Tuesday

Called for 3 mile easy run at a 12:29 min/mile pace.  I did 3.10 miles at a 10:14 min/mile pace.

Thursday

Called for a 3 mile tempo run with a 1 mile warm-up and 1 mile cool-down.  I managed 1 mile warm-up at 11:00 min/mile with 3 mile tempo run at 09:01 min/mile and the 1 mile cool-down at 10:33 min/mile.

Sunday

Called for long run of 8 miles at 12:29 min/mile pace.  I managed 8.01 miles at a 10:12 min/mile pace.

Overall, that’s a pretty good week, even though I didn’t get in the cross training I wanted/needed to on the days in between.  Well, I guess that means more of an effort is needed on that front this week!

As for non-running related matters… I’ve made the decision to get rid of my windows based laptop.  Since I’ve had my macbook pro I haven’t needed to use the other laptop for anything at all.  I can see any reason to keep it so I’ve sold it to a work colleague.

I’ve had a nice weekend and spent a few hours yesterday at the Crowthorne Carnival (http://www.crowthornecarnival.co.uk/) with my son and mother-in-law (mummy was at work).  It was a pretty good afternoon and the parade was… interesting.  The floats were what you would expect for a small village parade, however one of them was a bit odd.

Pole dancing?  In a parade?  On a moving flatbed?  With everyone dressed like they’re out of Grease!

I must admit, she was pretty agile though… lol.

So, there you have it.  Pole dancing!

Tomorrow I’ll be attempting to get up early, go to the gym and do some cross-training and weights.  Will it happen?  Who knows!  Place your bets…

Related posts:

1. Week 2 Done, 10 to go!
2. Week 3 Done, 9 to go!
3. Week 4 Done, 8 to go!

A friend of mine named Matt, who I haven’t seen in a couple of years (other than via facebook) is also doing the Reading Half Marathon. I commented on one of his status updates the other day because he mentioned he was doing a 20 mile training run. 20 miles! Wow. Will I be running that far one day? Who knows. The Reading Half Marathon is going to seem like a short jog to him I think.

Matt doesn’t know it, but he got me started on running. The last time I saw Matt in person was at the Reading Festival in August 2006 (it’s a music festival and pronounced redding) and he was really trim and healthly looking (he never used to be). I wasn’t trim and healthy looking at that point. I was nearly 18 stone (252lbs), smoking and generally not fit.

I told my other half about Matt and I told her that I thought I would take up running because the end result would be a healthier and thinner (very important) me.

Shortly after that I re-joined the gym near me and I started running on ye ole treadmill. It sucked and it was hard. I would run/jog for a while then walk and also mix this up with walking up hill. I was still a smoker at this point.

I trundled along in this manner without much progress until springtime (approx) of 2007 when I woke up one morning and found I couldn’t walk. My feet and ankles were very sore and swollen and covered in weird looking nodules. It took me ages to go up and down stairs and if I managed to get shoes on my ankles puffed out the tops like a muffin. It was horrible and I was really scared.

Loads of things were running through my head at that time because my son was only born in November 2007. I was thinking I had arthritis (or who knows what) and my General Practitioner (doctor) didn’t seem to know what was going on either. They were giving me random medication it felt like just to see what worked. All I knew was that I was scared I was going to be some sort of cripple and that I wouldn’t be able to do things with my son as he was growing up.

After weeks of pain and stress (a lot) I found out through my work that I actually had Private Medical Insurance! Jeez, why hadn’t I realised that sooner!

I immediately got my doctor to refer me to a specialist and a physiotherapist. The physiotherapist was painful and didn’t actually relieve anything. I don’t recommend going to a physio in that sort of situation where you don’t actually know what is wrong because they are just guessing at what they need to do. It’s not worth it.

When I eventually got referred to a joint specialist I was so grateful. I was finally going to find out what it was and what (if anything) I could do about it.

I remember walking in to the specialist’s office so vividly, I walked in and he said to remove my shoes and socks and he immediately said “I think I know what that is. I’m just going to spend the next 30 mins or so trying to prove myself wrong though, just to be sure.” Wow. Within the first 15 minutes of seeing him he knew exactly what it was.

It turns out (after X-Rays, blood tests, urine samples – all that day) that I had Sarcoidosis. The ankle situation was actually a side-effect of the Sarcoidosis and it was called Erythema Nodosum. The doctor said that in most cases, Erythema Nodosum goes away on its own, and he was right.

It wasn’t long after that that my ankles started to go back to normal and I could walk without pain. It was absolutely fantastic.

Shortly after that I started to run at the gym again doing my usual run/walk thing.

However, I was still smoking and worried about not being around for my little boy. I mean, I was slowly killing myself through my addiction to nicotine. Thankfully, my other half bought me Allen Carr’s book “Easyway”. I started reading that book on the morning of Friday, 27 April 2007 and by that evening I was a non-smoker and I have been ever since. What a great woman my other half is!

After that my running started to get better and the amount of walking time on the treadmill started to reduce. I mean, I wasn’t breaking any land speed records or anything (I’m still not) but I was making progress.

Around May 2007 I had an idea to keep me motivated in my running. I decided I was going to log all my runs (date, distance, time, pace) and keep a record of the totals over time. I also thought I was usual a visual aid and run across a country (virtually) by mapping my distance on things like Google Earth. Hence thevirtualrunner.org was born.

On the 10th June 2007 I logged my first of many runs. I ran for an hour at a 06:31 min/km (10.30 min/mile) and covered a whopping 9.20km (5.72 miles).

This logging of runs has helped me to push myself that little bit harder and to improve over time.

I’m now lighter and ever so slightly faster.

Thanks to Matt for getting me started down the running trail and many many (yes twice) thanks to my fiance for buying me the book that rid me of my addiction to nicotine and also supporting me through all this.

Related posts:

1. Hit the Tempo
2. 20 Miles of Fun
3. Something’s Afoot

From what I’ve been researching, I think that as long as I work on the speed gradually it should be fine. I’m mainly concerned about injury because apparentely a lot of injuries occur during speedwork or increasing your mileage too quickly.

As for non running related matters, I’m getting excited about our wedding day (just a nice simple ceremony with family present) and our honeymoon to Rhodes, Greece. My other half is excited as well.

I’m also addicted to my Playstation 3 (good for all ages!) and I’ve been engrossed in Fallout 3 lately. Great game but it has the worst ending EVER. It just ends. That’s it. So I started a new game and I am avoiding the main quest that takes you direct to the rubbish ending.

My little boy is so clever and he keeps amazing me all the time with how much he learns and takes in. This morning he counted his (four) toy airplanes all by himself (unnnnn, dooooo, freeeeee, foooor). It was great. And to top it off he starting going on about what colours they were and getting it all right. Now I have no basis for comparison but I think this is pretty great for a 2 1/2 year old.

Push ups training will start again this evening and I’ll probably go back to week 3 or wherever it was I started. I’ll update you on how they went tomorrow or something.

Related posts:

1. Tempo Encore and a bit of History
2. Happenings & Training
3. Countdown to the Half