I’m still fairly miserable due to my cold, although at least I’m no longer feeling like I’m going to faint whenever I stand up, which is something. Also, I made it out to the supermarket this morning and didn’t have to stop to throw up like I did on the way to Slimming World yesterday. Progress!
I’ve had a quiet day otherwise with lots of music and writing. I’ve got lots of day job work lined up for next week, but over the weekend I’m just planning to rest and heal up ready for the race on Sunday. Looking forward to it, which is another sign I must be getting a bit better.
OOTD: weather and illness pulling double duty to keep me indoors. Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), hoodie Sonar (2006), t-shirt Campus Crew for Toronto Blue Jays (2018), jeans Vivid (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Buddy Holly – Raining In My Heart Outkast – Hey Ya! The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary Duran Duran – Shadows On Your Side Zedd and Maren Morris – The Middle Lil’ Nas X – Old Town Road Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber – I Don’t Care
I just about made it to Slimming World this morning (not without incident), and have managed to lose three pounds this last week, which is not bad considering I was away at the weekend. Geth has gone off on a business trip, so I should have a fairly quiet time of it for the next wee while and hopefully lose the last bit that will get me back into target range. I’ve been trying for months now!
I did also manage to do some work for a client, but other than that I’ve just spent today napping (complete with fever dreams – fun!) on the sofa. I also finished watching the Good Omens TV adaptation, which has been absolutely brilliant and everything I wanted after reading the book. I really, really recommend it if you’ve not seen it already, and will do a more in-depth review in the next few days.
I’ve got two days left to get complete and total rest in the hope that I will be able to do the Blaydon Race on Sunday without collapsing at the side of the road. Here’s hoping.
OOTD: can’t manage more than a sofa selfie today due to feeling sick whenever I stand up! Back To The Future jacket All We Do (2019), vest top Primark (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Midnight and Nikki Flores – Jason Gunship – When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies Calvin Harris and Rag ‘N’ Bone Man – Giant Duran Duran – I Don’t Want Your Love Duran Duran – Faster Than Light Buddy Holly – Raining In My Heart
For the third year running, Geth and I did the EMF 10k this last weekend. We were both saying before the event that it would definitely be our last one, because Geth wanted to move up to the half marathon next year (I, meanwhile, am not sure which distance I want to do next year – I’m just getting a bit sick of running up Arthur’s Seat having done it in two Great Winter 5ks and three EMF 10ks now!).
THE EMF finisher medal. It’s cute but a bit lazy, because they just do the same finisher medal for all the races and add a wee plastic tag to say which race it was!
Our friend Kieran was doing the race with us this year, so after a very early start (the race is at 9am, which is great for getting it over and done with, but it does require a 6:30am alarm!) we met up on the bus and headed out to Dynamic Earth, which acts as the hub for the Saturday races.
Since the London Marathon, I’m finding that 10k races are feeling very short. As such, once I was over the hill, it was a lovely quick amble in good running weather, and it felt like I was finished in no time. However, it turned out that I was two and a half minutes slower than last year, so maybe it would be good to do one more attempt in a year when I don’t still have a marathon in my legs.
Following the 10k, we all regrouped and found a good spot to watch our other friend Sharpy, who was doing the 5k. He managed it in super-quick time, so we were soon in a taxi back to Morningside for lunch in the pub!
I will definitely be back at the EMF next year – I just don’t know which distance I’ll be doing. After I informed everyone of the existence of the mad people who do all four races over the course of EMF weekend, there was some talk of doing the Saturday 10k/5k double…so we’ll see!
Another quick post today as I’ve been very busy (ran another 10k that I will review in the next couple of days!) and have to get some sleep before a long drive tomorrow.
(The OOTDs will return tomorrow. I’ve been forgetting to take pictures!)
