Ups and Downs :-(

And not a hill session in sight :-(
I had a good week last week, managed to do all my training sessions and was feeling quite pleased with myself... however on Saturday I was feeling a bit of an ache in my right achilles which didn't stop me running on either Saturday or Sunday, but by Sunday afternoon the ache was officially sore!
Sunday night it was very painful so I rang the physio on Monday morning and was fortunate to get an appointment for this morning.  Some work on my calves, some ultrasound on the achilles itself and some fabby pink and blue tape and it seemed much better so I decided to try tonight's training session.  I jogged for about 10 minutes on the way to meet our friend George, and we jogged for about another 15minutes before the session proper - it should have been 4 * 1km with 200m recovery reps, but as soon as I started to up the pace on the first rep the achilles said NO!!! I hobbled and walked for about another 10-15mins but there wasn't much point.  Fortunately, John came by on the way home from his run and he continued home and came back to get me in the car, this saved me a half hour hobble home.

On a happier note, I went to an early morning fitcamp with the PinPoint-Fitness crew, they are launching a new set of fatloss camps and the Guinea Pigs were invited along.  It was great, I really enjoy working out early in the morning, and it was great to catch up with all the guys again, however I think I'll have to give it a miss tomorrow and Friday is a wait and see at the moment. 

So, keep sending me healing vibes and I promise to try really hard not to moan too much :-)

An achieving day...

Another wee tick in a box in the Big Book of Life for me today :-)
This for those of you who aren't local, is the Clackmannanshire Bridge, it's the newest crossing of the River Forth and is a great link to The Wee County.  However, I have a thing about crossing bridges over water, according to my learned friend Malcolm it's known as Gephyrophobia. 
I have crossed this bridge on foot a few times since it opened as it forms part of a great 20mile loop for us from the house over either this or the older Kincardine Bridge, back over the other one and home again and whilst I have run some of it, I usually walk part of it, sticking as close to the fence as I can, especially if it's windy.  Well after all the preamble, the point of this is that I ran all the way across it today and into a headwind so big :-) about that...
This morning we went along to Falkirk parkrun to volunteer, there was a good turnout once again and although the sun was hidden behind the clouds it was a pleasant morning for a run.  
I am following a new training program (I think I've mentioned this before!) and my weekend sessions are a 60min easy run and a 10mile Long Slow Run henceforth known as LSR ;-)  I could race the 5k at parkrun instead of the 60min Easy occasionally if I want, but tomorrow I am going for Afternoon Tea with Prosecco in Glasgow with 3 friends from work, to celebrate one of them getting a promotion, so I had to swap and do my LSR today and I'll do the easy run in the morning when I get up.  So, I decided that I would run home from parkrun, John dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and said "see you at home - you should head in that direction..." we have a strange relationship in some folks eyes LOL!
There was a wee ENEasterly blowing which meant that I was running into it all the way across the bridge, but I made it the whole way across and carried on along the carse and up the hill into Clackmannan.  A wee downhill out of the town to reward you for the climb up and then along the main road to Alloa.  It feels reasonably flat but when you look at the stats on the Garmin it's a steady climb all the way home.  I've a wee bit of an ache in my achilles and stiff legs now, but apart from that nothing too drastic, I came home and feet went straight into a bucket of rainwater which was fine and cold and helped to chill things off!
A recovery shake, an epsom salts bath, a yoghurt and I felt fine, so I baked some muffins and cookies to pass the afternoon.
This evening has been spent watching the football, Bayern Munich v Chelsea, I've no favourite to win, and I'm not even a football fan, but I enjoy the competition of the big games... Euro 2012 starts in a fortnight and I'll probably watch most of those games too for the same reason.
Still doing reasonably well with the eating, and no alcohol for 12 days now, just 6 more to go until Brussels when I may have a wee vin rouge in the Grand Place as I partake of the jazz festival, then on Sunday we run the 20km race - but more about that nearer the time.

Midweek ponderings :-)

