Unwelcome rest....

My first leadership session went quite well, Co-op pyramid was listed on the Calendar as our session, so I planned my warm up to take place in a park which is on the way to the aforementioned Co-op. I do have a problem with confidence in my ability to come across as advisory rather than bossy! I hope I managed to deliver a good warm up. So gentle jogging, strides etc done off we went for our 9 laps of the supermarket! So, session finished we made our way back to Fitness First for the cool down, however, numbers dwindled steadily throughout the session as people made their way home directly from the Co-op, only 4 us made our way back to Fitness First and as they made a hasty retreat it seemed pointless to to try and encourage them to hang around! Bang goes the cool down!

Wednesday's club run was substituted with the 3rd of this year's Vets races at Pudsey. A very warm evening saw us having to make a 15 minute trek up to a farm track for the start. It was a stark contrast to last year's race which saw us nearly swimming round the course! However, the heat took it's toll on me and I'm sure lots of others and I struggled to get up the hills, my Achilles suffered too as I was in great pain going up and could feel the relief as I reached level ground again. Fortunately I didn't do any lasting damage and got round the (nearly) 6 mile course in 54:15.

I am now into the final day of my week of rest (Thursday). It hasn't been a pleasant experience, forced rest is not supposed to be pleasant but a very necessary evil. Icing, Ibuprofen and gentle stretching have been the order of the week and it feels much more comfortable. I have kept in touch with club members by going and doing the register as usual each session and I also went to support at the 4th Vets race on Tuesday. My plan is to attend club tomorrow evening as it's Janice's 'last Friday of the month' coached session so that will enable me to take it easy rather than setting out on a run and finding I can't continue. Fingers crossed : )

BBQ's, Beer, oh and racing!!!

Last Wednesday's Otley 10 mile went very well. I did have some discomfort in the ankle area but once again not enough to stop me running, this is the reason I can't make a decision to rest altogether. I did however, make a decision to have the weekend off and marshalled at Bradford Parkrun and then visited Askwith Show to watch my two Nieces compete in various horsey events, and making a wise decision not to run on Sunday morning having been on my feet all day. So back to the Otley 10 mile, although a very hilly course and run on a very windy and rainy evening I really enjoyed it! The uphills were tough but beleive me the downhills were something else and I was pleased I managed to keep going and run the whole course which started out along Pool Road, over the bridge left to Leathley, up a hill and believe you me at the top of it it felt like you were on top of the world and the wind was howling! We then turned right to Lindley, I thought we may get a glimpse of the reservoir but I didn't spot it, we had a great turnout from ERR and I really love it when there's a few of us waiting around to cheer in all of the runners - it's that team spirit feeling not to be beaten. With a bbq for the spectators and a bottle of beer in the goody bag I highly recommend next year's race - it's firmly in my diary!

Friday's club run saw the start of things to come at Err - we hope to be giving our Members an altogether better experience at club by providing them with the basic requirements we think being part of a club should offer in addition to the social benefits already gained. Following attendances at a leadership in running and fitness course by five people we now hope to put to use the skills we learned. Sophie lead the Friday session and I was impressed with the professional feel she portrayed to the group, it felt as though we were making an effort to safeguard the runners from possible injury, obviously there are no guarantees but I can't help thinking the club has a duty to help and inform it's members and I am proud to be part of that and hope that we can keep our forward thinking and go from strength to strength.

My turn tonight and I've planned my drills (loosely) and am confident I can deliver a good session.......

I'm a Leader!

Part way into my pre-booked races and I'm beginning to suffer with my Achilles, although it doesn't give me too much pain when I run, the next morning is a different story as each week it seems to be getting progressively worse. I keep thinking I should make a decision to rest for a while but that really is going to be a last resort.

We have a brilliant turn out from club last Tuesday for the 2nd of this year's Vets Races at Kirkstall. What a beautiful setting to start a race. Martin and I ran it together as he hasn't completed any distance recently and was apprehensive. We finished it in a reasonable time and he survived to tell the tale! A downpour had us make a quick retreat for the car at the finish!

On Saturday I attended a 'Leadership in Running and Fitness' course at Leeds Metropolitan University. A fantastic opportunity provided through club with the assistance of England Athletics. We had a fabulous day doing both class room and outdoor based activities around providing safe and enjoyable first running experiences to people of any level of ability, age, size and shape. We explored issues which prevent some people participating in running and ways to encourage new members, we also practiced planning and delivering all parts of a session and also explored the roles and responsibilities which a leader will take on. Whilst I felt we were already providing some of the content covered, we learnt a whole lot more and although we packed such a lot into a short space of time it was very worthwhile and rewarding. Now to put it into practice over the coming months!

