Blue Runnings

My midweek workouts did not go according to plan. I ended up doing Weds/Thurs rather than Tues/Weds this week. A had to dash off on Weds so we didn’t go out on the bikes and P & I instead used the time to re-fill the fridge and freezer with food (v. important). I wanted to try and do a step workout while the food was cooking, but the food had a shorter cooking time on the packet than I thought, so I figured I’d changed this for a conditioning video on Thinq Fitness which I have also previously enjoyed. Queue some technical difficulties with my laptop and actually playing the videos and in the interests of doing something before dinner, I just bammed some music on and did my own session with planks, squats, 3/4 press-ups, gym-ball sit-ups and some arm and leg work. To be honest it probably only took me 15 mins but I at least felt like I’d done something. It then turned out that the food was NOT ready by the time it was supposed to be, and by the time it was I could have done the step workout I was originally intending to do… C’est la vie I guess!

Thursday was going to be Run England day in place of Tuesday – except we got home from work a bit late. Made dinner, ate dinner, went to get changed as had about 5 mins before needing to leave for RE and it being far too close to eating time, even going up the stairs too quick made me feel rather ill. 😦 Run England will have to wait for next week. Some time after dinner I did do some exercise – the step workout I’d been intending to do the night before! We still had some technical difficulties and I think I need to have a look at my PC setup in the conservatory for working out, but we got there in the end. Absolutely plum-tuckered afterwards and straight into a hot bath! I think I’d have been less worn out if I’d taken my queasy self to Run England! That’ll teach me!

There were a couple of milestone parkrunners at Blackhill this morning, and the promise of bacon sarnies and cake on order…but with another 5k tomorrow morning in Sunderland, I confess I’m still wimping out of doing Blackhill at the moment – so I headed off to Riverside again. Still working on that routine of small exercise sessions across the week rather than going all out on one day and being a complete vegetable for the rest of the time 🙂 Riverside were doing a Halloween themed parkrun this morning and there were some great costumes running round – many of them depressingly faster than me! It’s a bit sobering when someone in a full-face wolf mask can get round quicker than you and you know you’d melt in half a mile like the Wicked Witch in a rain shower!

It was good to see C (the new runner from last week) at Riverside again – she was going round with some friends this time so I just waved on the way past – I do believe she hit the 5k this time though! I concentrated on pootling steadily round. I found miles 1 to 2.5ish a bit of a slog, but was getting back into stride again mentally for the last stretch. 🙂 I’m hoping to head out for a longer run next weekend – gotta start getting the miles up again if I want to survive 10 miles at the end of November! I deliberately didn’t look at my watch pace on the way round; my focus was on finishing and getting a few miles under my belt, but I was pleased when I got home to see I’d stuck with a steady pace the whole way round which was consistently under 11min/mile – it felt like I was nearer 12-13min/mile on my second big loop and I didn’t want to be depressed by my slowness part way round lest it slow me down further! I came in at 33:50 in the end, which I’m happy with. 🙂 Something to work from.

I’ll not be able to make parkrun next week as I am booked for shiny things, but I’m hoping to do a longer run on the Sunday to make up for it – 10k minimum, 7 miles if I’m feeling ok. 🙂 Fingers crossed. 🙂 Tomorrow, it’s Run to Remember at Sunderland with J – see you there?!

With a 10 mile run at Kirkley being booked in a while ago for the end of November (in an attempt to give myself a kick up the pants to get out for the longer miles again as the weather cools down), and with the Kielder 10k successfully negotiated, I’m trying to get back into a regular running routine again. P’s back on days again for a while – which helps with my getting into some sort of routine: I wasn’t even the one working the shifts but one car between us and trying to make sure we got some time together was awkward on my schedule as well as his! We’ve both been working some long hours, but I made sure this week was when I started really committing to some me-time.

I made my first reappearance at Run England for quite some time on Tuesday (despite going to the wrong carpark to start with – they’ve moved back to the sports centre for the winter), and am hoping to make this a regular feature in my week through the winter again – and beyond if the summer doesn’t melt me again! I really need to learn to run in the heat. 😦 Run England has gone back to two groups at the moment; fast and slow. Feeling very very rusty, the slow group was a definite must for me! It’s nearly impossible to do a flat route around Consett and I’d already resigned myself to hills somewhere along the line, but we did at least do about as flat as you can get; down Blackhill, up Genesis Way to Tesco and round the housing estates while doing as little of Delves Lane as possible!

