I got up this morning to rain! What a shock! I am very glad that I did my long run yesterday and so today is a good old rest day. Alongside my cornflakes I had a yummy smoothie from Innocent for breakfast (Honey, lemon and ginger). It had a free packet of bee friendly seeds which I may plant later if it stops raining.
I have been watching the London Marathon on TV; I do enjoy watching events like this (Great North Run, New York Marathon and so on). It’s so amazing how fast they go! Seriously they finish the marathon quicker than my half marathon time. Some of their miles are on the 5 minute mark! It is so impressive that they can keep up a sprint pace for the entire distance.
It got me thinking about my own running “journey”. This time last year I had run a 5k race, and signed up for a 10k (my first) and I was so nervous about not being able to finish. When I ran the 10k the last mile was really hard and the backs of my legs felt like they would give way and I did think that after that I would not attempt any other longer distances. But then During the summer I did two more 5k races and had started naturally increasing my long run to 5 miles or so each week, so I decided to sign up for another 10k in the autumn. As I knew I could finish I had almost less pressure on myself. After that my long run was getting even longer (7 miles) and so I decided to sign up for a half marathon. Again I was so worried about finishing but one of my training runs (by mistake, I mapped it out wrong before I left) ended up being 12.3 miles, so I knew I could make it. To my surprise I really enjoyed the race, it was probably my most enjoyable race so far. I ran most of it with my younger brother, but we finished separately, so maybe having someone to run alongside helped (although I normally run with music so I cant hear my breathing and I kept my music on the whole time). It was such a massive achievement for me, I think I was on a bit of a post run high for the following week!! Even so that was going to be the only half for me, but I have again been persuaded to do a local half this summer! My Dad has been interested in doing a marathon and has been researching different ones. I think it is achievable, but what worries me is the amount of time for training; even if my longest run was 18-20 miles that would take me nearly 4 hours, so the time commitment would be huge. I could do a long run at the weekend but doing longer runs after work would be hard to fit in. But anyway it’s something to think about; who knows what the future holds?
I suppose for the people running today at least the rain will help to cool them down a bit, and they won’t be right in the sun as they would be on a clear day so may stay cooler.
I am seeing family later so decided to make a batch of brownies. I have a brilliant tried and tested recipe from a really old book (think I got it from a discount book shop years ago) but I still like to try new recipes. I used the recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook
