Cool as a cucumber

Only 2 weeks to go! Yep, I’m cool as a cucumber over here! Why do people say that? Are cucumbers cool?

Moving on then…, 2 weeks to the marathon! I could really do with another 3 months to train! I still haven’t run for more than 14 miles. I seem to have got fatter and I have lost all motivation! Good stuff!

Last week I attempted to go for 16 miles, I got about half a mile in and wasn’t really feeling it at all, perhaps I’d left it too long since my last run? I decided to do a short run to remind my body to get back in the game and which muscles to use and then go for a proper run the next day. It was about this point that I ran past 2 guys and a girl. The guy pointed me out and declared ‘Now she NEEDS to go running’.

I looked back over my shoulder to find the entire group staring at my ass and grimacing. It’s fair to say, I felt pretty shit after that and ran straight home, got under my duvet and refused to come out for the rest of the day.

With all confidence lost, running did not happen the next day. It appeared I could not run and if I tried, I got abuse. Bad days. I hate running!!!

My conscious kicked in mid afternoon on Monday and reminded me that people had sponsored me to do this.

Fine then! I might be fat and shit at running but I owe you a marathon, and a marathon is what I’m going to give you damn it. But I’m not happy about it!

I attempted another long run on Monday night but only made it to 4 miles. Wednesday came around and with all my hopes pinned, I managed 11 miles, with the help of one banoffee flavoured energy gel (which is the best thing I have ever eaten, ever!). I might just start eating energy gels all the time now, running or no running!

Any way, it appears I can run. I just have to do another 15.2 miles more and I’m done. Yeah. Easy. Oh, my charity running vest has arrived – it’s too small. And bright yellow. Brilliant. I am going to look hotttttt!

A long time ago my friend brought me a toy unicorn, which sings a hypnotic song. At first I thought it was saying ‘hello, hello, hello, hello I am five and I hope that you are too’. It turns out I completely misheard the song and that’s not it at all, I prefer my version though. The hypnotic unicorn is so mesmerising, even housemate loves it. I am aware that this has nothing to do with running but I was bored the other day and decided to draw some pictures of it and thought I would share them with you.

I’m going to go find some energy gel now!

Tourists!

BREAKING NEWS!! Sunshine has been spotted in Britain! This unusual phenomena has lasted for 3 whole days and is still going strong. The standard uniform of grey skies have been cleared to reveal a striking blue. Unable to cope with this burst of colour, some people have been forced to keep their sunglasses on at all times, even when on the underground trains. Others are exposing their arms and actually venturing away from their desks at lunch time! There have even been sightings of people smiling. Yes smiling! In London! ‘It’s unheard of’ said one local who wishes to remain anonymous. Scientists from the local pub in Clapham inform me that this is not as uncommon a phenomena as first believed, ‘it actually happened on three separate dates last year’, in fact they go on to say that there have been reports consistently tracking the appearance of this ‘shine’ for decades, whilst we can not report on the validity of this claim, we can assure you that sales of BBQ’s and cider will no doubt run low this weekend.

If you read the last blast, you will know I did a 14 mile run last week. I ran right into central London and along the Thames. It was a lovely sunny day and I was feeling pretty great. I had images of running along the Southbank, just like how you see in films. To be the kind of people who covers 10 miles before work and then turn up fresh and bright for work, ready to win an amazing, company saving deal to the joy of the managing director, whilst the rest of us, flog in, ten minutes late, stinking of last nights booze and wishing 5.30 pm would hurry up. 
I, it seems usually fall into the latter group. But you never know, there’s still time, perhaps there is a chance I could become that person. 
During the run, I was desperate to get to the river so I could begin to live this dream, but the blasted river just wouldn’t get any closer. By the time I reached it, I was dripping in sweat, beginning to get sunburnt and down to the last drizzle of my water. But it was ok, because I was finally at the river.

