This year I vow to do better. In fact I hereby pledge that I will write a minimum of 12 blog posts. One for each month of the year. If I write more then that's marvellous, but 12 is an achievable target I feel. Although I'm already regretting the alliterative vibe I've decide to go with for the titles. We'll see how long that lasts!
And so onto my round-up of everything that January had to offer...
January is a weird one, isn't it? It seems to go on and on and on, seemingly forever. Yet it only finished last week and already feels an age away.
I spent New Year's Eve curled up on the sofa under my blanket, coughing my lungs up. I started feeling ill on Friday 21 December. I remember because I started to get that little tickle in my throat about an hour before I finished work for the festive period. The Law of Sod does not take a holiday! I still have that cough today as I type. It's gradually going. It will disappear for a few days, maybe even a week, and then it will reappear as if to say, "Surprise! Like I would leave you. You're my favourite!" It's been around so long that I'm starting to think it needs a name. Sheldon could work. It's as annoying as him!
Anyway, I digress... I don't know what time I decided I was going to bed on New Year's Eve but whenever it was, there was definitely an audible sigh of relief from my mum who was also flagging. So at the stroke of midnight I can safely say we were both in bed sound asleep. Happy New Year!
The extra sleep served me well as I rose on New Year's Day, wide awake and ready to take on Bromley parkrun. Good thing too as I'd agreed to meet my friend Claire there, so I couldn't back out. It was slow and it was by no means pretty, but I ditched the Couch to 5k app and had one of my best runs yet. I really fricking enjoyed it! I think the pre-run agreement to go for cake afterwards probably helped, but still... I enjoyed a run!
However I have achieved a couple of running firsts for me. One of my goals - not resolutions, goals - of 2019 was to run a 10k. I decided to aim for the Petts Wood 10k in the autumn. Plenty of time to work up to it so I could complete it in a respectable time without dying!
Less than a week into the New Year and my friend Claire (a different Claire to parkrun Claire - lesson is don't become friends with people called Claire or you'll start getting fit and shit) posted this in a running group on Facebook:
Anyone doing this? There’s a 5k, 10k and Half Marathon. Location - Manchester. I’m doing the half.
Well, what's a girl to do when she finally has the chance to meet up with a groups of friends that she has only, until this point, known virtually? I could have gone for the 5k, but that's a long way to go for equivalent of a parkrun. So I signed up for the 10k! I still couldn't run parkrun continuously and yet here I was signing up for twice the distance. Yes, I am fully aware that I am stark raving bonkers!
I had given myself just three weeks to get 10k ready. Two days later I went along to Petts Wood Runners' training evening and tagged along with the slowest group. Bloody loved it, didn't I! Actually, loving it might be taking it a bit far, but I did really enjoy it and it was cool to be in a small group of runners who were all of a similar ability to me as opposed to parkrun where literally everyone overtakes me.
10k training was rudely interrupted the week before the race as I had the London Winter Walk to contend with - my first official training walk of the year for the upcoming London 2 Brighton Challenge. I can still remember how much my feet hurt from wearing my walking boots last year so I decided to ditch them and wear my new running trainers instead. (Side note: if you run or walk regularly, go and get your gait anaylsed - best thing you will ever do!)
I made it to the rest stop with no issues (already an improvement on last year) and only started to feel it in my back during the last 5km. It helped massively that at the rest stop I bumped into the lovely Julie who had kindly given me a lift to the event. We walked the second half together and even in the silence as we concentrated through the aches, we found company in each other.
Once we made it across the finish line I had the obligatory photo with Dave, biggest talker of shit for the longest time possible (that is his official title) and I finally got the chance to have a photo taken with Chloe and Francesca who rescued me when I dropped out of the London 2 Brighton Challenge last year.
So for those of you not in the know, I completed the London 2 Brighton Quarter Challenge in aid of Mind last year. After dropping out due to the heat, I decided that I still wanted to walk 100km for charity, but it might be more sensible to do it over several challenges. With that in mind I did the Halloween Walk back in October and will doing the Easter Walk and London 2 Brighton Second Half Challenge in addition to the Winter Walk. I plan to raise £1,000 for the Alzheimer's Society so if you have a couple of quid going spare, you can sponsor me here.
But back to January...
Once I'd walked 20km for the Winter Walk, running 10km (even at a snail's pace) seemed quite achievable. I drove up to Katie's on the Friday evening and we watched Venom (how have I only just seen this film?!), then spent a lovely Saturday morning walking around Sherwood Pines and munching on McDonald's before driving to Manchester for my first proper race ever (insert screaming face emoji here). We then had a lovely evening carb-loading before trying to get some sleep.
The day of my first race and my first 10k soon arrived and we made our way to Heaton Park. Now I should point out that it was only after signing up that I noticed that it described the course as "undulating". This is race organiser speak for f***ing hilly! And boy was it hilly. And cold. And windy. Oh. My. God. THE WIND!!!
But I did it. I was slow and swore at Katie the whole way (she says I didn't, so it must have just been in my head), but I BLOODY DID IT! Before the event Katie said we'd aim for finishing in 1:30 and we did it in... drum roll please... 1:31:32. Not bad for a lazy cow who did minimal training and insisted on walking part of the most evil hill out of the three big ones we encountered! For me the best bit of the day wasn't crossing the finish line having run 95% of a 10k race - it was meeting these awesome people. I loved meeting them so much that I've signed up for another 10k in Wilmslow at the end of March!
OK, so it appears that this blog has turned into more of a sports round up than anything else, but I promise you I do have a life outside of walking and running. In other news, here's what I did in January...
The first thing of note that happened in the early part of this year is that we now have a driveway where the front garden used to be. On Wednesday 2 January, my mum noticed that no. 60 were having their driveway done. By Friday ours was finished! As you can probably tell, when my mum has her heart set on something, she doesn't hang around. Cue a couple of days of chaos and a solid hour of thinking the front of the house was going to cave in while the garden was being dug up. I have to say it looks very nice and it does mean no more gardening so, yay!
While people were still wandering around wishing everyone they encountered a "Happy New Year," I delivered my first Girlguiding training of 2019 to the leaders of Swanley District. I've been out of touch training wise the past couple of years. I was feeling anxious at the thought of doing them and that resulted in me not putting myself forward for any that came up. When the new programme was announced last summer, it gave me a kick up the arse and I realised I missed it. 2019 will see me doing more training. It's time to stoke the fire!
Then there was my mum's birthday. After last year's epic surprise party where I somehow managed to get 60 of her family and friends into a room without her suspecting, I promised her no more surprises. I even wrote it in her card - "No surprises this year!" That might be why when we walked into The Lion that evening she didn't notice my dad and step-mum sitting right in front of her. Sorry Mum, I just couldn't resist a teeny tiny surprise for you.
One surprise that we did pull off though were the leaving drinks for our Commander in Chief, Nick Bolton. Very soon he will heading off to live on a canal boat and travel around the UK so we decided to send him off in style by surprising him at a London wine bar one chilly mid-January night. Having only just started with the company it felt very strange to be saying "au revoir" to someone that I've only met a handful of times, but it was a lovely evening and I know we'll see him again soon.
I can't believe that I have now finished my second month working for Animas. December was a blur of training and Christmas parties and meeting new people. It was intense and it didn't help that I spent most of the month ill. But this month I am loving it. I have my routine and it just feels right. I wanted a job where I could work from home and do something that I love that aligns with my values and that's exactly what I have. I work with an amazing team and I am so confident that 2019 is going to be my best year yet!
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