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Midnight – Gloria EO – German Duran Duran – Save A Prayer Gunship – When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies Elton John – Blue Eyes Fleetwood Mac – Dreams Wilson Pickett – Mustang Sally Duran Duran – The Chauffeur Sam Cooke – Wonderful World
Today was the fourth time I’ve done the Run Sunderland event – I did my very first 10k there in 2016, then the half marathon in 2017, then back to the 10k for a good PB last year. Given that my legs are still recovering from London a fortnight ago, I wasn’t expecting much from today – but it turned out to be a good race under the circumstances.
Pre-race selfie! Neither of us looked this energetic immediately after finishing.
Geth was doing the half marathon this year, so I was on my own setting off. The field felt a bit more crowded than usual, so it was pretty frustrating trying to weave around people during the first half of the race, and I probably went out a bit too fast as a result of trying to get past the crowds. As such, I felt myself flagging a bit during kilometres six and seven, and I didn’t really get my energy back until the last eight hundred metres of the race.
Because of this (and the fact that four months of marathon training has really brought my speed down), I was very surprised when I turned onto the finishing straight, saw the race clock, and realised I was on for a PB! I finished in 1:09:13, which was forty-three seconds faster than my previous best, also set at Sunderland last year.
After a San Pellegrino and a nice bit of victory cheesecake in the coffee shop nearby, I wandered back to the finish area to watch for Geth coming in at the end of the half marathon. He got his sub-two-hour result, which was the aim for today’s race, and after a recovery sit-down we headed back to Newcastle on the Metro for a quiet afternoon of pub, synthwave, and pizza.
I’ll be back again next May for year five and hopefully another PB, given that I won’t be coming off the back of a marathon next time!
No review post today as I’m having a quiet day before a race tomorrow!
Geth and I volunteered at parkrun this morning, then went for our traditional post-parkrun-volunteering-on-a-race-weekend breakfast in town. Once back home, I spent the afternoon getting some writing done.
Just a quiet evening now before the race tomorrow! I’m doing the 10K (which probably won’t break any records given that I’m still recovering from London) and Geth is doing the half marathon. I will let you know tomorrow how it all goes!
OOTD: at this rate I’m going to be wearing winter jumpers into June! Jumper Faber (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2018), jeans H&M (thrifted from Steff 2016), trainers Reebok (2013).
Today’s earworm playlist:
FM-84 and Ollie Wride – Running In The Night The Midnight – Gloria Gunship – When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies Lil’ Nas X – Old Town Road The Midnight – Crystalline
Far from just another race, this one. I honestly feel like I’ve been preparing for it for years.
I’d been applying through the London Marathon ballot every year since I started running, because I knew that with a 4.8% ballot success rate there was no chance I’d ever get in, but I do like the glossy rejection magazine they send you in order to tell you you’ve not got in.
Then in autumn 2017, they didn’t send me a rejection magazine. They sent me a ‘You’re In!’ magazine. Oh.
It was lucky that you have the option to defer entry for a year, because Geth and I were moving house over the course of winter 2017/2018 and there was absolutely no way that I would have had the time to train for a marathon on top of that. So London 2019 it was, and in January this year I started training in earnest. I knew I had to be a lot more disciplined with my marathon training than I have sometimes been with my half marathons. You can blag a half marathon if you do 10Ks regularly enough, but you can’t do the same with a full marathon – you need to be properly trained up as it’s a very different beast.
As such, I felt nervous but quietly confident when I lined up in the freezing cold on the start line on Sunday. I knew I’d be slow but I also knew I would finish!
A rather ominous-looking Cutty Sark at mile six. It wasn’t actually as overcast as it looks here!
Mile one was just about getting settled, but mile two was probably my favourite of the whole race. There were lots of barely-noticeable speed bumps in the road, but the organisers obviously didn’t want anyone tripping over them, so every single speed bump had two volunteers, one at each end, holding a ‘HUMPS’ sign and yelling ‘HUUUUUMMMMMPPPSS!’ The best duo had a whole call-and-response thing that they’d clearly been practising for weeks.
