I winned a medal!

And here it is, along with my race number for the day. Its just a finishers medal, I havent set any world records just yet ;o) More on the race in a bit...



Well its been an eventful few days for me. It started on Saturday when I went to Sportlink. It’s a running specialist shop just outside Norwich and I had my gait analysed and showed the lady the ruined remains of my trainers. She told me that the trainers I had were not the right type for my style but I had a feeling that this was the case as I know my running style has changed since I bought those over a year ago. She recommended a couple of different types for me and then she let me run outside in them to test the difference. One pair was very comfy and cushioned, the other were really comfy and light. I went for the cushioned ones thinking that the extra cushioning would help my shins. The lady then said, “I hoped you’d pick those ones”. And here they are
They arent that shiny and white anymore though! The two ladies in the shop conferred a little and although it's normally advised to wear new trainers in a bit before wearing them for a race, both ladies agreed that the risk of blisters was better than the risk of injury in the old ones so I wore my shiny new ones on Sunday for the rescheduled Wymondham New Years Day 10k.

It was an excellent day. I was up nice and early and didn’t feel tired for a change, Saturdays lay-in had done the trick. I arrived fairly early but saw a few ladies wearing Norwich Road Runners gear so I introduced myself and they let me tag along and were very friendly. Ivan (the coach I normally run with at the club) came along a bit later and gave me a club vest which was brilliant. As I ran round lots of people cheered me as a ‘Road Runner’ which was really nice. A couple more races and they'll cheer me by name :o)


But down to the serious business.. how did I get on? Really really well! I did it in 1.00.07 by my watch (started as I crossed the start line) and 1.00.22 official time (started with the gun). Either way this beats my previous time by over 9 minutes so Im really pleased not just with the time, Im pleased with how I felt while running. I had my Garmin helping me out with pace, I got round without stopping (apart from a few seconds to drink at the water station because I dint want to throw in my face; it was cold!) and finished with a strong sprint finish despite the hill at the 9k mark, so all in all a very successful race. This was celebrated with a large bottle of Heineken :o)

Monday was a deserved rest day and Tuesday was back to the club for the speed session. I really didn’t fancy it. I was tired and it was sooo cold last night but I somehow found the motivation and off I went. We did 3 x 800m efforts with 200m recovery, a 3 min rest and then the same again. It was hard but actually quite good fun as I now had a running partner. We took turns to set the pace and as he was faster than me it was a real test.

Im actually starting to feel a bit like a real runner now :o)

Butterflies and running geekery

I had a pretty major case of nerves yesterday. I signed up to marathon group on the running website (FetchEveryone) I am a member of. They are organising what they call a ‘Fetchpoint’ where those who are not running gather to provide support, hugs, drinks, jelly babies and a shoulder to cry on if necessary. ;) So I joined the list of runners and looked through the information they provided. They will be waiting to cheer everybody on at mile 22. It was then that it hit me exactly what I let myself in for. Mile 22! What kind of state will I be in by mile 22? Im getting butterflies again now just thinking about it.

I hit the circuits again on Wednesday and the good news is…. My arms and shoulders don’t ache at all. This is because its all concentrated in my thighs this week! This means I cant sit down without making funny faces and the less said about getting up and down stairs the better. ;o)

With this in mind I went to running club with the intention of doing the easy 4 mile run that the coach mentioned on Tuesday. This turned into a very, very easy 2 and a half mile run with the coach and two other ladies. I didn’t really mind running this slow as the purpose was really to just loosen up my thighs without aggravating my shins ahead of Sundays PB attempt. Weirdly though, I found this more painful for my shins than I probably would have found it at my regular pace. It was quite nice to run along while having a chat though. Ooh and the Garmin has finally arrived which means I shall soon be able to wow/bore you all with amazing stats and stunning running geekery! Who want to see graphs? Hey? No-one? Oh. ;-p

Im officially resting/powering up for Sunday now. Im really looking forward to having a lie-in and not running tomorrow, not to mention the carb-loading, oh yes. Technically you probably don’t *need* to carb-load for a 10k but Im gonna. Im going for a PB y’know so the more carbs the better I say. Yum yum yum :) Hopefully I’ll be able to come back here on Sunday and tell you all about my sub 60min 10k but I think that because of the illness and minor niggles Ive had recently, a sub 65min is more realistic. That will still beat my previous time by 4 minutes so I’ll be sort of happy with that.

