Quarterly update

I got back to running on Tuesday, after my 6 days of run rest. Running with the juniors was easier than last week, running with the adults was tough as usual. The bonus came when I went out Wednesday morning with the dog. This week I managed a 3 mile Dogjog, my leg, though sore, was no where near as sore as last week.
Thursday was training on Land rover Hill, I found this hard as my ankle was painful on inclines and declines. Was fine on the way there and back though.
Friday was the Moon-joggers Full Worm 10km virtual race. I planned my route, Home to Studley church and back. I set out early, it was sunny but cold. I ran as fast As my ankle would let me, I was lucky not to need to stop for traffic, crossing roads, the off road stretch along the track through the fields was muddy and knocked my pace slightly, but soon I was in Studley Village heading for the deer park, I crossed the 3 cattle grids and attacked the hill as best I could, all the way to the gate, turned and ran back down, by now my ankle was warmed up and a lot less niggly. A mile downhill, back over the cattlegrids and back to the muddy track through the fields back through town, pushing myself the whole way stopping my watch at 6.2 miles. I was pleased with an hour. I found it hard to race with no fellow competitors.



Yesterday I never ran but did lots of walking at Robin Hoods Bay.


This morning it was bitterly cold as I set off to Studley to run a few church and backs. I needed to do 13 miles to ensure that I made 500 miles for the year, it's 2 miles to Studley and then just over a mile to the gate by the church. So I figured that 4 church and backs would make my 500 miles for the Year, but if I could manage 5 the add a bit on, on the way home, then I could make 503.25 miles for the year. A quarter of the challenge.
I set off steady to allow my self to warm up, i stashed my drinks bottle and headed up the drive and made 4 church and backs quite easily, with a break at the bottom each time for a drink and a stretch. I decided to go for the fifth. That was tough, on the way back down I met Vicky and Annette, they were on their way up, they were doing the 7 bridges. We stopped for a chat. I then continued to the bottom, collected my drink from where I'd stashed it, ran up to SAMs seat, admired the view and set off on the 2 1/2 miles home.
16.29 miles done :-)
My ankle is not painless to run on, but its a lot less painful than it was and its not as painful after running. I'm as ready as I'll ever be for Blackpool marathon next week.

So here are the quarterly stats.
In 2013 so far I have;
Swum 17 miles
Cycled 375.2 miles
Run 503.3 miles
Walked 186.7 miles
Total 1084.1 miles

Challenges still live;
My own run 2013 miles in 2013 including a marathon a month for The British Lung Foundation= 503.3 including 3 marathons
Ripon to Moscow, currently at Molenbos in The Netherlands


Moonjoggers run and walk 2013 miles = 692 miles

Outlaw Ironmorph for Poppyfields challenge to do some exercise everyday in 2013, still going.

DailyMile and RunSaturday #2013milesin2013 all mileage counts.
Oddly I never added all my walking in January and February on DailyMile, but I logged everything on RunSaturday, will have to catch DailyMile up total mileage 1084.1 miles

Raise £1000 for The British Lung Foundation £67.00 so far.

http://www.justgiving.com/Lena-Conlin-Dad

Take a break

For regular readers of this blog you will know that I have been struggling with a sore foot and leg since turning my ankle way back in the middle of week 4.
After a good race at Lightwater Valley and running home last weekend, my leg was still sore on Tuesday for the Junior running club. This meant that I struggled running with the youngsters, mind you they are quick, as their session went on the pain eased and towards the end I was running ok again so I went with my usual adult group and had a great run, the pace was fast and the breaks few and short. The 2 runs together gave me a total of 11.82 miles. I was really buoyant and all set for a dogjog Wednesday morning, but unfortunately it was too painfulI couldn't get my foot off the ground.
Time to rest,
I have fought so long but ultimately the whole challenge is at risk if I continue to run, even though a rest now means a commitment to more miles once I start again. Initially I have decided to not run until next weeks Junior session, 6 days rest.
I cant do nothing so I am using the run rest to increase my time on the turbo trainer, and working hard at that.
So, today is Sunday, I haven't run for 5 days, I also have not taken any painkillers or used Ibuprofen cream for that length of time. I still have pain, but not as bad and now I can pinpoint the main pain area, around the ankle bone on inside of my left foot, but not a pain I can poke. Hopefully it will continue to improve over the next couple of days and I can soon get back to running.
Total running this year 465 miles 1548 miles to go.
15 miles behind target at the moment but I'm sure that when I'm fit I will be able to make that up.

I wish I'd been brave enough to rest earlier before I was forced to.

