Bit late with this one, as I've already started Week 13, so I hope I don't get confused!
So, here we go in to the meat of my training plan. I don't know whether I should be worried about it but I'm so pleased about being able to run in the daylight again I don't think I care! I've signed up to a challenge at work where you earn points per kilometre from the beginning of this week until the beginning of March. There's also a group run where you earn an extra 10 points. I'm just in it for the same buzz I get from a Strava challenge, I don't expect to be right up there but it's a bit of fun to see how far I do get.
Run 1: Eldest kitten is a very slow, careful runner. He doesn't really like it but he knows it is good for him. It's half term and I had the day off so we agreed that we would run together. It was also a good excuse for us to investigate how flooded the river was getting. It was a mutually beneficial run as it got him out and he helped me to run slowly. We had a good natter and we agreed that he should join me on these Monday 20 minute runs. As for the river, although the barriers hadn't been put up the only creatures that could get to the bandstand were ducks!
Run 1a: Went to the gym whilst youngest kitten had his kayaking lesson but forgot to switch my watch on when I was on the treadmill 🙄
Run 2: 8km run. I know these ones should be fartleks or intervals but I really don't want to do that in the dark. It was good fun anyway but I had a bit of a shock in the last hundred yards as I came down a hill to find 20 odd members of the athletics club hurtling towards me doing hill reps!
Run 3: Tilgate Parkrun. We went to visit my brother and some friends and we just had to do a bit of tourism, it would be rude not to! It was cold and drizzly so not much different to home. They have a dual start with the middle speed runners starting separately to the rest which seemed a bit odd but there were 590 of us so I can understand why. It was very congested for the first 500 metres but then we spread out around a lake, then around the park the back around the lake again. They have a hill but we're harden hill runners after Lyme Park so it didn't phase us! I was pretty impressed with how many I saw in my age grade and I was 9th within it despite running 29:24 but I was pleased as I rarely do sub 30 tourist runs.
Run 4: The long one, 11.2km this week. In a hope that my new ducks would act as anti-rain leggings, I took them out for their first spin and I also tried my Kendal Mint Cake gel as I knew it would be enough over an hour to justify it. I ran the first 5km with Katnap but he was still sore from parkrun as he'd given it some welly, so I trundled on without chatter or music, but for once I was happy with just my thoughts. The leggings worked as it only rained a little bit towards the end and I had enough energy left to have a little sprint along the final 200 metres. Verdict on the gel?: it was lovely for the first few slurps but I'd have been happier with one half the size. It hasn't reacted with my tummy though so I'll carry on using it.
So that's Week 12 completed! 8 weeks to go! Can't quite believe it's going so fast, but it's so far so good thankfully. Onwards we go 😊🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🦆
Have a great week everyone!
