Day 188: Midnight Madness: Part Two

RUN: 2.1 miles

On the jog back through town, we attracted more comments from amused festive drinkers, and we even attracted some followers, who fancied a go themselves. High heels were no obstacle for one girl who decided to join in for quite a way.

Our mad midnight run turned out to be rather fun, and we didn't feel in danger or anything. But I don't think I'll be doing it on a regular basis, just in case.

Here's  the second part of our midnight run

Day 187: Midnight Madness: Part One

RUN: 2.1 miles

Tonight's run started at 11:40pm.

In the morning we're off to Ireland for a few days over New Year. We're flying to Dublin and then getting a bus to Donegal and staying with our friends' family in the countryside.

So a run in the dark when we get there is out of the question, really, and even though it's a 6am flight it will be quite late by the time we reach our destination. So a run after midnight tonight seems like the only option to squeeze in a run tomorrow... the things I do!

Well the things we do, actually. I had a chapperone - Boyfriend Andy and I headed out tonight to run two miles before midnight, then planned to run the two miles back after midnight as tomorrow's run.

We stuck to the main roads, through the town. Of course, on a Friday night during the festive period, we attracted the attention of a few people enjoying a night out while we were jogging along...

Here's our midnight run Part 1

Day 185: Family visit to run off the Christmas feast

RUN: 4.0 miles

Since Christmas is a time for family - and I needed to work off yesterday's feast - I combined today's run with a visit to my cousin and her fiancee in their new home two miles from mine.
It's nice to have somewhere to go on a run and somehow a distance seems much shorter when you're actually going somewhere, rather than running a circular route. It help especially if there's a warm living room and a cup of tea involved!
I think I might become a regular caller to Sarah and Anthony's house on the four-mile days of my marathon training schedule. Is it cheating to stop for as chat along the route?

Here's today's run

Day 184: "But you'll have to run on Christmas Day..."

RUN: 1.2 miles

The most common thing people say when they find out I'm running 365 days is "...but you'll have to run on Christmas Day and everything!"
Well, here it is - and it wasn't too bad, actually. I don't think I'll be running next Christmas Day, though - It didn't feel very Christmassy.

We got up early and boyfriend Andy and I went for a quick whizz round the block ahead of a busy day of family visits, cooking and - of course - eating!
It was just after 9am and there was nobody about - the roads were eerily quiet. I imagine the few people who did drive past were commenting on the nutty runners, though.

Six months down, six months to go..!

Here's today's run

Day 183: Quick Christmas Eve runaround

RUN: 1.7 miles

Just another little one tonight before preparing Christmas dinner for ten for tomorrow and a few Christmas drinks at the pub to kick off the celebrations. Busy busy busy!

Here's today's run

Day 182: Woohoo! I've reached the halfway mark!

RUN: 1.3 miles

I'll be six calendar months into my challenge on Christmas Day, but today marks the halfway point in terms of days. So time for a little reflection on the past six months...

 

A good way of motivating yourself to do something is telling everyone that you're going to do it. If you're anything like me, once it's out of your mouth, that's it, you have to stick to it.

 

I was in the bottom set at school for PE. Some people are built for action and exercise, but I have a natural inclination for keeping still and being creative. So, as I've said a lot before, 1,000 miles is a big challenge for me. Getting fit has been rather strange experience. I half imagined I would be a lean, glowing, graceful goddess of fitness by now (not really!), but running is still more difficult than I'd like it to be. Sometimes it comes easy, other times it's like I've never run a step before.

 

When I decided to do this challenge, I was aiming high - to raise £1,000 for the Smile Train. I thought people would think I was a bit mad, but perhaps I would be able to convince a few people to part with some cash for a good cause, highlighted by my silly running. Well the amount of support has been a lovely surprise. Halfway through and I've almost raised £1,400 now - how good is that?! It means TEN children can have corrective operations to change their lives. Fantastic! Thank you everyone.

