Random Ramblings

Today was lovely. 

Out of the blue I recieved a lovely message from a friend that made me very happy (and a little bit tearful).  Nice, unexpected messages will do that.  Anyway, cheered no end, I am now wondering what the heck I was thinking planning to run a marathon. 

However, wierdly enough, I am really enjoying the training.

I have been lucky enough to be asked by some very nice local runners to join them on some of their training runs and that has been good for me.

Then I have some very experienced long distance runners as friends, i.e. 100km madzers who carry on like eejits about running for entire weekends and hallucinating pink elephants out on the trail.

One friend has even worked out when she turns 42.2 so is going to do 42.2km on that day. 

Anyway, on Monday I did my 12km run to work.  I'd had a rather big weekend, so just getting up and getting the trainers on and hitting the pavement was an achievement.  It was fair to say that it was not my best run, and the mindset was very much "are we there yet?", not, "wow, isn't this a great way to start the day?". 

Tuesday morning I got up at 4.30am to meet the guys early for hill repeats.  After hill repeats I decided I hadn't done nearly enough damage to the legs and so hit the gym for a short, sharp weights session for the legs.  So I did lunges, squats and dead lifts with the weighted bar.  BG - a runner I really respect and admire suggested a weights program for the legs to build strength, which is what I need - strength!

I came home totally and utterly soaked, and completely starving!  I had a tuna wrap for breakfast, so there was me with hairdryer in one hand, wrap in the other....my family have become accustomed to my strange habits.

I did get a gorgeous new running outfit from America that conveniently arrived Monday night before my Tuesday morning session with the locals - I got a RED running skirt and am convinced it makes me run faster!  But the piece de la resistance has to be my new mesh tee shirt.  Wow, how good does that feel on your skin?  I will be purchasing more, it is also mega super dooper flattering, which is something that rarely goes with skin tight running gear. 

I might add that one of my other major objectives of all this running is not only to do a marathon, and do it in a reasonable time, but to lose some weight.  Being five foot nothing, it's not like I can have a few spare kilos and look ok.  Every kilo matters in my case!! 

Anyway - tomorrow and Friday I have scheduled runs to work (it is just too hot in the evenings to run) and then Sunday I plan to do a long run.  Now, I haven't done a long run in about a month, the longest has been 12km, so I am wondering how I will go.  I plan to get hubby to drive me somewhere, kick me out, and tell me to run home.  Otherwise it is hard to motivate oneself to go the distance, and easy to cut it short.  I might get him to drop me at Woodford, and run to Glenbrook, then get him to pick me up and buy me breakfast!!!