The end of mile two also saw the first of the many red phone boxes on the race route. Was I ever going to be on these particular London streets again? No, unless I’m ever both mad enough and lucky enough to get into the London Marathon again. Therefore, did I take a photo of every single red phone box along the route? You bet I did. Many, many Phone Box Thursday posts coming soon!
Miles three to ten were fairly straightforward – I had my visualisation plan and it was nice to see my friend Claire volunteering at the mile seven drinks station. The best sightseeing moments, such as the Cutty Sark and Tower Bridge, are all in the first half, and they do really contribute to the atmosphere.
The almost-halfway point at Tower Bridge! A very welcome sight.
The second half starts off with a slightly demoralising section along miles fourteen and fifteen where you get to watch all the faster runners coming back the other way! Once you split off from that, miles sixteen to twenty are a bit dull scenery-wise, and also the toughest part of the race, I found, although I really appreciated the first RNLI cheering point at mile nineteen.
Once I got past mile twenty, even though it was feeling really tough by then, I did at least feel like the end was in sight, and it was just a case of gritting teeth and counting down every mile. By the time I got to mile twenty-four, we were having to weave in and out of vans and coaches. This was the one big issue I had with the race. Why on earth do they have vehicles going down the route when there are still runners on the course? Either marshal the runners onto the pavement so the vehicles can get past, or wait until all the runners have finished. It was really hairy and I suspect there’s going to be a very nasty accident/somebody will get mown down during some future edition of the race if they keep setting it up like that.
The RNLI volunteers at mile 25! Really pleased they waited for us slower runners.
There was another RNLI cheering squad at mile 25, which was enough to spur me on until I got to the final stretch! Geth was watching from the side as I came along Birdcage Walk, which was a nice surprise, and after that I had enough energy to kick round the corner and sprint down the Mall towards the finish line.
When I went to collect my medal and goodie bag, they only had extra small T-shirts left, which was a bit of a surprise. XS is perfect for me as race t-shirts are unisex size, but usually if you’re among the last finishers they only have larger sizes left! I felt a bit sorry for the bigger runners around me who were going to get stuck with an XS t-shirt they probably wouldn’t be able to wear.
However, this may be the best running medal I will ever get.
It weighs a ton!
Geth joined me at the entrance to the meeting area, and we wandered over to the RNLI meeting point – I was too slow for the post-race reception, which had already finished, but there was a nice volunteer at the meeting point who took a picture of us with the Lifeboats flag.
Finished! It was a long, long day out.
It’s been one of those weird time things where I simultaneously feel like I’ve been training for London forever and also like I’ve only just started…and now it’s all over. I was super slow, but I’m proud I did it. I still need a bit of time to digest this one. Back to my regularly scheduled 10Ks in the meantime!
The Inverness half was not one I’d done before. It’s a long way to travel from Newcastle, and so it’s a bit out of my way. However, I’d first seen it advertised in the Edinburgh branch of Run 4 It a couple of years ago, and this year I needed to do a half in early March as part of my London Marathon training, so I thought it was a good opportunity to do a race a bit further afield.
Not to mention a race with a gorgeous medal! A new favourite among my collection.
The race started quite late in the day, at 12:30pm, so Geth and I were able to have a fairly leisurely morning before heading to the Inverness Sports Centre to collect our race numbers and get ourselves ready. It was a very cold day, so I appreciated that the organisers didn’t lead us out of the building and down to the start line until the race was nearly due to start! Of course, as soon as we walked out, it started to drizzle, when it had been dry all morning. I was hugely thankful I’d thought to wear a baseball cap, meaning that unlike during the Yorkshire 10 Mile last October, I was actually able to see through the rain, as my glasses were sheltered.