That is sooooooooo true... and was brought home to me yesterday :-)
On Monday I started my "Devil program"  this is a training program which will hopefully get me fit and ready for the Devil of the highlands ultra in August.  I entered the race after the Highland Fling at the end of April and am on the reserve list.  However it is usually the case that most of the people (usually all!) on the reserve list do get a place to run, as people enter at the start of the year and then have to pull out for a myriad of reasons.  Some get injured during the training, for others life just gets in the way...
So the program started on Monday, and fortunately that was a REST day :-) I was quite glad as I was fairly tired after the 10k on Sunday.  Yesterday I had a great morning at work, then had to spend the afternoon dealing with other people's ineptitude, arrogance and downright stupidity, so by the time it got to the end of the day I had lost all my enthusiasm and excitement about starting a new program :-(  However, I 'zipped up my mansuit' put on my shoes and went out to do my first Fartlek session.  The sun was shining and although my warmup involved running into a stiff northerly - so stiff that at times I didn't feel at all like I was running downhill, I soon got into the session... 2m30 fast then 1m30 recovery times 6 then a gentle jog home. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was really pleased that I managed to do all six intervals and was still fit for the uphill all the way home!  I met my son out for his run and he chummed me up the road which was nice as it discouraged me from stopping half way up the hill and walking the rest of the way.  By the end of it, the stresses of the day had gone hence my picture :-)
Today was a better day workwise, and this evening's session was a 50min easy pace run.  A friend and colleague came with me and we chatted round the 6.5k route and had a very pleasant time.
My legs are quite tired and a bit stiff now so tomorrow morning's first job will be a session on the foam roller...
I have another 40min easy run tomorrow night then on Friday I get another REST day :-) I plan to put my trail shoes on tomorrow and go for a wee easy run around Gartmorn Dam, and if the weather forecast is accurate it should be fine and muddy :-)
I'm still trying to stick to the healthy eating principle that I learned working with the guys at PinPoint Fitness and doing pretty well, next week I am going back for a free week with them to trial the new stuff they've been learning this past week at their training camp in Marbella - something wrong here - John and Pamela train in Marbella we train in cold, wet Cumbernauld lol!

Another new PB!

It's been a good year so far, I've had new PBs at 5km, half marathon and now at 10km. 
I ran the Women's 10K in Glasgow today, along with another 12000 or so women,  and finished it 9minutes faster than I did my last 10k in September 2011. 60minutes and 48seconds - I'm sure there will be folk who will go "oh if you'd just managed those 48seconds..." but no that doesn't bother me at all.  If I'd got sub 60 that would have been my dream goal, and on a better day maybe I might have - it was a pretty tough day weather wise today it was cold, drizzly - which turned to heavy rain/sleet just after I finished and very blustery winds!  As always the people of Glasgow turn out to support, this is an amazing race, so well organised and supported, even more so on a day like today when they could easily have stayed indoors...

All of our friends who ran today did really well so it was a great day all round.

I've missed my fitness sessions this week now that the program is finished but am hoping to get back to the gym to pick up on my weight training sessions this week.  That and get more running done.  Hopefully the foul weather will pass soon and we'll maybe get something akin to a summer, that makes it easier to get out and run in the evening or early morning.
Not really much else to say, it's been a great day, and was made all the better for the support of John and our friends Malcolm and George who came along to support and carry bags for us today - thanks guys it was a cold stand for you all out there, but I hope your 'Ladies' did you proud xx

Back Again! :-)

It's a bit of a cliche but it is true... What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and having just finished my 4 week stint as a Guinea Pig, I am not dead, but I AM stronger!!  Mentally and physically stronger, more aware of the strength of my body and the limits I can push it to - this has paid off in my running and I am delighted, as this was the initial purpose of trying to lose weight and get fitter.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the last 4 weeks of training with John Allan and Pamela Halkett of PinPoint Fitness really nice people who can motivate and push you to just grind out "one more" :-)
I've made some new friends along the way and have enjoyed the banter and am grateful for their encouragement and support.  They have all done brilliantly, with lbs and inches coming off all over the place :-)

Since I last blogged about running here, we have done the Hoka Highland Fling - what a day!! The weather gods took pity on us and we had almost perfect racing weather, not too warm but not too cold, hardly any wind and enough sunshine to warm your bones.  I am totally in awe of my amazing husband who ran the full course, 53 miles from Milngavie to Tyndrum, in 12hours and 13 minutes!  He was incredible shape when he finished, lucid, smiling and injury free!
Our friends and colleagues Janette, Rab and Colin ran the relay with me and we all had fantastic runs, we finished in a combined time of 11hours and 50minutes which I am delighted with.  On a personal note, the climb up Conic hill which took me 1hr 30 in March, took me 1hr 10 on race day and I got to Rowardennan 18minutes faster than I had the last time.

On Friday  past I ran the Black Rock 5 race with a group of friends from Falkirk parkrun  it is a slightly crazy race out onto the beach and round a rock before the tide comes in!  It was freezing cold but great fun, and yes I'm looking forward to doing it again next year... It's quite a sight to see all the runners streaming across the sand.