I did make it up the inclines; Genesis Way is a long slow killer! But I did also do rather more walk-backs than run-backs and was very much in the middle of the group. 8’C outside and I was just in a t-shirt; it should have been perfect for me but you could still have cooked on my face by the time I got up the inclines! It’s really made me realise how much fitness I’ve lost over the summer – I would have laughed round that 4.5 miles and covered much more ground in the hour with run-backs last winter! A motivator to get it back this year and make sure I don’t lose quite so much of it next summer. 😉

The other thing I was rather aware of was how much of a pig I’ve been this summer…very aware of several months binging on chocolate and cakes when my capri waistband was rather tighter than I remember and I was feeling slightly nautious on the odd occasion as I flubbed my way around my trouser-belt! The remedy is the same – more exercise = more endorphins and less junk food craving, and takes away the side-effects of previous binges!

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Firstly, ‘flummoxed’ is an excellent word.

I am fortunate enough to live a stone’s throw from the countryside, and I decided today instead of always following the road routes that usually tie-in with bits I’ve done with Run England or join onto driven bits, I’d try mapping a route over the fields and go for more of a trail route and hopefully find a new short-ish multi-terrain route to train over without having to drive somewhere. Seems a bit of a waste of fuel driving somewhere when you’ve got fields and woods visible from the house and yet I never go there!

I had a look on the Ordnance Survey website – check out all these lovely paths to choose from over the fields!

I picked a nice circular route, which when I put it on MapMyRun (which doesn’t show the paths on the maps but you can see them in aerial view) was a nice 3 miles from start to finish and had plenty of options for extending it in the future if I wanted to.

I was feeling all prepped for the slightly muggy day – I’d printed my maps out just incase I got a lost in the maze of tiny paths – there’s a few parallel ones etc. (not that it would have really mattered – I was never going to be hugely far from home). My parents got me a breathable fancy waterproof jacket for my birthday which I hadn’t really had opportunity to wear yet, so with risk of showers and not wanting to risk a cold I thought I’d wear that and a hat 🙂 All set and ready to go! Or so we thought…

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I took all my kit with me this morning so that I could go to the gym after work as P’s on dayshift and finishes several hours after me, and the gym always seems to be quieter and therefore cooler on a Friday as most people don’t seem to start their weekend with a workout! I got to the end of the workday and decided I couldn’t be bothered as I will be running both days this weekend, and I would go for a nice gentle walk along the river and kill some time before I had to pick P up. Many things occurred to me on my wander, and I will share a few of them here.

When J and I went to Hadrian’s wall on Monday, I noticed one of the walkers wearing exercise capris, which is probably a very comfortable option but one that never occurs to me. My running has snuck into many aspects of my life, but wearing running bottoms for anything other than exercise sessions just doesn’t fit in my brain for some reason. I took some of my running t-shirts with me to Ireland when I went on a hiking holiday with S hoping they’d help keep me cool, but I took light weight hiking trousers with roll-ups or zip-offs to keep my legs cool. They’re also what I default to for general day-to-day wear if it’s too warm for jeans or I’m feeling too ‘loungy’ for jeans. I see people walking in what I think of as ‘running trousers/capris’ and trainers all the time, but I’ve just never done it myself – I always have hiking boots and loose trousers. Today, I ventured out in my capris…I wasn’t going to wear my heavy-duty work trousers with their weight-laden pockets and steelie boots!

I left the car, started walking off thinking it was nice and cool, then ended up going back to the car to get a jacket – while it probably still would have been just a touch on the warm side for running, it was going to be cool for walking. Dressing for walking requires conscious thought now evidently! I had my GPS watch on, a hand-grip bottle from a race, my retired running trainers which I use for general wear and gym stuff, my bracelet with mini pouch with change incase I wanted to pop into the Boathouse for a lemonade…pretty much the same stuff I wear when out for a run.

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