The course actually reminded me of the aforementioned Yorkshire 10 Mile in that only about 10% of it is in the centre of town – the rest is either surrounding countryside or suburbs. There were a lot of twists and turns, though, which kept things interesting, and the only tough-ish hill was over and done with by the five-mile marker.
What felt a bit strange was that they only closed one side of the roads to traffic, so we were running up one side of the road while cars whizzed down the other, and there were many points where the marshals had to act as lollipop men and women, holding up signs to stop cars so that runners could get through. The marshals and police were all brilliant, though, and this aspect of the race is clearly very well organised.
Unfortunately, the very last section of the race was a bit of a letdown – the course finished on the track at the Sports Centre, but the path leading up to the track entrance was absolutely rammed with people who’d already finished the race, which is a real pain when you’re trying to build up speed for the finish! The marshals at this point seemed a bit confused as well, and kept pointing us in the wrong direction.
Another disappointment was that by the time I finished, they’d run out of size small finisher t-shirts. At size 10 these days, I’m fairly average for a female runner, but even a small is usually a little big for me (because race finisher t-shirts are ‘unisex cut’, and as we all know, ‘unisex cut’ means ‘designed for men’, so a size small is designed to fit a slim man). I was stuck with a medium, which on me is a tent. Not one I expect I’ll be wearing often, unfortunately. It would have been nice if they’d used the system where your t-shirt size is marked on your race number and checked off at the end, so that everyone gets the size they ordered when they entered the race.
However, it was really nice to be able to go back into the Sports Centre for some food and a change of clothes before we headed off again. On the whole, it was a very friendly, pretty race, and if they ever invented a means of guaranteeing better weather, I’d be back like a shot! As it stands, though, I expect it’ll be a few years before I consider venturing so far north for a race again.
I didn’t get a PB – my PB from the Town Moor Half still stands – but I was really happy with my much steadier pacing, which shows that my treadmill pacing practice is starting to pay off.
Geth and I hadn’t done any races put on by the North East Marathon Club before, but having heard good things about the Town Moor Half Marathon, we decided to give it a go this year – even though it did mean (a) running a half marathon the night after a gig and (b) stretching our race season into November, which is when we’re usually curled up at home for our winter running slump!
The North East Marathon Club’s aim is to put on affordable marathons for people in the north-east of England. Most of their events are lapped courses, so you can choose what distance you do – the Town Moor Marathon is seven laps of the Town Moor, and if you choose to do the half, you do a special half distance lap first before doing three laps of the main course.
I’m glad I did it for the experience, but boy, doing a lapped half marathon is tough. You have to run past the finish funnel three times before finally being able to run into it on the fourth occasion, and every time you pass it, your legs beg you to call it a day and your brain screams ‘do we really have to run that full lap AGAIN?’ I was better trained for this one than I was for the Great North Run, and I did end up running it about three minutes faster (so I got a PB, somehow!) but it felt much, much harder.
Also, that gravel. It hurts your feet and gets in the way when you’re running a 5k parkrun. It hurts much, much worse when you’re ten miles into a half marathon.
Great goodie bag though. Gloves instead of a t-shirt! Gorgeous medal! And I really, really needed that chocolate bar. Good stuff.
Following this morning’s race, Geth and I headed to the pub to meet up with our friend Matt, and then went for a well-deserved race celebration meal at Pizza Hut. Much as I like races, it was much nicer drinking and eating in warm indoor environments than it had been running in the rain this morning.
We made sure to finish our meal in plenty of time so we could get back and watch Doctor Who and the Strictly results, which is already becoming my favourite kind of autumn Sunday evening.
OOTD: showing off the new race shirt. T-shirt Yorkshire 10 Mile (2018), jeans Levi (2018), trainers Reebok (2013).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Traditional – Scotland The Brave
Eternal and Bebe Winans – I Wanna Be The Only One
Ella Henderson – Ghost
Duran Duran – Come Undone
Sigala and Paloma Faith – Lullaby
Samantha Fox – Touch Me