The river was a nightmare! Why did all the tourists decided to rock up, the one day I want to do a long run? It was like a military course in dodging, dipping, the occasional dive and dunking. My peaceful run had turned into a battle. I had to contend with Victorian living statues, a giant lizard on a bicycle, a bunch of free runners, BMX bandits, Charlie Chaplin, some pastel paintings, a million cameras, lots of very fat people, ice cream trucks, random queues that seemed to never end and a knight in shining armour – literally.

On the bright side I did get to pass the Shakespeare Globe theatre, the Tate modern, the London eye, the national theatre, the houses of parliament and Big Ben. I would have enjoyed this more had I not been gasping for water the entire way. I couldn’t help but stare enviously at the tourists, knocking back their water without a care in the world. You know how in cartoons, when a character is starving, they start to picture people around them as food? Well all I could see was giant bottles of water every where! I even contemplated jumping in the Thames for a drink!

There was only one thing to do! I ran straight into the nearest pub and begged the bar tender to refill my water. Unfortunately I just had to choose a very posh pub didn’t I?! Every one stopped and stared at the sweaty girl! I got out of there as quick as I could!

After more advice from the running co-worker this week, I finally went to a sports shop to get some energy gels. There is so much science involved in this running lark, you wouldn't believe it! After 10 minutes in the shop I came out with a pre-running carbohydrate drink, isotonic gels, carbohydrate gels, caffeine gels, a post running recovery protein mix and some sort of mixing bottle! I’m almost excited to go running again!

Apparently some of these gels might make me sick…we’ll see how tomorrow goes then, watch out tourists!  
 

Grasshopper

Running is dull. Let me tell you about the grasshopper instead:

About this time last year I was on my way to work, standing on a busy tube. Due to it being rush hour there where no empty seats so I opted to stand by the door instead. With my headphones in, I began to daydream about what I’ll do when I win the lottery. It was then that I noticed a man on the opposite side of the train staring at me. Despite my best efforts, I am not a morning person; I crawl out of bed 10 minutes before I’m due to leave and am forever late. This is what I generally look like in the morning:

Nope. There was no chance this man was checking me out and if he was then I should probably be a little scared that he would be attracted to some one who looks like this:

The only logical explanation was that I had something on my face. A quick check in the back of my ipod revealed that my face was clear – well as clear as it gets anyway. Suddenly he was crossing the carriage towards me. On closer inspection he was quite good looking, I offered a smile in his direction. Letters to Cleo were helpfully screaming in my ears ‘I want you to want meeeee’ which caused me to miss what he had said. Yanking out the headphones, I smiled sweetly and asked him to repeat what I could only presume was a declaration of his undying love for me, how he’d been building up the courage to talk to me for months, how he was secretly a prince and wanted to save me from the daily commute of doom and whisk me away on a magic carpet to a land where I could battle dragons and ride horses that speak and live in a big castle where everyone sings in tune. Sadly his reply was not what I had expected. ‘Excuse me, you have a grasshopper on your head’.

My mind failed to respond to his words and instead I replied ‘Oh, right, thanks’ and brushed my fingers through my hair as if I was just smoothing down a loose hair. Then it dawned on me what he had just said. A grasshopper. On my head.

Now it may come as a surprise to some but I am no grasshopper expert however I do not believe mid March is not grasshopper season, surely they should be living it up in meadows in the summer, was this grasshopper taking a holiday? On my head! Why would any one want to take a holiday on the London underground? It’s slow and crowded and you spend most of the journey stuck in someone’s armpit or using your handbag as a shield and elbows as a sword. Perhaps this isn’t a problem for grasshoppers. I do not know. What I did know was there was a grasshopper on my head!

I’m not normally the type to freak out at bugs, I like to think I give an impression of unfazed logic when it comes to problems of this type. If a friend is scared of a spider I can calmly pick it up and remove it from the premises – saying that, if you saw me on my own with the spider, I’d be running around the furniture and begging it not to kill me.

