The 2013 Challenge Series and Pressure!

It's been a good week. I've had my first sponsorship through for my 2013 Challenge Series (see my Blog page) which is brilliant and a great encouragement, as I really do want to raise significant amounts of money for both NYAS and Geese, charities close to my heart! I'm also beginning to get others to join me in some of the races, which is great, as the thought of doing these runs without anyone else joining in in is not worth thinking about! So good! As we're now into February, I've realised the first couple of runs are looming up fast, The Winslow 10k and the Cambridge Boundary (half marathon) runs... it's been great to hear of people wanting to run for NYAS, I just need to get organised and follow them up!! Please take some time to look at the BT Donate pages for these races (Winslow 10k and Cambridge Boundary Run) or my own page and give if you can!

I also received my first information for the Cambridge run this week. A spreadsheet of all the runnners/competitors. It was great to see my name down there, but I also saw that I'd been put down as running with Kings Heath Running Club. Now I had an interesting reaction to this, one that I wasn't expecting: I felt a little bit of pressure. For the first time, people will know that I run with a club and train with them..... and I don't want to let the club down!! Now, I know in my head nobody's really going to be thinking about this, but I felt it, just a little bit of wanting to do the club proud, as well as myself. So yes, a bit of pressure.... not to mention the fact that as the run is organised by Cambridge Hare and Hounds (the student running club), most of the runners will probably be young fit things!

Which brings me to my current training.... am I going to have done enough by then (beginning of March) to enable me to complete the course without collapsing? The answer is, I hope so! Although I did realise this week that due to the snow and a (man) cold, I haven't really been doing the necessary training. I was also intending to run the 50 bus route to celebrate my birthday, but failed at this, mainly because I would have injured myself trying to run on the ice.... but it is something I will do over the next few weeks!

Cannon Hill Park

But I did get out yesterday. It was a lovely crisp, cold, but sunny morning, and I had decided to do a couple of my normal laps, covering a hilly/undulating course, going through some of Birmingham's lovely parks. I went to run with the club and was fortunate enough to find someone who was willing to do a similar distance to me. We were a good match, as she had not been out for a few weeks, and we managed to encourage each other one, running at a pretty decent pace (for me at any rate!). As someone who is used to running on my own, I was surprised at how just having someone by my side really helped me to keep going... and she was able to talk as we went along, which took my mind off the pain. I was able to gasp out a few questions in between my wheezing along, and she was more than able to carry on chatting at the pace we were going! So a really good 11+ miles at about a 9:15mm pace. Encouraged me!

I've also recently started reading "Why We Run" by Robin Harvie, which is a really well written book. Just reading this book has helped me to think about running, so its been there at the back of my mind, even when its been too snowy to get out and about. A good motivator. Although dealing mainly in ultra running (not something I think I'm ever going to get into!) he does take an interesting look at running and (obviously) why he runs... I've just skim read it at the moment, and need to read it properly. It's interesting. I'll report back another time!