Still going forwards

Week 11 of my challenge and I'm still on target, but only just. I am now starting to realise the enormity of attempting to run 2013 miles within a year. Now I know that there are many people out there who very comfortably run 40 miles a week, for me it's tough. I feel a huge commitment now that I have started I have to finish.
My aim is to raise at least £1000 this year, to add to last years £1100 for the British Lung Foundation .
This week I have had to think about how I am going to succeed, particularly with my leg being sore. I've done my sums and if I take a week off running now, I will have to do 41 miles a week for the rest of the year. Now that does not seem like much, but that extra mile will take its toll as Outlaw approaches .
Today I ran the Lightwater Valley Challenge 10 km. this is a local race and I had planned to run home afterwards. This week my leg has been sore so I wondered if I could manage it. The race started at 11:00 and left the car park by a muddy lane, this bottlenecked the competitors and gave my leg time to warm up, I avoided the puddles as much as possible, not wanting to risk turning my ankle again. Soon we were on the road for about a mile and then down towards the quarry and the water stop before re entering the park and running underneath and alongside the roller coasters, between the rides and around the lake. My leg was coping quite well really, the grass finish was not good mind, but the finish was in sight and I pushed on towards the finishing chute where I received my gorgeous hand made finishers medal. All the medals were made at Jennyruth Workshops .


I completed the race in around 58 minutes and since my leg was warmed up, I decided to run home. I ran to North Stainley and then followed the Ripon Rowell route back to Ripon, with a detour towards the river Ure in search of a new run route, I got home at just over 7 miles, so 13 added to the mileage today, happy with that, I'm now resting my leg.
So here are this weeks stats;
No swimming
9.19 miles walking
39.88 miles run (painfully)
12.76 miles biked (turbo)
Total mileage this week 61.83 miles
Total run miles in 2013 453 miles

Miles to Moscow - just leaving Antwerp in Belgium on the A 313

Some weeks are just harder than others

Sometimes things just don't go to plan. For a start I'm writing this a day late.
Last week took its toll, so it's a good job that this week was a recovery week. Monday I swam and Tuesday was running club, not running for 2 days showed, I had a great run and as I was behind in my run mileage , I ran the long way home to make up 10 miles. Wednesday was sports massage. Libby sorted my last niggle, and although I would have liked her to work on my almost permanently painful shoulder, on Saturday I had turned my left ankle within the first 3 miles of the race and as usual carried on. Even though I had had a good club run the previous night my leg had been painful, so, my leg got the Libby treatment. Ouch! It was a little tender, and the shoulder had to wait (can't run 2013 miles on my shoulder). I have made another appointment so my leg better get better soon so my shoulder can be sorted.
Thursday was club training, my leg was tender so I took it easy (ish). Thursday was also my eldest son's birthday and his daughter was due that day. I was never far from my phone waiting for news. I didn't come. Friday I rested my leg and went for a mega swim instead. Still no baby news. Saturday was a rotten day weather wise, but 50 miles cycle was the plan. Billy and I waterproofed ourselves up the best we could, 2 laps of Ripon Tri bike route would do. I struggled to keep up with Billy, but he kept waiting for me, this meant him getting cold. The weather was deteriorating further, so we decided that 1lap was enough and headed home. We still managed just short of 30 miles. We got home to texts from son telling us that labour had started. This made for a distracted day.
Later that evening, for no apparent reason, my back started to hurt. This has happened a couple of times before, both times leaving me barely able to walk, sit or lay down. I went to bed but could not sleep, the baby had not arrived so the phone was by my bed (I never normally do that. My phone is normally turned off and left downstairs) I could not turn without waking and occasionally my phone would ping. Finally at 3:45 the text arrived, we were now grandparents, our granddaughter had waited until Mother's Day to arrive, at 0:42.
In the morning, i was so tired. I considered not running, but my running miles were down for the week and I don't want to let people down, so I decided to head to Studley and do 3 Church Gate and back laps. If it was too painful I could return home at any point. The run went ok, even though every time I turned at the gate, I turned into a headwind and snow flurries, but my back never ached and my leg was hardly painful. 10 miles done.
Later we headed to Harrogate for fish and chips at Graveleys fish restaurant, yummy followed by an amazing warm chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream, before we went to the hospital to meet out gorgeous granddaughter.
A tough week, tired, injured, excited and nervous, but it was all good in the end.
Run miles 24.53 placing me in Ghent, Belgium in my Virtual Ripon To Moscow challenge, 413 miles done 1600 miles to go.

