Silver Linings

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

Hope you all had fun bringing in the new year and are feeling good and positive for the new year ahead!

So today is the first day of 2015 and I managed to get up and out and go for a Parkrun!!!

Now my usual way of thinking is to look at all the negatives – so I could waffle on about how bad a run it was and how slow I went etc etc, but no one wants to read about me whinging and berating myself – there are people suffering a lot worse then a bad park run!!!

Instead, as a New Years resolution, I’m going to try and look for the silver linings in my efforts and not immediately dwell on what went wrong! So here are the silver linings…

1. I woke up!!! Big plus there in itself! I am relatively happy and healthy (give or take a few stomach issues!) and I was surrounded by my beautiful family – and I mean this literally as we stayed at my in-laws for New Years Eve and so the kids were asleep on a mattress on the floor next to us!!! Haha!!! 😄

2. This counts towards my first Janathon!!! Of which I am very proud to be a participate and I just hope I can do well.  If you fancy giving yourself some motivation to get exercising this month – it’s not too late, you can still sign up until the 7th Jan! For more incentive, there are prizes to be won!!!

janathon-participant-logo

3. I wore my Stephen Amell F&@k Cancer T-shirt!!! Very cool T-shirt, bought for a worthy cause and I feel rather privileged to be wearing one! Stephen Amell is an amazing actor, charity supporter and father/husband – plus as an aside is in a fab series called Arrow. I am happily married women, but I think it’s always good to appreciate beautiful things… ;-P

F&@k Cancer T-Shirt
F&@k Cancer T-Shirt

4. I cleaned my trainers – this may be a small thing, but I did bring home most of Avery Hill Park on the sole of my trainers, so it’s quite a plus that I’ve already done it! I’m sure my trainers would say ‘Thank You’ if they could!

Avery Hill Park on the sole of my trainers!!!
Avery Hill Park on the sole of my trainers!!!

5. I saw my friend – Janathon’s Deputy Helen. It’s always lovely to see friend – especially one who is offering me so much support and encouragement at the moment! Can’t thank her enough!

6. I wrote this blog! Hoping to blog a bit more regularly – I’m not saying everyday, but at least once a week (if I can!) Also I’ve published it earlier than 11pm at night – which is a novelty for me!

7. I made it – despite the pain in my hip, slipping in the mud and considering bowing out after the 2nd lap – I finished! I didn’t give up!!! This is a good thing – and what I need to focus on and not that it was my worst Parkrun time so far – and also remember it was excessively muddy/slippery and I haven’t been running as often as I usually do due to a poorly November/December!

It really was muddy - More Evidence!!!
It really was muddy – More Evidence!!!

8. Also need to take into consideration it may be the 1st January – but it’s not the first exercise I’ve done this week! I managed 10.66km on Monday (walking & running) with my greatest motivator Helen and on Wednesday I walked quite a distance round High Elms with the family – occasionally carrying the Pink One and the Blue One (surely that counts as weight training!)

9. It’s all good preparation for my first official 10km run on the 18th Jan at the Olympic park (should’ve been Hyde Park, but there was a venue change!)

So feeling positive – I celebrated with a hot shower, a cup of tea and a yummy sarnie made by my fabulous hubby (and some chocolate)!!! I’m so rock ‘n’ roll!

Mmmmm, Yum! Yum!!!
Mmmmm, Yum! Yum!!!

Great start to the new year – so let’s try and keep up the positive thinking! Until next time, have a wonderful day!!! 😊 xxx

Janathon Tally
Mileage: 5.1km/3.2 miles

Time: 00:37:06

Fun: 5/10

Do it with a Friend…

…or in my case two friends, and for all you rude minded people I obviously mean go for a run!

This will only be a short blog, but I felt compelled to share this with you all, I’ve not been running since 13th September, for numerous reasons – mainly stomach issues, very annoying, and this evening I went for the first time since then and I was really apprehensive that my fitness and my ability to run would be gone after all that down time!

Instead, to my surprise, it was absolutely amazing and I feel so good having gone out there and done it. But what made this such a good run and made me feel so much better is I went with two good friends – who I am so thankful for, able to chat with them and we discussed things and before we knew it we’d done 5km! It was just fantastic, made my body feel good and really helped clear my mind!

So if you’ve not been running for a while, and like I was, worried about getting out there again – try and find a friend (or if you’re lucky like I was) two friends to come with you and get back out there! You’ll be so glad you did! 🙂 xxx

 

 

 

For the Sake of My Mentality

So it all began in February this year, with one of the epic Facebook messages me and my group of yummy mummies have – my recollection is that it all started with us complaining about how useless BMI is as a measurement, but I digress – within this long chain conversation one sentence my friend Emma, who has been running regularly for some time, wrote that stuck in my head and started gnawing away at me. She said that running was for her mentality – it was just a plus that it was good for your health.

This niggly idea of going running was particularly in my head as I was doing my umpteenth walk to the post office to pick up yet another delivery that the Post Office hadn’t been able to deliver (I have neighbours – please leave it with them!!! Though I suppose I have to thank them otherwise I wouldn’t have taken those walks that made my running dream germinate and flower).

What you need to know about me is that I am not your natural runner, or a natural at any physical exercise to be honest – I was the one who used to walk to the station at 6am wondering why these daft people were running at that time of the morning out of choice!?! So firstly I looked into running and what apps were out there – finally settling on “Couch to 5k” – something I will discuss in another blog, but definitely the best £1.69 I’ve ever spent!

Secondly I contacted the people I knew who were into running/physical exercise – these being my brother Richard, my friend Emma who I mentioned in the first paragraph as the forerunner of this idea and my friend Graham who does completely insane OCR races (check out his blog at www.trailsandadventures.com – well worth a read)

My brother Richard impressed on me that it was highly worth going to a proper running shop to get my running trainers – which I did! Details in this blog post! Emma also said to me make sure you get good running trainers as your feet and legs are essentially your gym equipment! So then I contacted Graham and asked him his advice he said “just get out there and do it” so that’s just what I did!

My blogs will be a mixture of my running journey/adventure and that of being a mum to two little people! They may not be funny, interesting or inventive, but hopefully you might come across something that may inspire you or make you realise that it’s not just you! Whatever you take from them I hope you enjoy them and I thank you for taking the time to read! 🙂 xxx