below. That's me having a little stretch.

Here's the summary from the joggy-bloggy-loggy site:  how cool is that??? As you can see I was way out on my distance, I actually clocked up nearly 3 miles!!!

.

Type:	Run - Easy
Duration:	25:00:00
Distance:	2.99 mi

Moral of this story ?? Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition and lest we should forget, Nutrition.

Juneathon # Day 2

Today's run never happened. BB had told me Cupcake would be 'up for' a short run today, but yesterday's experience told me otherwise. CC had insisted she wanted to do Juneathon too though, and as it's half term, it's not like I can exercise in my free hour after work, whilst she's at school is it ? (like I usually do).

So, I came up with the next best thing: Wii Fit. We bought the Wii about 3 years ago now, and we rarely use it, more through a lack of time than anything else, but actually today's exercise session worked out great. Here's what we did.

5 minute intervals on Wii fit for a total of 30 minutes (including step+, jogging, boxing and one go on the balance board for me)

Whilst CC did her 5 minutes, I got on the mat and did a selection of squats, sit ups, presses and leg stretches.  I added ankle weights and wrist weights for extra resistance. So, I probably got in 50-60 minutes of exercise in total.

Proof of exercise !!!

All in all it was a fantastic workout, without even leaving my front door. Result ! And if you need proof check me out in the lounge doing my exercise. Excuse the blur, obviously because I was moving SO fast. Ha!