Today we decided to tackle the steep hill on the opposite side of Cala Llonga bay to where where staying (Fiesta Cala Llonga). Except we couldn't find the steps that we can see from our hotel... so we turned back and did the Day 1 route backwards. Much better - tackling the steepest hill first and then gentle downhill (mostly) for the rest of the way. 3.1 miles overall.
Here's a pic I took of the empty beach as a jogged past...
It´s been quite a bit warmer the past two mornings than on Day 1. Maybe we´ve been slightly later setting off and those few minutes make all the difference.
We've seen quite a few people running in the midday heat over the past few days. They must be mad. Any later than 7.15 and I´d be collapsing I'm sure!
Might try a shorter run tomorrow because my shins are suffering a little bit.
Hola! Got up at the crack of dawn again today (well, 7am) and took a different road out to another bay.
I took a pic, which I´ll post when I get home. It was beautiful.
I did 2.6 miles and it was WARM! Very sweaty and much harder work than yesterday.
It does feel good to be out and about early, though (although we were still beaten to it by all the cheeky sunbed reservers and their pesky towels!)
Here's me on the start line. These are not the clothes I ran in, obviously (!) it's just to show where it all started.
My birthday is finally here and I´ve done my first run!
I ran (with my boyfriend Andy - since it´s my birthday and I´m in a 'strange' country) a few miles around Cala Llonga.
We headed out about 7am, while the shadows were long and the pavements were still relatively cool.
A few stretches by the pool and off we went, out of the town away from the beach down a dirt track for a mile or so, looped round to the main road, up the hill and back down towards the beach and the hotel.
Cooled down next to the pool and got ready for our birthday boat trip.
I´ve looked on Google Maps to see how far we ran because I can´t use MapMyRun out here. I´ll do that for every run once I'm back in England though. We did 2.8 miles today.
It was warm work indeed and I can tell I haven´t run for a little while, waiting for my shin splints to heal, so it was quite hard work for just my first few miles, I must admit. Thought I´d start with just a shortish route for the first one though.
Shins feel ok though, which is good news *Touch wood*.
Here's me resting and cooling down by the very empty pool after my first run...
So there are just a few minutes to go until my birthday... or maybe it will already be here by the time I post this.
I´m still in Ibiza so I´m going to get up early and run before the heat kicks in. Plus we´re going on a birthday boat trip so I need to get a few miles in before the bus picks us up!
I'll take some photos and maybe a video so you can see how pretty it is here. A lovely place to begin my challenge.
I´ll post the first of my daily run blogs tomorrow and let you all know how it goes. Wooo!
My charity - Smile Train - has sent me a nice fundraising pack with some leaflets, booklets, posters, DVDs and a T-shirt.
When I get back I´ll post some of that stuff up here to give a better idea of the work they do and why it´s so important to me to make a big effort to support them... and why I´d love you to support me in doing that.
I watched the DVD - Smile Pinki - the other day.
It´s about a five-year-old girl from a village in the Mirzapur District, India, born with a cleft lip into a desperately poor family, and how Smile Train´s work helps to transform her life. It won an Oscar for Best Short Documentary in 2009 and is well worth a watch because it really demonstrates how cleft lip and palates affect children and their families in a society very different from ours.
The lack of awareness, the attitudes and experiences, not to mention the level of healthcare and opportunity, are world away from everything I experienced growing up with exactly the same thing as some of these children.
It is beyond belief the social isolation and stigmatisation these children - and adults - have to face because they have a facial deformity that is so simple to correct with the right skills and funding. It´s something that has never held me back and I would like to give others a tiny bit of the opportunity I have had.
Anyway, here´s a little bit of the film.
If you´re interested in watching the whole thing, let me know.
Well there are just two days to go until my birthday and the start of my big challenge.
At the moment I´m on holiday in Ibiza, so I´ll be doing the first five days of running in Cala Llonga, Ibiza.
I´m sure it´s going to be hot work, but I´m planning to get up early and beat the heat. There´s always the motivation of a a nice glass of sangria and a cooling dip in the pool when I get back to keep me going.
I get back to England on June 30th and have a week off work, so plenty of chance to put in a few miles in the rain (no doubt) if my holiday puts me a little behind schedule.
So I´m hoping to do two or three miles here each day for the first five days.
I won´t be able to track my routes on MapMyRun here (because I won´t have a 3G connection on my phone), but I will plot my routes on Google Maps and hopefully get a fairly accurate distance. I´ll round it down, just to be on the safe side... I don´t want to be seen to be cheating at all, now, do I?
Well it's about time actually, because I'm starting to get blisters and shin splints while making do with my old gym trainers (which look nice but are very unsuitable for a dedicated athlete like me!)
The old ones were giving me blisters on the ends of my toes (see this lovely pic below!) - but I'm going to have to look after these little tootsies if they're going to last me the year!
So we've been to SportsShoes Unlimited (or SportsShoes.com) in Bradford (which is going to shut down next month, unfortunately) and bought a lovely pair of trainers. They're silver and purple ones to me, but for anyone who's interested in further detail they're Brooks Lady Adrenaline GTS 11 Running Shoes. Yes, that was 'Lady'. Perfect for me, ey?
Anyway, I did a little run on the treadmill in the shop and the man told me I overpronate (initially strike the ground on the outside of my heel but roll my foot too far the other way before bouncing off on my toes, putting strain on all the wrong bits in my ankles and knees) so I needed some trainers with support in the arch to help me stop that happening.
Afterwards we took the trainers to Nandos and soon I'll be taking them out on the road... stay tuned!