I am really enjoying my running at the moment, this is probably due to the fact that I lost 8lbs on my Guinea Pig journey and this means there's less to move over the ground so makes it a much more pleasant experience.  I feel so much stronger too which means I don't tire so quickly and I am running faster than I have ever run before so I am hoping that this bodes well for my next race which is the Women's 10k in Glasgow this coming Sunday.  Fingers crossed that all goes well as I'd really like to get another new PB at this one, I'd like to keep the chain going.
My leg is behaving itself at the moment, it's the usual tired-sore after a run, but no new pain or swelling etc so hopefully all is calm for a while to come.
I had a wee moment of madness after the Highland Fling, and put in an entry for the Devil of the Highlands, this is the 43 mile ultra which John ran last August and is the second half of the West Highland Way from Tyndrum to Fort William... I am officially on the waiting list so here's hoping I get a place - the first 3 on the waiting list have already got places - eeek!  This will mean a bit more intense long distance training over the next few weeks, but it will set me in good stead for the Marathon in Toronto in October even if I don't get the place on the Fling.
So that's enough for now, will try to update reasonably regularly over the coming months and record what we get up to :-)

Blogging along

I am not doing very well with coming back to update this on a regular basis, it's not that we're not doing anything, it's just that I don't seem to find the time - that's a feeble excuse given the amount of time I can spend online catching up with facebook friends!

However on Monday 9 April I am embarking on a new journey, I am going to be a guinea pig and undertake a 4 week training and nutrition plan with John and Pamela from Pinpoint-Fitness. These are the guys we did our personal training with in January and February and they have devised a new workout regime which they are hoping to market so myself and 4 others are going to road-test it :-)
On the running/training front it's still going pretty well, I had a couple of short but tough runs on Thursday up at Crianlarich, and got a new PB at Falkirk parkrun on Sat then we went back to Callendar Park on Sunday morning to meet with a group of fellow nutters to do a hill rep session on our beloved Heartbreak Hill (HBH) the weather was kind to us as the good weather lasted all over the weekend - it was forecast to break on the Friday but didn't.
We had blizzards on Tuesday though to make up for it! There's still snow on the hills but hopefully the sunshine will continue and we will move into a long, sunny Spring and Summer.

I am going to blog about this experience here http://helenatpinpointfitness.blogspot.co.uk/ so if you're at all interested, feel free to pop in for a look!

Another 6 weeks has passed...

I really don't know what is happening to this year, it's flying in waaaay to fast!!
The clock's 'spring' forward tonight which means that Summer won't be too far away and we get the pleasure of light mornings and long light evenings and I feel so much better :-)

So what have we been up to since I last posted early February? Work has been stressful and pressured so every non-working moment has been spent either running, training or sleeping trying to forget about it... it's settled down a bit in the past few weeks but it's still not the happy place it used to be :-(

We have been to Falkirk parkrun most Saturday mornings, either to run or volunteer, and I have successfully run all the way round the course, and conquered Heartbreak Hill - at the same time I got a new PB by 5minutes so that was a good morning :-)
Apart from that we have been training, both for a couple of half marathons and for our upcoming adventure at the Hoka Highland Fling - I am running a relay leg and John is doing the whole distance solo! (53miles)
We went to Paris for the Semi-marathon de Paris on 4 March and both had good runs, we both got new PBs! It was a very well organised event with about 23000 runners and we had perfect weather conditions so there was no excuse for not doing well :-)
2 weeks later on March 18 we ran our local race, the Alloa Half Marathon, once again we had fantastic race conditions, sunshine and barely a wind along the notorious hillfoots road, once again we both PB'd :-) we had a number of friends running and everyone did really well so all in all it was a great day out.
On Thursday I had the exciting experience(!) of having an MRI scan on my left leg, what a racket the machine makes! John also had the day off on Thursday and so he decided he was going to do a 30mile long run along the Forth & Clyde canal from Grangemouth to Clydebank, this meant that he could meet me at the hospital. It was the best day of the year so far, no wind and wall to wall sunshine, warm enough for running but not too hot. He covered the 31.5 miles comfortably and when I met him at the end, he looked like he'd run 10miles or so not 31.5! He is hopefully in a good place with his training, he managed another 12miles yesterday...
I had a day off yesterday and wanted to go and conquer Conic Hill, as I was a bit nervous about it and it's my relay leg on the Highland Fling, so we set off in a freezing cold wind from Drymen, and ran/walked to the top in 1h 30m. John turned back then and went to get the car so that I could continue and he'd meet me at the finish. I felt strong so decided to try and continue all the way to Rowardennan which meant I would have done the whole leg, as when we'd gone to run the Balmaha to Rowardennan route a in February and I had not had a good time, my leg was really sore that day. It is an awesome run down off the hill, took me less than 30minutes to get down to Balmaha and by the time I got there the sun was shining :-)
Balmaha to Rowardennan was a much better experience than last time, still extremely hard work, with lots of climbing! I was still tired at the end and a bit sore, but not injured sore, just worked-hard sore... All in all it was a good day out, finished it tired, muddy but happy :-)

total distance was 14.29 miles, total elevation climber was 529m