Unfortunately on this occasion I did not project any impression of cool. A weird high pitch squeal escaped from the pit of my stomach, I did an involuntary shudder and frantically ran my fingers through my hair. It was an adult version of a three year old throwing themselves to the floor and screaming for someone to ‘get it out, get it out’. I desperately looked to the hot man (who I was convinced by this point definitely did not want to marry me) for help but my squeal must have scared him as he had retreated back to the other side of the carriage and continued to stare at me with a look of sheer horror.

My extreme reaction had caught the attention of all the other passengers in the carriage as well, let's bear in mind it was rush hour. And I still had a grasshopper on my head!

Unbeknown to me, by brushing my fingers through my hair, I had managed to decapitate the poor hopper and now had various grasshopper body parts mangled in amongst my hair. I continued to frantically brush my hair with my fingers and watched as his head fell to the floor, followed by various legs and finally the body. I had to stand next to that corpse for the rest of the journey, his bodiless head staring up at me.

I spend the rest of the day, repeatedly stroking my hair, convinced another leg was sticking out somewhere.

The strange thing is, a few months later I got on the underground and found another grasshopper sitting on my arm - I flicked him away, body intact this time. Perhaps there is a grasshopper conspiracy out there? Is the government trying to control us with hoppers? Maybe these are teenage hoppers who are playing a deadly game of chicken? I just dont know, what I do know is they're after me!

Oh the running – I did 11.3 miles on Tuesday, ate jelly babies instead of running on Friday and then nearly killed my self with 14 on Saturday. According to my co-worker running expert, this will be the longest run I do, otherwise my body won’t have enough time to adjust. I'm going to try for 16 on Monday night any way. Fingers crossed. Who knew running was so complicated!

I just don't want to!

Apparently it's a good idea to stretch after a half marathon, otherwise your legs get fixed in position and stairs turn evil on you.  I have also discovered that sitting and standing up are tests of your pain threshold. It appears mine is low. Very very low. If I ever get pregnant, I want the drugs, ok, give me the bloody drugs!!

So my new job involves organising sport events, I let slip in my interview that I’ve signed up for the marathon. I think they might have mistaken me for a sporty person and thus it gave me the edge over the competition. It turns out my co-workers are all serious fitness freaks, I use the word freaks loosely as they are in fact very nice and I have to say that as they might one day read this (hello Lizzie). All I’m saying is iron man competitions and mountain climbing are kinda hardcore! 

 

Any way, I think it took all of half an hour, on my first day, for them to realise I am in fact a secret slob. The penguin walk and chocolate stuffing gave it all away. Too late now though, they’ve employed me. Muwha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! 

It's quite handy working with athletes; they eat constantly and give you a daily running plan. Plus you become so in awe of their sporting ability and so scared of showing your true slob side that you almost manage to stick to the training plan! Almost.

I did a mini 3 miler on Wednesday to encourage my legs to work again and a fast (well fast for me) 5 miles on Friday. I was too lazy to give up any of my weekend for a run so instead ate some excellent pancakes (a chocolate one and a golden syrup one, yeah, I knew you wanted to know the toppings!). Mmmmmmmm pancakes.

Ummm what was I saying? Oh yeah, running. Right, Monday night I was suppose to go for 12 miles, but I got home and faffed about and then it got late and I got hungry and I started to write this and I didn’t make it out the door. Tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow ok! Jeeze, give me a break! I’ve got a feeling on the day of the marathon, I’m going to look back at all those times I was too lazy to go running and the pathetic excuses I came up with and curse my self!

I have 2 weeks until I have to reach the 18 mile point! Aggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
 

4 weeks to go to D-day! Pant wetting it?! Oh yeah! 

Half way?

I did everything wrong!

I really should have paid more attention to those long runs I keep reading about! If you saw the previous blast you will know that a couple of weeks ago I managed 11 miles and was feeling pretty confident. This was followed by a terrible week of only managing a couple of miles.

