Running on holiday?? Am I mad?

Welcome back!

I had started to write a blog a few days ago but I was very much distracted by friends of ours (@arcticride2014 & @mrsarcticride Gordon & Kirsty) who gave us the thumbs up that we were able to book our holiday to Iceland!! (I know!!)

So, come January when you are all suffering from post-Christmas blues, we'll be off on a 5 day trip to Iceland; Husky rides, Northern Lights, Whales (hopefully), Blue Lagoon swimming, geothermic pools... needless to say, I can't wait!!

Returning back to August (can you believe it's August already!!??), I'm currently away with my partners family in Devon/Dorset. It's fabulous down here; green fields, rugged coast lines, pebbled beaches, fish and chips, and plenty of sunshine! Despite years of experience, I still got sunburn on my first day here!!! (slap wrists!) It's not been all sunshine though, yesterday we saw some very heavy rain. So we went bowling. Was good fun!

I'm still proud that I've been able to get out for a few runs since getting here. With much encouragement from Sarah (my partners, brothers, fiancee) who is running the Great North Run this year for The MS Society. The first  we did together; I was very pleased with myself. I was able to run consistently for half a mile, which was a good achievement in itself, but then I was able to keep up my pace to under a 13 minute mile for the entire 3 miles. You can take a look at my progress at my RunKeeper Profile.

At this stage I really thought I was going to be running at least 6/7 miles but I've ended up building myself up from 2 miles again. I almost feel like I'm starting completely from scratch! I can't quite believe that even though I was only out of action for about 10 days I've fallen behind my schedule so much!

I'm going to try not to worry about it though, if I do I'll not be focusing on each individual run I'll be worrying about the next one. I've got to stay focused.

I'm off out again in the morning, as another thing I've got to try to do it get my body trained up enough for morning runs! My second run this week was incredibly hard; every single muscle in my body ached, my calves were stiff, my ankles were stiff. I thought I'd warmed up enough but I really do find morning running so much harder than evening running! Additionally, I really need to continue to stretch my legs more on my 'off' days, it might be why I'm find it so hard in the mornings.

I did find something very useful though; in the latest issue of Women's Running Magazine I found a one week menu planner for a vegetarian. I'm going to give it a try the week I'm back to see if it makes much of an improvement to my energy levels, I may even try it for a full two weeks.

All in all, I know the Great North Run is creeping up on me, I know I'm going to find it very tough and I'm very glad I have a full body sports massage booked in the day after it!
I'm still very much focused on my target of raising as much as I can for Mind.

I hope to have my running vest very soon and I will be getting my twitter name printed on the back.

I very much hope to write another blog before we leave to drive back to Newcastle, at least with another 2 runs completed and at least one of them being 5 miles!!!

Please sponsor me by following the links below.

Mind Charity Website
Twitter @79bobbin
VirginMoneyGiving

Thanks for reading!

Just keep running, just keep running......

Chrissy