 

Here's some photos my friend Donna took at the Abbey Dash in November - including a bit of warm-up aerobics

 

I enjoy doing races more than I thought I would. I'm not very competitive, but I like the atmosphere of running with thousands of other people and having a shorter-term goal to train for. If I get a good time, then that's a bonus. I also never thought I'd do a marathon - or a half marathon for that matter - but I'm going to give it a good try. Along with the cleft lip and palate children and all my sponsors, the thought of those 26 miles is another good motivation to get out and run.

 

The weather has been less of a factor than I imagined. I was dreading the winter, but the cold weather has worked in my favour and helped rather than hindered my running. I'm dreading the spring and summer now!

 

Running through my problems with painful shin splints in the first few months thankfully worked out well, and it was a lesson in perseverance.

Today I celebrated the halfway point with a little run and a few Christmas tunes on my iPod.
Here's today's run

Day 181: Into the gym for an early Christmas 'treat'

RUN: 6.2 miles (10.04km)

This morning the rain was incessant. This afternoon the rain was incessant.
I had been hoping to do a longer run today after being rather stuck for time and having had to squeeze in some woefully short runs of late. So after 180 days of resisting the lure of the cosy gym, I finally gave in.

As an early christmas present to myself, I took to the treadmill in the gym. I wanted to make it count, so I aimed for 10k, which I ran on the street in less than an hour a few weeks ago.

The treadmill wasn't quite the 'holiday' I'd imagined - I must admit it was pretty difficult.
Compared to outside, the gym was very warm... too warm. I couldn't work the TV on the treadmill, so spent about 40 minutes staring at a wall, a blank screen and the digital display, watching the time and the metres sloooowly tick up. All the while I was surprised how much I wished to be back outside.
Towards the end, things brightened up a bit when I worked out how to get the TV back on, so I had a bit of a distraction for the final few minutes.

 

The treadmill shuts off after an hour. As you can see from the photos above, the first 9.07km took me the hour, plus all but nine seconds of the five-minute 'cool-down'. Then the 0.97km took seven minutes. A poor performance.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the gym! I shall not be back in a hurry.

Running a bit behind on my blog posts

Just a little apology for those keeping up with my blog and wondering why I haven't given an update for a few days.

The running is certainly still going on and I won't miss a day, even though my blog might seem to tell a different story. I usually type a little note on my phone and then add it to my blog when I get chance. All this running and blogging takes rather a long time, so with the added business of Christmas preparations I'm falling a few days bit behind.

I'm very grateful to those who bear with me and keep checking my blog. Marathon training begins in early January, so I'll be picking up the pace and making a New Year's resolution to do daily updates. Keep watch this space!

Here's my sophisticated admin system - a list of each day and the distance run on my phone, and a calendar print-out to check the day number and date!

Day 180: Hooray... Winter Solstice is here!

RUN: 2.2 miles 

At last! The darkest day of the year has arrived. I'm looking forward to seeing the evenings get lighter and lighter. The good thing about running in the dark is that not many people are about to see you, but it's definitely much easier to go in the light. Plus you don't have to stick to the main roads and you can go down all the footpaths that are all too dingy and creepy in the dark.

So now the shortest day is behind us, it's all downhill from here... in a manner of speaking.

Here's today's run

Day 179: Another lazy run in the mud and rain

RUN: 1.2 miles 

I've had a rather lazy week this week, I'm afraid. I've been super busy getting everything ready for Christmas - buying presents, making presents, wrapping, preparing for Christmas dinner etc etc - but I've also been giving myself a little festive 'break' now I know I'll reach my halfway point with a respectable mileage. I'll hopefully be fresh and ready to start the marathon training schedule, too.

The miserable weather hasn't helped matters either. It's very wet and muddy. Here's another little run for today.

