Call off the search!

It's OK, I'm still alive! I did my run yesterday and then had a lovely time meeting my friends' - Adam and Clare - new baby, Thomas! He was gorgeous and can totally wave, which is pretty amazing for 6 weeks old.

I will confess, I didn't quite make the 20 minutes solid running; at 10 minutes I did about 30 seconds of walking, which at the time I felt I needed and, on reflection, wish I had pushed through so I wasn't having to explain myself to you now. Ah well, in 3 runs' time, I have a full 25 mins to aim for, so hopefully I'll use this experience to try and tought that one out a bit better.

As I'm moving towards proper running now, I thought I'd share some links that I found useful when I got into running the first time around.  Firstly, this is a really quick warm-up routine from Runner's World that gets your legs good to go. And, from the same website, this is a lovely Yoga-based cool down that really stops you from feeling stiff and achy. I also noticed that I became a lot more flexible after completing this routine after each run for a couple of weeks.

Finally, after sustaining a fairly nasty ligament injury in my foot, due mostly to high in-steps and poor running form, I did a bit of research, corrected how I was placing my foot on the ground, and found  this blog post after my friend Suzi suggested I lace my trainers differently. There's lots of suggestions for combatting common foot problems, so check it out.

In which I surprise myself...

Firstly, a quick (and surprising) update: on Tuesday I did my second weigh-in and found I had lost 4lb; that's a 6lb total in two weeks! Go me!

But that is not how I surprised myself...

Last night some words came tumbling out of my mouth that I thought I'd never hear myself say. In fact, this is what I looked like after I realised what I had said:

And what words would create such a face of confusion and disgust? 
"I'm looking forward to my run tomorrow".
Does this make me a bonafide runner now? Probably not, but I hope I'm on my way.

I was mainly looking forward to it, as I have got a bit better, but mostly because this was going to be a homecoming run. By that I mean, that instead of running the 'Where's Wally Run of Eternal Torment', I'd be running one of my old routes from the last time I'd got into running (approx. 18 months ago).

And now that I've done it? Nope, I do not regret those words at all - I ENJOYED my run! Saturday is going to be a tough one though - it's my first run run - no intermittent walks - 20 minutes solid running. If you don't hear from me by Saturday bedtime, could you send a search party because I'll probably be dying somewhere?! 

Twelve Days of Blogging

Today I made a breakthrough - by taking The Infamous Sadist aka Emma running with me, I shaved 5 minutes off my time round the Escherian circuit!  That means I'm running a kilometre a whole minute faster than I was twelve days ago! To be fair, I abandoned my cosy little walk/run routine, and just ran as much as I could. This started well and ended less so, but I could feel the improvement. Fingers crossed, I'll be able to run most of it come March 7th (the hill of death is still too horrendous to even think about running!)

If you've been following my blog, you'll remember I set myself some goals in my first post; here's a reminder:

1) To lose 30lbs through hard work and eating healthily - no fads or shortcuts!
2) To get organised about shopping and cooking (this will help with goal number 1)
3) To do my own kitchen makeover (the 'tester' cabinet has been done since October-ish)
4) To read daily
5) To complete outstanding craft projects so I can start new and exciting ones

As for number one, I've been putting in the effort pounding the pavements of Amesbury and Durrington and managed to lose 2lb last week without really making any other changes.  My diet does still need a lot of improvements, but one thing at a time, eh?

Number two has been delegated to the hubby, who thinks he's the more frugal shopper. Fine by me!

Nothing has happened in the kitchen, and probably won't until the weather improves so I can paint outside.

I've been reading most days - currently reading Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, as I'm using it for a GCSE Literature project, and it is really gripping stuff! I may have accidentally found out what happens later on in the book, but that hasn't spoilt it; in fact, it has just made it all the more tense. It may be Young Adult fiction, and I know some people get sniffy about that, but it is GOOD and well worth a read. Also, Malorie is a bit of a hero to me - she rocks!

And finally, I have been catching up on some crochet! I know, I know... I am that cool! I may do a little crochet post in the next few days, so if that bothers you, you have been warned!