Left, Right, Hook, Left

Well my first full week of marathon training didn’t quite go to plan. Mondays treadmill run left my calves so sore that not only did I miss Tuesdays club session but I had to cut short my 10k race pace run on Thursday and my 9 mile long run on Saturday. It’s very disappointing to go out on a run but then have to abandon it. Psychologically its tough because part of you wants to run on anyway “You have to run a marathon in 4 months, just get on with it” and the other part remembers how frustrating not running at all because running on sore calves gave me shin splints “Be sensible, better to go home now and live to run another day”. I probably looked a little silly stood still by the river in my running gear having a mental argument with myself. That’s mental as in ‘internal’ by the way, just in case you had images of me ranting and raving at the trees ;)

On the plus side I did manage to go to circuit training and it was brilliant. SO many different exercises and the punching section had my heart-rate going faster than during a 10k race! Really tough and quite painful for my weedy little arms on Friday and Saturday but, after another couple of sessions, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem anymore. Boys, (You know who you are!) stop belly-aching and get your bums back down there. If I can do it, you can :)

Week 2 starts today. I think Im just gonna go for a tester run and see how it goes. Definitely not going to more than 4 miles though It’s the Wymondham 10k this Sunday and Im eyeing up my first ever PB so I need my shins to hold out.

Garmin Status – Still not here.

www.justgiving.com/vickijudd

First blog

Hello,

This will be a bit of a strange blog for a first one because it will actually contain two blogs. Bear with me here... :)

I am a runner. I am a member of an online running community and thought it would be a good idea to blog my experience of training for the London Marathon and my attempts to raise money for a local charity. But then I thought, in the interest of raising more money I should widen my potential audience a little. :) This is why the first blog is strange - I started the one on the running website yesterday but I dont want you to miss out on the start of the adventure.

So here goes - blog entry for Tuesday 12th January -

Reunited with my old friend...

…the treadmill. Or should that be foe?

My love affair with running began at the back end of 2008 in a small gym based in a community centre in a fairly ‘rough’ area in Norwich. 2 nights a week and Saturday mornings I could be found huffing, puffing and going a shade of red reminiscent of a tomato trying to reach 7 minutes. Not 7 minute miles, 7 whole minutes of running. It was tough and my inhaler was a close companion in these dark days. My dream was to manage half an hour of continuous running but it seemed so far away.

As some of you know, 2009 was a mixed bag of injury and progress for me but fairly early on I ditched the treadie, hit the streets and in no time made my 30 minute target. Hoorah! I’ve never looked back. Until yesterday.

The icy streets and the impeding VLM meant I had to bite the bullet and go to the gym. Dum dum dum…. It was pretty awful in many ways. I downgraded my membership some months ago so I had to pay £4.20 for the dubious privilege of using the treadmill. That was before I even got into the gym and had to wait 15 mins to use one. Bah!

When I did get on though I noticed that they were some pretty flashy new treadmills to play with that included such high tech equipment as a ‘cool’ air fan (very little positive effect) and a HR monitor that you don’t need a strap for. I did like this feature as I’ve never had a HR reading before. I was up to 171 doing 10.5k per hour at one point. I don’t know what it means but Im glad I know Ill look into it in more detail when my Garmin eventually arrives!

The ability to regulate speed was pretty handy too but holy moly was I bored?! Last time I was on a treadie I’d struggle to get past 4k – last night I was on there for nearly an hour doing 9k! (it was gonna be 10 but I really needed a wee!) I could probably tell you how many ceiling tiles there are in my gym now!

Wednesday 13th January -

DOM DOM DOMS

Guess what? I have doms. This is 'Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness' or achey bits. My calves are in agony and my walking gait is more than a little peculiar. Stairs are… well put it this way, I make sure there is no one else around to see my ungainly descent or hear the “ooh's”, “ow's” and gentle weeping that accompanies it. (Ok, there is no real weeping. Just inside tears… ) That is ‘The Revenge of the Treadmill’ in action. My calves never hurt like this from running outside! I had to bail on the club speed session last night. I was trying to be sensible and not try to do too much, too soon. My shin splints seem to have cleared up but I thought a speed session on very sore calves might be a bit risky. Aggravating my shins is the last thing I wanna do… tetchy b*st*rds that they are!

Im gonna go along with K tonight to his boxing circuit training. Im just no good at motivating myself to do core and strength exercises. I need a) the shame and ridicule of my peers if I chicken out and b) someone to shout at me and make me go the extra bit when it hurts. Im pretty nervous. Not about doing it, but about how much pain Im going to be in tomorrow and whether it will make Thursday’s 6mile run the most painful run since…. Well…. The last most painful run I guess

I'll let you know how it goes.