Club training nights are going from strength to strength as we continue to have more and more new members joining each week, this is also reflected at races and it really does give me a sense of belonging when we make our presence known at these events, we tend to be the noisy cheering ones, particularly yesterday at the Harewood Chase, so called as the Ladies are set off 30 minutes before the Gents, they therefore, give chase and try to catch us up, fortunately not a single male passed any of our ladies! This then, is one of the few races where we are at the finish line before our male counterparts and it is great fun cheering them in, as we did yesterday, soon after some more spectators joined us in clapping fellow runners in. My weekend was finished off with a girlie get together afternoon at Sharon's with Lisa, Sophie, Gill, Dawn and Janice after the race.

The Otley 10 mile awaits me on Wednesday, hopefully - after that I think I am going to reassess my racing and training to try and give my injury time to heal or else I fear I may end up in trouble............

Oh and as he's mentioned in my profile I'm proud to report that my fourth grandson, Zach James (above) arrived in the very early hours of 30th May!

Thank God!

Training continues to go well. I have now completed all three John Carr 5k races in the 2010 series. These are really pleasant races to do aside of the fact that they are fast 5k's! There's a certain camaraderie about them, everyone is trying to beat their time each week, there's close to 400 people running and always a good turnout from Eccleshill Road Runners from the youngest, a 14 year old to the eldest, a 75 year old. In addition my two boys Tom and Marc usually compete too. Marc this year managed to get his time down to 20 minutes 29 seconds in race 2 but as was the case for most of us didn't better it in race 3, great times for a 15 year old though.

Emails were flying round last week as those of us who have done our marathons try to keep focused by entering more races. Sophie has encouraged us to enter one or two races which include the Harewood Chase 10k, Otley 10 mile, Hull Half Marathon and the Woodland Challenge. Coupled with the up and coming Vets races and the Washburn Valley Relay that should keep us going for a while!

Meanwhile I think God was looking down on me as I changed my entry from the Edinburgh Marathon to London, I haven't got the full story from the runners yet but if the temperature in Bradford was anything to go by it will have been horrendous conditions for running yesterday and I'm so glad I wasn't on the start line.

Just because I want to.......

For the first time a quite a few months I met some other runners from the club on a lovely sunny Sunday morning and went for a run - just because I wanted to! That was a great feeling after months of being fearful that if anything went wrong on marathon day it might be down to lack of training. Thankfully I didn't think that - in fact quite the opposite, I knew if anything did go wrong it would be due to some other factor. This had still placed considerable pressure on training regimes from December last year. So today it was a great feeling to be able to leave Woodhouse Grove and head for Guiseley with a spring in my step.

Some of the runners set off in a different direction for a longer run, we girls set off for a 8 or so mile run. I knew just how Jo and Lisa felt, this was their final 90 minute run before Edinburgh the following week. Just under an hour and a half later we arrived back to the car park having leisurely chatted our way round the route we had done so many times over the last few months, so the penultimate group are about to embark on their marathon. All that remained was to wish them 'Good Luck' and wait to see them on their triumphant return.

Post London

Today I completed the Leeds Half Marathon in a time of 2:07:04 and really enjoyed it.

I wasn't sure if I had maybe entered this in error! I had heard so many stories of people having 'marathon blues' and being on a 'downer' following a marathon, so I booked it well before London along with the John Carr 5k series with thoughts that I would have something to focus on afterwards.

In a way I think I did the right thing as I didn't so much have 'marathon blues' but did feel that in light of so many months of training and the build up the marathon itself it seemed to be over so quickly when race day finally did arrive and I was left feeling somewhat shell shocked and bewildered! It is only now, a few weeks later, that the enormity of all that training in the snow, ice and general bad weather and then running 26.2 miles at the end of it has really sunk in. It could have turned out differently and I might not have been in any fit state to take part in the John Carr or Leeds Half but thankfully this was not the case and just short of a week after the marathon I was back at club and looking forward to getting back to my 'normal' training routines. So my advice is listen to your body and if you feel up to it - do it. Whilst I value other peoples advice greatly, it sometimes conflicts in all aspects of running so I tend to take note but then do what I think is right for me.

Speed and Hills session at club tomorrow so I'm going to have to reign myself in and take it easy, shouldn't be too difficult, or should it?