Defying the Laws of Nature

Today I went for a practise run, following the route of the charity run I mentioned previously. It was monumentally difficult, no lie, no exaggeration and I was still following the Couch to 5k system of switching between running and brisk walking.

This alleged 'fun' run is in no way fun, at least not from my amateur perspective.  This is what it felt like:

I kid you not, despite being a circular route, the majority of the run was uphill - how does that even work? And one of those hills is BIG. On reaching the top, whilst trying not to be sick I had to carry on past a certain Year 10 boy who owns a bright orange puffa jacket... For those of you who know who I mean, you know that he is not top of the list of people you'd like to see in that situation! Ideally, I wanted a paramedic with a survival blanket who would hold my hair while I puked.

This was only one of the natural laws that was broken today. Secondly, it didn't matter how many times I turned into a new road, ergo, a new direction,  I was constantly running into the wind. As if this wasn't hard enough already!

I suppose this all serves me right. I made the statement that I could walk the route quicker than 50 minutes. I'm now not so sure... This is how long it took me with a mixture of walking and running (including 5 mins warm up walking and 5 mins cool down)...

Yep. 42 minutes. And I missed out part of the route. And my Nike+ lies about distance, so I didn't even do 5k. (I've checked and the route is 5.16k if you actually do all of it). So if anyone has any brilliant ideas on how I might get slightly less likely to die whilst doing this for real on March 7th, let me know!

National Libraries Day

Today has been fun! To celebrate National Libraries Day (officially Saturday) I've been pestering students to make monster book corners like this...

And join in a library treasure hunt that I found here (you will need a TES account, but they're free to set up).

Then, this evening, I took my 5 year old son to our local library for a pyjama party. It turns out that 5 year olds are not brilliant at being good sports when playing party games at bedtime! However, the stories and the craft activities went down a treat.

Next Friday, I will be hosting my second speed-book-dating event at school... A big part of Reading for Pleasure is sharing that enjoyment with other people, soppy schmaltz etc etc...

Go show your local library some love this week!

First steps

As planned, today, I went for my first run. I use the term lightly. As I've done before, I'm following the NHS Couch to 5k programme, which is really good at gradually building you up to running a well-paced 5k over a period of 9 weeks (you can download the podcasts here).

This is what my run looked like - a 5 minute warm-up walk, 8 sets of 1 minute jogging; 90 seconds brisk walking, and then a 5(ish) minute cool-down walk. Apparently this stop-starting is good at building stamina, and having completed the course before, I know it must work, as I was easily going for 45 minute - hour long runs on a regular basis by the end of it. Bring. It. On.

Today's 'run' was made slightly more challenging by the amber weather warning gale force winds and rain. Initially, this seemed like another good reason to put off running (again), but thanks to this blog, I was a bit more determined to get out there. On the plus side... In these conditions, there are less spectators. Or at least I couldn't see them through the rain and windswept hair!

One last thing. This 9 week programme is all well and good, but I have a charity 5k to run on the 7th March. Dressed as a Wally. Hmmm. Lots of staff from my school are all doing this to raise money for the National Literacy Trust, so yet more motivation to step things up. #LiteracyWontWait !

Accountability when it counts!

I appreciate that this first post is for the most part self-indulgent and quite dull for most people outside of myself, but I am feeling the need to go public with my goals to hold myself accountable and make sure I achieve them. The fact that I was meant to start working towards these goals on January 1st, and it's now February 4th is probably a good indication of why I need motivation and/or public shaming!

So these are the goals:

1) To lose 30lbs through hard work and eating healthily - no fads or shortcuts!
2) To get organised about shopping and cooking (this will help with goal number 1)
3) To do my own kitchen makeover (the 'tester' cabinet has been done since October-ish)
4) To read daily
5) To complete outstanding craft projects so I can start new and exciting ones

Future posts will generally centre around me working towards and achieving these goals... Don't worry, I'll keep them short and maybe, every now and then, you might like to cheer me on, just so I don't think no one's looking and I can get away with skiving off!

If you've got this far, thank you and good night!

Sam xxx