And so it begins again...

I just want to start this post with a massive THANK YOU to all of you who read my blog and who have been so encouraging both before the Clacton 5k race and after.  I honestly don't think I would have raced if it weren't for your wonderful words of support!

It has been a very hectic weekend, starting with the race on Friday night.  We didn't get home until about 10pm and then had an early start on Saturday.  Saturday my husband was taking my son to a tennis tournament in Middlesex and I was taking my daughter to her school to help clean/set-up ready for the start of term on Monday.  We were there for about three hours and then came home and I proceeded to bake a cake for dessert on Sunday when I got a text from my husband to say my son had won the tournament!  I was over the moon - what with my runner's high from Friday night and now my son had won his first LTA tournament!

Saturday night we went up to London to see a play called "A Progress" - it was based on John Bunyan's book "A Pilgrim's Progress" and was in a tiny theatre in the east end of London.  A friend of ours who just graduated from drama school was one of the main actors - so we went to support him and, wow, he was absolutely amazing!  The play itself was fantastic - taking a very deep subject matter and making it light-hearted with just the right amount of humour.  It was very "fringe" theatre, the audience became part of the production - with our friend handing out "lines" for audience members to read out (including my husband and kids!).   We had a fantastic time, but didn't get home until nearly 11pm - so that was two very late nights for my kids.

Today is my and my husband's wedding anniversary - 17 years!  Man, I feel old!  I was 19 when I got married and my husband was 26 - here we are, much younger, much slimmer!

17 years ago today!

We normally don't both much with anniversaries and as we had been out to the theatre last night that was sort of our celebration.  Today, though our anniversary, was back to the usual Sunday routine: church, lunch, ironing, more laundry, organise school things, run.  The same people who organised the 5k race on Friday are organising a 5 mile race at the beginning of December called the Rudolph Run.  This one is much closer to home, but again on the sea-front.  I asked my husband if he would like to run with me and to my surprise he said yes!

This ties in nicely with my next training programme.  Having "graduated" from the C25k programme, I was on the look-out for what to do next.  I had a look on Hal Higdon's website and found a Novice 8k training programme:

This will get me nicely prepared for the 5 mile Rudolph Run and gives me a new programme to focus on for the next 8 weeks.  After this I think I will try the 10k programme.  In the interim, however, I have signed up for another 5k at the end of October - the Poppy Run.  This will be my first trail run - so I plan to start incorporating some trail running into my training.  I'm very fortunate that my kids' school has a mile circuit trail that parents can use for running - so I think certainly my Sunday afternoon long runs I will do on the trail.  I have no illusions that trail running is harder than road running, so this will definitely be a challenge!

Today I knew I wanted to run, but wanted to make sure I try to keep to the days on the 8k programme, so I decided to just run my usual 2.5 mile loop.  My pace is gradually improving - and I have confidence that so long as I keep running this will continue to get faster and faster.  I'm trying to watch my breathing as well, because sometimes I feel like I get into a muddle.  I lose my rhythm or take too many breaths or something and end up feeling like I'm gasping - or I get a stitch which means I have to slow way down to recover.  This happened today - I had literally got to what I call the "home stretch" this is a downhill section where I know I can usually pick up speed - but today I had to stop and walk for a minute because of a really painful stitch.

So - my training begins again!  I hope you all have a fabulous week!