So today was a pretty reasonable day for Juneathon Day 18 – I remember this morning to do my 18 toe touches, sit and reaches, and sit ups/tummy crunches – so much easier earlier in the day, though saying that I can definitely feel them more with the increased number! Will I make it to 30 of each!?!
I also actually donned my running gear and went for a brisk short run – only 1.61km – but my pace was 6:30min/km – which after a week and bit off running due to my dodgy foot, I didn’t think was too bad! Plus I couldn’t go out for too long as today was an OU study day! My Garmin wasn’t playing ball, wouldn’t find my location – so very grateful for MapMyRun! I felt pretty good after – I think I might plan a short run each week and see if I can increase my pace… I will keep you posted!
Additional exercise came in the form of the weekly Big Shop – usually I do this on a Friday morning but my poor Blue One has got his jabs tomorrow – I hate when my little ones have to have jabs, stab me with a needle – that’s fine, but leave my little ones alone, I deal with it so badly my hubby as to come too – which is ironic as he hate’s needles and injections himself! Will then treat the Blue One to a new toy… sorry I digressed!
Proper run – with my running gear on and everything!!!
The Big Shop was more fun this week as I had company in the form of Helen! Yay! So here you can see the photographic (and video) evidence of our exercise…
I am demonstrating the potato reach and Helen is beautifully demonstrating the trolley lungeHere I am doing the heavy bag lift, turn and put in the boot
Check out the Trolley Dash!!!
Must organise myself and get this all logged on Running Free Online… I did exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do and have let it build up! Urgh!!! Oh well at least the important bit – the actual exercise – is done!
So after the amazing experience of running my first 10km today feels a bit of an anti-climax, so to improve my mood I will share with you that I have entered the Bupa London 10,000 and I am doing this in support of the charity Mind – a charity that has helped me and who is close to my heart. 1 in 4 of us are affected by mental health problems in our life times – with charities like Mind they can help people get through these tough times, improve people’s quality of life and make mental health less of a taboo and I would be most grateful if sometime between now and May you could sponsor me – with much thanks in advance!
Now moving back to Janathon Day 19 – well my contributions today are the walk I took to take my daughter to school and again this afternoon when I collected her – which was 1.3km each time – so a total of 2.6km all with a near 3 year old in tow, so I am sure this increases the exercise content of this mundane walk!? ;-P
I also did 10 mins of vacuuming which included the stairs!!!
So a more gentle day today – but good for loosening up the muscles in my legs after yesterday, which currently don’t feel too bad, long may this last!
That is I ran my first timed 10km race (and my first solid – with the teeniest bit of walking – 10km ever to be honest!)
What an amazing experience I had! This will be the pinnacle of my Janathon efforts. It took place at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (QEOP) which initially made me feel disconcerted as when I’d registered it was meant to have been at Hyde Park – but obviously had a venue change!
Firstly I have to thank Deputy Helen and Jo for their unwavering support as I was feeling exceptionally nervous and not at all confident in my abilities and they told me I’d do great! They themselves did superb efforts Helen getting a course PB – see Helen’s Blog, and Jo got a 10km race PB – check out Jo’s Blog
Amazingly supportive friends – Post Race
So the day started nice and early, leaving the house at 6.30am, with a 2.34km walk to the station, a good warm up, where I met up with Helen – what should’ve been a straight forward journey of a train to Lewisham and then the DLR to Stratford, ended up being a case of DLR musical chairs with a change at Canary Wharf and then the next train terminated at Bow Church and we had to get a bus the final part of the journey but finally we were at the venue with plenty of time to spare and were able to pick up our packs and go and get a hot beverage!
View from the DLR
Attached my race number with my Event Clips – check out my friend’s blog where he reviewed various methods of attaching your race bibs! I love my Event Clips – so thanks to Graham for that blog!
Having now met up with Jo we headed back to where the race was starting to do our bag drop with all our unnecessary clothing – fortunately we weren’t waiting in the cold for too long before it all started – took us by surprise to be honest as there was no noise or starting pistol just suddenly the people in front of us started moving quicker!
I made sure I ignored all those around me and didn’t get caught up in the initial rush of the race starting and completely out pacing myself, I kept pretty much at the back and took this very gently as I really had no clue what I was facing, what I was doing or how I would cope. For the first time in ages I listened to music whilst I was running which was pleasant – though I couldn’t find my usual headphones so had my apple ones which did occasionally annoy me by falling out of my ears and by the third lap my hands were so numb I could barely feel to put them back in, but this was just a minor thing!
Managed to do the first lap with no walking, second lap I was still managing to keep my breathing even but the course was quite undulating with numerous inclines, so I gave myself permission to walk for a short amount of time up one of these inclines and then started running again. I think I did one more short walk on lap two but can’t remember where exactly. At the start of Lap 3 I still felt relatively good, though was saying the odd mantra of “I can do this” and “one lap to go” etc, so anyone near me I apologise if I seemed like a mumbling mad women!!!
On the third lap I decided to walk in the same place as I had on the second and when I started running again I knew I couldn’t do anymore walks otherwise I wouldn’t get running again as my glutes were suddenly feeling very tight. This final lap felt tougher, to me it seemed the wind picked up and it felt colder and though my legs felt reasonable my arms were aching! I kept plodding on, my mood picked up when I heard the Baywatch theme tune on my playlist (Thank you hubby).
Suddenly the end was in sight, it was near and yet so far, people were now starting to speed up and go past me as we were nearing the finish, but I kept with my slow and steady pace as I wanted to hold on to the last of my energy for that final burst on the home straight and that is exactly what I managed to do. Coming down the last straight a lady I had managed to overtake slightly earlier I could hear coming up behind me and starting to go past me when I heard the marshal on his megaphone “I want a sprint finish ladies” and I knew I still had some reserve energy and sprint is exactly what I did and suddenly I was over the finish line and I had done it – I couldn’t stand up straight, I was shaking – but I had completed my first 10km!!! Whoop! Whoop!
How to celebrate? Go and have some cake and hot beverages with my two lovely friends! Obviously it was the only thing to do!!!
Time to eat cake…Mmmmm!!!
I completed my first 10km timed race in what I think is a respectable 01:10:38 and I am pretty chuffed with that! Some room for improvement so I better sign up for my next one, think that’ll be the Bupa London 10km in May… now where’s that website…
Jog on Mum 