Straight through the middle it is, then

Day 178: Bit of a delayed reaction on the scales

RUN: 1.2 miles

I've been running for almost six months now. I'm doing it to raise money, not lose weight, but being a bit fitter and healthier is no bad side-effect and I imagined that I'd probably shed a few pounds along the way. Plus, people always ask me if I'm losing weight with all the running. So here's the answer...

Up until recently the scales have not budged from my original weight of about 9st 10 or so. I'm a healthy size 10 so wasn't bothered about losing weight. "Running isn't a good way to lose weight,"..."You're looking slimmer,"..."Muscle is heavier than fat," says everyone. But I didn't notice any difference, in myself or on the scales.

But over the last couple of weeks I've stepped on the scales out of curiosity and I've seen a rapid change. Now I'm 10 pounds down! I took some photos just to record the miraculous event, because I'm sure it won't last long with the big Christmas eat-off just around the corner (excuse the manky toe in the pics).

Here's today's run

Day 176: Turning on the waterworks after two miles

RUN: 2.2 miles 

A very strange thing happened this evening.

I did a bit of Christmas shopping (that's not the strange part), then squeezed in a quick run before tea. Just a two-miler.

The weird part was that as I finished my run I burst into tears. Luckily nobody was around or they would have thought I was a nutcase.
I wasn't upset or anything. I didn't feel particularly emotional at all. I felt like some sort of physical, chemical response. Then I couldn't stop!
I am a bit of a cry baby sometimes, but this was weird - so I Googled it. Turns out it happens to other people. But normally after 10, 12, 16 miles and marathons... not two miles! Bizarre.

This whole challenge - or 'journey' as I would call it if I was an X Factor contestant - has been rather more emotional than I expected.
Not through the effort of the running, but because the level of support and the number of people who wish me well, want to see me succeed and even sponsor me to make my efforts worthwhile makes me feel very loved and lucky.
Then there's the faces that we're all trying to fix. Mine's fixed already. Very lucky me again.

Here's today's run

Day 175: Squeezing a run between Christmas gatherings

RUN: 1.2 miles

Running is taking a bit of a back seat at the moment, thanks to Christmas activities. We had two social engagements today - a family Christmas lunch then straight to an evening gathering with friends - so just a short one this morning. It's a hard life with all this fun to fit in.

Here's today's run

Day 174: Making an effort to reach the average

RUN: 3.1 miles

With a series of too-short runs in the bag, and no doubt a few more on the cards before Christmas I thought I'd make the effort to do the three-mile average distance. How heroic of me (!)

Here's today's run

Day 172: Minus five - the coldest run so far!

RUN: 1.4 miles

It is VERY cold tonight. Freezing fog has been hanging around all day and it is really not weather to entice you out for a run.
Here's the scene - although I must say it doesn't look as foggy as it was - so you can see why I only did 1.4 miles. My fingers were very numb! Here's tonight's run

Brrrrrrrr!!

Day 171: Pre-run bath motivation

RUN: 2.2 miles

It's very cold again tonight. A pre-run bath was a good motivator, though, and the thought of a lovely soak after a long day was just what I needed to keep me going. Here's today's run.



Day 170: Christmas dinner + late run = bad combination

RUN: 1.1 miles

Not much time available today as I went out for a Christmas meal. Due to a bit of bad planning I ended up stuffed full of festive food plodding up the road on a bit of a late one.
Thinking ahead to marathon training again, I'll have to be much stricter with myself come January and plan my social life around my running rather than the other way round.

It's very frosty tonight. It's not too slippy on the pavements, luckily, but the ground is very sparkly so I was treading very carefully. I'm still not taking to the treadmill though!

 It's not too clear, but this is the pavement/road all sparkly with ice

Here's today's run

Day 169: Recovering from a tiring weekend

RUN: 1.2 miles

Just a little recovery run to stretch my legs after yesterday's big one. It's quite a scary thought that yesterday's distance will be practically a short weekend run once marathon training starts next month. Yikes!

Here's today's run