Mud, Miles & Medals

The mudfest continues and my poor washing machine is working overtime.  It is actually easier to run through the muddy puddles as at least it washes some of it off, not sure if I will be wearing any open toed sandals this summer however judging by the state of my feet and toenails!

The Virgin Money London Marathon is now getting scarily close, 9 weeks away according to my schedule. I am on target with my training however and am doing some great long runs as well as continuing with the technical training to work on my speed endurance.  I have already had a couple of weeks where I have managed to clock 50 miles in training, which considering my busy life is not too bad.

At the moment my daughter, Daisy, can only go to school for just over 2 hours in the afternoon as a nurse needs to be recruited to support her complex medical needs.  This has narrowed my window of running opportunity more than ever and I am having to get even more creative with fitting in the mileage, while also dodging the storms which seem to have been relentless.  I enjoyed a brilliant early morning 8 mile run this week before my husband left for work. I spotted a few daffodils and snowdrops on the route too so hopefully spring is around the corner.

Last week Daisy was an inpatient for at Great Ormond Street Hospital, I was determined to still keep up with my training however despite being stuck in hospital,  One evening my husband swapped shifts with me and I ran the 12 miles back home, it was great to pass all the traffic and I saw lots of runners also commuting home so I will definitely run back again if I am in central London . It was also a great chance to try out a new running rucksack I have bought.  I normally hate running with anything on my back but having tried a few different models and asking fellow runners for tips I took the plunge as I decided I would need to invest in one if I was going to fit in more mileage by running A to B routes.

Talking about running kit, I was very excited to receive a lovely parcel from the Virgin Money London Marathon Team - lots of great Adidas running gear.  I am loving it, especially the bright blue long sleeved jacket they sent as it's coming in very handy in the cold weather.  It is making a change to have a nice co-ordinated running outfit rather than my usual mishmash of freebie technical race tshirts!

Over the past few weeks I decided to test out my (hopefully) improved fitness and endurance in a couple of races.  I ran the Club Championships 10K race and was very pleased to come 3rd Veteran Woman (there's a lot of fast over 40 ladies in my club so felt rather pleased), and yesterday I completed a 20 mile road race in Bramley, Hampshire in a time of 2:51minutes, knocking 3 minutes of my previous personal best in this distance and adding another medal to my collection.

I have had a few niggles from the increased mileage so I have paid a visit to my osteopath to sort out a trapped nerve from lifting Daisy (sadly an inevitable part of the role of a carer) and also to my sports massage therapist for some deep tissue work.  I always find massage the wrong term to describe what she does, 1 hour of extreme pain is more like it but the benefits are amazing, getting tired muscles moving again and sorting out the aches and pains. I'm going to book in a couple more sports massages before the big day to make sure that any niggles don't turn into something major in the middle of the race.

My plan for the next few weeks is to fit in some more races while continuing on my weekly training programme.  I need to try and get stricter with my diet too, all this increased mileage, together with the miserable weather,  has made me constantly seek out the biscuit tin, I need to plan my menus and make sure I have more healthy options to hand rather than the instant gratification of a chocolate digestive - problem is with a large family these things are always available!

Lastly I am also working on my marathon fundraising plans.  I have decided to try and raise some funds for our local children's hospice, ShootingStar-Chase as they have supported Daisy since she was only a few months old.  I have a Virgin Money Giving site but I also thought that instead of asking for direct sponsorship I would try and be a bit more creative and put together a one day pop up gift shop calling in the services of local friends to help run it. - the organisation of this is actually more daunting than the marathon training but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to raise some essential funds for a charity which is so close to my heart.