March marathon

Week 9 started gently and ended in a massive mileage weekend.
For my 2013 challenge I have pledged to complete a marathon a month, either in training or an event. This weekend was Trollers Trot, a walk/run in the Yorkshire dales. It states that it is 25 miles so I figured that plus a bit would sort my March marathon. As we packed our kit on Friday night I realised that I had bought the wrong map. I put out a plea on Facebook for a correct map, and Matt offered me one. I also downloaded the route description and map and printed them off, though the map was not very clear.
I ran this with hubby and the plan was to walk the ups and run the flats and downs. It was a glorious day, very bright and frosty to start, but it soon warmed up. We got a lift with Caroline, along with Annette and Sharon. It wasn't too much of an early start. The race start for runners was 9 am (walkers were 8 am) so we set off from Ripon at 7:45.
We arrived at Threshfield and walked to the school to register. There were quite a few Ripon Runners there already. We were numbers 38 and 39. I collected the map from Matt. Soon it was time to go, we stood outside on the road in the sunshine at the back of the crowd listening to the race directors Irish lilt as he gave us some final information, Annette said it was like being back in Dublin. Annette, Caroline and Sharon were doing the event for fun, Billy and I were racing it. We set off, and soon there was a multicoloured ribbon of runners winding its way into the distance. Within the first mile we started to climb, this was a long climb on grass and moor, but we both have quite a good walking pace and soon were passing people. The sun was shining and there was frost on the ground. The views over the surrounding dales were stunning.
We were at about 6 miles when we first found there was no one in site ahead and so needed the route description. With the help of some walkers who caught us up we soon found our place on the description and were on our way to checkpoint 3. Short or long? The Marshall asked, long we said, (there were 2 routes on the event, 12 and 25 miles.) long we said and headed for refreshments. There was water squash and popcorn. There was not much popcorn, so we had a drink of squash and took a few kernels of corn each, checked the route and were off again.
Soon we headed up a hill, it was really steep, past a copse of trees, it wound its way up the hillside. It was hard work, we stopped a couple of times to admire the view (breathe). Near the top, there was a photographer,"we should run" Billy said, "you can if you want" I gasped. We passed the time of day and continued on our way, onto the moor along a narrow track. We could now see people ahead in the distance again, that made things easier for a while. We slowly caught and passed some walkers and suddenly we were going down, down, down towards a reservoir, we crossed the dam to checkpoint 4. We continued downwards for about 3 miles passing walkers as we went, then to checkpoint 5, hot drinks and food it said on the description. There were just a few biscuits left, so we took one each and carried on our way. We past an ice cream van, mmmm! Tempting, we had an emergency tender with us, but the prospect of 12 miles with rattling change put us off.
Along the river was so peaceful, a few dog walkers but no one from the event in sight, as we came out onto the road we met a lady on her own, she was a competitor, she was a bit stuck, although she had done it last year. We helped each other and set off upwards again. We were running up a lane, 1/2 mile to check point 6 according to the description, it was way more than that. When we got there it was a a small green sign. It said self checkpoint 6. The next description said through a gate by a barn, the barn was a pile of rubble, but we were aided by the sight of some Ripon Runners ahead. We followed them. Suddenly Billy's phone rang, we stopped, I dug it out of his back pack and it stopped. He didn't recognise the number so we put it back and carried on. We came out on to a road, where had they gone? There was no sign of the other runners, suddenly a runner came up behind and pointed us in the right direction and ran with us a while. At Trollers Gill we had another steep climb, above us we could see the Ripon Runners, it was Helen and Stella. As we rounded a bend, there was Ben with his children, enjoying a day out, it was great to see a familiar face at that point. We continued up to check point 7. Yum cake, there were hot drinks and loads of cake and bicycles here. We had something to eat and a hot drink but were stiffening up. Off we went again, a little more up, then a lot of down. We ran more confidently as now there were walkers ahead, but they were a different event. We passed them and continued on, we were into the last 10 km now. Back to the river, over a bridge, past a pub with people sat outside enjoying the sunshine with a drink. 3 miles along the river Billy said." I'm struggling" I admitted. Billy went in my pack and got me a dextrose tablet, we got into a rhythm and trotted along to a suspension bridge. Billy ran ahead and I entered onto the bridge, it was swaying, it wasn't nice, it swayed more, I slowed, I felt sick I almost stopped. But I carried on slowly with white knuckles thinking "I have to get off before the next runners or it will start shaking and wobbling again" I was so relieved to get off it. We carried along the river side. They're just behind Billy said, knowing Id not give up if I thought I was going to be overtaken, I pushed myself onwards and we were soon on the road. The route description finished, we just had to get bak to the school. I looked behind and Helen and Stella were close so I pushed towards the end. I had to walk the hill though, not daring to look behind, and there it was, the school. We ran in. I registered as finished, checked my watch 25.34 miles, handed my pack to Billy and set off down the road to complete my marathon. I ran to the end of the road and back, it was lovely not running with a pack, but I was tired. I got back to the school 25.89 miles. I carried on constantly checking my watch, at 26.1 I turned back. I re entered the school at 26.23 miles.
Now the best bit, pie and peas and a cup of good strong coffee.
That was yesterday, today Billy and I did a 41 mile cycle. We picked a flattish route but that meant relentless pedalling. Was enjoyable though.
TIRED NOW
Run 44 miles
Bike 52 miles
Walk 17 miles
Swim 1 mile
Total mileage for week 9 114
Total run mileage in 2013 = 389 that places me on the E40 in Belgium on my Ripon to Moscow virtual challenge