checking in

It wasn't a dream!!  Eeeek!

Hi guys!!  First of all, a huge thank you for the comments and feedback on the podcast! I was especially pleased to hear from people who commented for the first time!  I'm so pleased you liked it! I'm going to do more, and some of the ideas I've been given for future topics are great, so please keep them coming!!

It's not too late to enter the giveaway, it closes this Friday 18th February. Please make sure you leave your email address somewhere so I can contact you!

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It's been a busy week, getting back into the swing of normal life after a mostly horizontal honeymoon.  I got back into the training in earnest, and needed to don a hat and gloves for the morning runs again for the first few days!!  It seems to have warmed up a tiny bit since then.  I love winter sun.

Friday's running:

20 min run at warm up pace
5 min stretches
10 x 100 metre strides (running/sprinting at 70-80%)
4 x 2km runs at medium pace, followed by a 500 metre walk to catch breath/rest in between each one

I was BEAT!!!

Saturday: rest day.

Hubby and I slept in, chatted to my mate Cilla on Skype (so much fun!), and then we went and did a bit of shopping. I say, a BIT:

We got each other a few Valentine's treats!  Tom got me Run Fat Boy Run!!  I treated myself to my favourite L'Occitane shower gel - the one I'm only allowed to use after I run (to make it last longer because it's so expensive!) and a new shower puff as my other one was getting a bit mouldy.

I got Tom some Coral - the local beer we drank while we were in Madeira, which we discovered we can buy at a Portuguese deli near us! - and a Blu Ray which I had to order off Amazon (I think he got it today!  I love surprising him).

I also splurged on some new yummy teas from Whittard - cinnamon chai, English Rose and Breakfast Earl Grey.

On Saturday night we went to a friend's 30th on the way to see The King's Speech at the Renoir. I had my long run the next day so wasn't drinking. My friend's jaw dropped when she saw a mineral water in front of me, instead of my usual Porn Star Martini.

"Are you pregnant?!" she squealed excitedly.

Well, you can see how she came to that conclusion - newly married, nearly 30, not drinking, what would you assume...?! ha ha.

"No, just got a long run tomorrow and don't want to be hungover!" was my reply!

Sunday's long run was great - well, for the first 40 minutes I was a bit uncomfortable and grumpy, thinking I might as well have got drunk the night before for all the good abstinence was doing me!  But when I looked at the iPod and it said I had done nearly 9km in 50 minutes, I thought to myself....hmmm, wouldn't it be nice to get a 10k PB!!


So I ran myself out of the funk and ended up doing 10k in 54 minutes 28 seconds!!  Four minutes faster than three weeks ago!!!

Work out stats all up (I slowed down a lot after the PB! ha ha!) :

If you run, what is your power song?  Mine at the moment is "Toss the Feathers" by The Corrs!  I never would have thought it would be a good running song, but it has so much energy!  I'd love to hear your suggestions for power songs!

Tom has put together a training playlist for me that is eventually going to morph into a six or seven hour long playlist for the big day.  He has lots of funny songs on there, including a megamix he put together from the closing credits of the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  It's so funny!!

Yesterday morning I was up bright and early for training - still a bit of a struggle to get up with the alarm, but I'm managing!  The park is starting to come alive with the first signs of spring, and as I run past I catch the whiff of sweet blossoms, and can see snowdrops and crocuses bursting forth from the ground.  I never used to love the spring the way I do now!  I had to do a timed run - 1 kilometre - and I had to run it as fast as I could, I managed to do it in 4 minutes and 57 seconds.  Silly person with a dog was distracting me!!

Had some yoghurt, cereal and blueberries for breakfast, and walked to work in the sunshine.  Arrived at work to find two Valentine's Day packages - one from Tom:

And one from my friends at Lucozade! (well, I don't think it was for Valentine's Day but they timed it very well! ha ha!):

I've got Sport Lite (how did they know my favourite flavour is Summer Berries?), gels, energy bars, recovery bars, beans, and two flavours of carbohydrate/electrolyte powder!  Yummo!  Thanks Lucozade!  I'm already a big fan of the drinks, but am a bit of a gel virgin so it will be interesting to see how I go with those!

Tom came home with his arms full of tulips and we had a yummy dinner of risotto, with our favourite New Zealand Pinot Noir (rest day today!!).  I also drew him a little card:

Do any of you play Word Weaver on the iPhone?  I sketched the little monster from that ;)

And so today has been a rest day, but even with 8 hours sleep I have been quite exhausted!!

Tomorrow's training is very straightforward - 50 minutes, plus strides - to prepare for Friday's killer.  Gulp.  I'm also going to try and get to yoga class if I can - I haven't been since before the honeymoon.  A workmate has also recommended a sports masseuse so I might be reporting on that very soon as well.

As well as future podcasts, I've also got a few other ideas floating around - including a cooking video!!  How much Phil can you all handle?!

I hope you've all been having a lovely week and thank you as always for reading!