This week saw a slight change in the long run & managing to fit it in. Here's the round up of the week:
Monday - S&C upper body. Started later on in the evening due to life. I keep telling myself every week 'I should do this in the morning!'. I really should. Then it would be done! Right before bed it was a yoga session for tight neck & shoulders. After reflecting last week on the lack of it, I want to implement it more. Not only good for physical stretching but it calms my mind too.
Tuesday - Intervals. Same loop for consistency & a measure of progress. Tonight the plan was 10 minutes warm up & cool down, 2 x 1km effort with 2 minutes recovery followed by 4 x 500m effort with 60 seconds recovery. I managed to obtain my 1km and half mile PB! It was tough & a real confidence booster. Even if I did have my Alphafly's on! Progress is progress! Tuesday was finished with a relaxation stretch. It felt good.
Wednesday - S&C lower body. I really didn't want to do this one. I had ate like a pig all day & didn't feel great that evening. I did take it a bit easier but thought this was better than doing nothing. I also used body weight rather than weights for the sake of doing something - again, better than nothing. I took a picture as it has been 5 years since starting a lifestyle with more exercise in it. It's been quite the journey.
Friday - Volunteering at Run Llama's Ayr Sunset 50km inaugural ultra marathon. This one I looked forward to as I love supporting people but was also slightly apprehensive about. I was on for timekeeping duties but had neglected to take the day (or even a half) off work. I had been awake since 6am that morning, work, back home to sort the family out for dinner then back out for registration at Irvine Beach. It was a great atmosphere & even better to see a few faces I hadn't seen for ages in person.
When I found out Leigh-Ann was 4 miles from the start line directing the runners which way to go, I found the perfect opportunity to run with the tail runners out (Morag & Lorna pictured above & below), pick up Leigh-Ann as she had ran out then run back.
Tom a mutual friend in the community was supposed to be running in the event but an injury for him to run that distance wouldn't have been sensible. So he stuck with me knowing it wasn't going to be at break neck speed!
The start line was looking good & we were lucky with the weather.
The run was good, it was better to run with company out & back as the tiredness was really starting to creep in. A highlight was just at midnight we sang 'wait until the midnight hour' & had a laugh about how insane people including ourselves sign up for massive events!
Leigh-Ann, Tom & I returned to a darkened start line (keeping the generators saved for the actual runners to return!) & John, one of the RD's treated me to a pot noodle! The tent set up for time keeping was great & I should have taken the opportunity to get my head down for an hour at this point before the runners returned. Unsurprisingly I was too busy chatting! The 1st runner came in at 04:12:59, a great time especially when it's a beach ultra! As I found out that night and have had previous experience, sand is not my favourite terrain to run on! After that duty commenced. Chris Sutherland snapped this cracking photo while I was on duty:
When Emily Jackson returned after smashing the event she snapped us in colour!
Time keeping went well & all runners were accounted for at the end. The drive home was interesting! I stopped into the shop for some breakfast, headed home, ate the breakfast & collapsed asleep at 10am! I'm glad I got the run in at the event while I had time as I wasn't fit for purpose the rest of Saturday! It was great sleep deprivation training for a first time & I look forward to helping out at next year's event!
Sunday: This was a busy day family life & was a matter of fitting the run in around it. I asked my pal who was local to where I would be if he could ping me a route & he went one better. He showed me around himself! Long overdue catch up & a nice just over 5km while the eldest was at a class. It rounded up the week with a jam packed social weekend & another successful week ticked off on the training block.
As you can see I'm posting this a week late as I'm really at the end of week 7 when this goes live. Lots has happened this week & I am so proud to say I have fitted all of my sessions in aside from an abandoned long run today. That probably deserves to be wrote on another blog post as I learned a lot from that almost 400m vert just over 5km hike/run.
This week as well coming up I'll be really busy with family life & prepping for support running Stevie at the West Highland Way Race next weekend. Again, this deserves another post as I have a lot of emotions about that too.
Hopefully it won't be too long until I come back to the blogging.
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