As I was job-less last week you would have thought I'd have lots of time to do some training right? Well you thought wrong! It turns out being jobless is a full time job in itself - you spend hours visiting ALL the jobsites, days checking for facebook updates and a surprising amount of time cooking lunch. I did manage to do two lots of five mile runs and I even got a new job, I'd say that was a successful week. Any way, as a result of doing two runs in a row, my body freaked out and those stupid glands popped up again. I decided it was best to rest up at my mums until the half marathon on the Sunday. Instead of sticking to my sensible eating plan of brown pasta, I gorged myself on ice cream and chocolate bunnies and chocolate chicks and chocolate eggs and even a chocolate cow - I basically ate an entire farm!

In addition to my mum, the rest of my support team (consisting of brother and his girlfriend) arrived on Saturday and proceed to take the piss out of my 'carb loading', they didn’t believe ice cream was how athletes prepare. What do they know?! Rookies!

On Saturday, after eating what can only be described as the Kilimanjaro of spaghetti bolognaise (wholemeal spaghetti of course), I embarked on an early night. I couldn't sleep. Sunday, I woke late and groggy with a sore throat and a wish to remain in bed. The car was filled with blankets, sandwiches, water and running know-how, ready to cross the country and tackle the half marathon. With about 45 mins to spare we were within a mile of the race track (the half marathon was at a motor race track). 45 minutes later we were still within a mile of the race track.

I was freaking out at this point. I had an image of my self starting way behind every one else and running the whole thing alone, being the very last person to cross the line. I tried to squash this fear by downing water. We finally arrived, after a quick dash to the toilet, I was ready to join the other runners. This involved climbing a fence (seriously!) and trying to locate the slowest runners in the pack - I headed towards the back.

Before I knew it and with no time to warm up, we were off!

Ah this isn't too bad, I might be able to do this, yeah, yeah I CAN do this. Woohoo. Go go go. Ooh getting a little harder now. Well we must be over half way by now. Yep I can keep going. Wait, what?! What do you mean we haven't done a mile yet! There was a serious problem with their mile measurements, they were the longest miles in the WORLD!

It was hot, I was beginning to burn and by mile 3, I was very glad to see the water stand. At this point I was keeping up with the two guys carrying a surfboard, but I was ok. Ok so yes, I felt a little queasy but a bit more water would help, surely. Ooh a lucozade stand at mile 5! I haven't really had lucozade in training but if they were giving it out it must be good for you. Hmmm lucozade not so good, more water then. At mile 7 I saw my supporters, doing an excellent supporting job. I was feeling very sick at this point but there was no way I was going to start walking in front of them! Unfortunately we were coming up to the part of the course where you have to run over the worlds steepest bridge. My supporters just had to be standing at the base of it didn’t they! Ok Mohammed, bring on the mountain!

I climbed, I climbed and I climbed. I got to the top. I had made it over half way, I had climbed a mountain… I was sick.

Yep, up came all that water! Clinging to the rail at the side, trying not to throw up on spectators, my running dreams all came flying up and out of my mouth. Brilliant. But I am not a quitter! No sir!

So on I went. Wobbly yes but on, indeed! Ok so I walked for a bit but I picked my feet up (which I could no longer feel) and ran once again. In fact I ran/walked the rest of the way. As more and more runners went past, I remained with the other zombies, feeling more disappointed with every step but unable to stop. That finish line really took it's time in finding me. I finally mustered the energy to run over the finish line at 2 hours 36 which was only twelve minutes off my original aim so I guess I shouldn't be that disappointed. My supporters did an excellent job, so thank you mum, brother and brothers girlfriend, brilliant cheering!

An old man came up to me at the end and thanked me, apparently I had been his marker, every time I moved, he moved. Who knew! He then pointed out my charity vest and said ‘that’s the religious charity isn’t it? My mum supports them’.

I’m finding it hard to walk today and why did no one tell me about bum blisters?!
Only 5 weeks to the big one, ready? Err no!