Talk to Frank.

Everyone, meet Frank. He's a new addition to our house!

He's a 9 week old Boxer.Not old enough to leave the house yet but old enough to have worn me out. We had chosen him earlier in the week and went to collect him on Friday evening. Since then everything has been a bit of a blur.

I went out on Thursday night, suffice to say cocktails and training do not mix. I woke up on Friday morning grumpy and dehydrated. I missed my PT session and was annoyed with myself for most of the day. I had a great night out but it would have been better for me if I had left at midnight instead of thinking I was 18 again and staying out until 2am. This is always my problem. You think I would have learnt by now.

One good thing about Friday was my appointment with Katherine. She is a massage therapist and an hour spent with her is always well worth the money. She has magic hands and whilst someone stretching out your soleus muscles might not always be comfortable, you feel great afterwards.

So having a new puppy in the house has been a huge learning curve. We've not had much sleep. On my training plan for this weekend was either a long run of 1hr 40 mins or a 10k 'race'. I opted to do the race this morning as on Saturday morning I'd had roughly 4 hours sleep.

This morning at 6am, after about 5 hours sleep, I forced myself out of bed, fed Frank and then jogged off to the River Path. The aim was to to see if I could beat my last time of 58.08.

After a mile warm up I reset my watch and increased my pace. I felt surprisingly good despite the lack of sleep and no breakfast. I tried to only look at my watch when it beeped every mile. These were my splits:

Mile 1 9.13
Mile 2 9.25
Mile 3 9.14
Mile 4 9.13
Mile 5 9.20
Mile 6 8.58
Mile 7 2.18 *0.25 of a mile

My total time was 57.41  - just a little quicker than last time and it didn't seem so painful. I was pleased with my efforts and thought that in a real race I might have even managed a little faster.

Rest Day

Our interval session last night was good. We did 6 lots of 90 second sprints with 1 minute walk recovery between each one. It was hard work and my thighs were burning on the last couple of reps. Everyone in the group said they'd 'enjoyed' the different effort you have to put into intervals and we all agreed that it's much easier to do that kind of session when there are a few of you. You can focus on other people in the group and can motivate each other. There's also less chance of you just giving up or slowing down when there are other people around!

As planned, I went out after the session. We went to Fat Cats in Derby, it's great on a Thursday night, 2 courses and a cocktail for £11.95 and then other cocktails are 2 for 1. My favourite is a classic Cosmopolitan:

Lemon vodka
Cointreau
Cranberry juice
Fresh lime juice

Classic Cosmo


I made sure that I drank a lot of water between cocktails and felt ok when I woke up this morning.

I really think the past few weeks of not drinking alcohol at all, have helped me train consistently and of course, it's much easier to get up early and run if you've not had a drink. Saying all that, we're having an Olympic BBQ party tomorrow and there will definitely be a few beers involved!

Today is a rest day, the weather isn't great, I've done all my jobs and I am actually going to sit on the sofa and watch the Olympics.

Tomorrow morning is my furthest run yet - 8 miles. I'm planning on going out early, around 7am. I've planned my route and have made sure there are a couple of hills included. Once that's out of the way I can enjoy what should be one of the greatest Saturdays ever for athletics. Can't wait!

Post run cocktails

I'm off work this week (and next), my plan was to sit & watch the Olympics. People that know me well, will know that I struggle to sit down for very long, so my vision of relaxing on the sofa with the tv for company hasn't really gone to plan. I made the mistake of making a list on Monday which has meant that I've spent most of the week so far, doing the jobs that are on that list. Our garden now looks less like a jungle though.

I managed to fit in a 35 minute run yesterday, in between digging in the garden, seeing my lovely friend Mrs Booth and making a chicken pie. It was the 'recovery run' that I should have done on Monday so was just a gentle jog. My calves were tight most of the way round even after doing some stretching but in general it was ok.

Tonight is an interval session with the Derwent Runners. We're doing:

6x90 seconds at 8 minute mile pace with 1 minute walk recovery.

I've learnt how to pre programme my fancy watch so (hopefully) it will beep at the right time. Last weeks session proved quite popular so we're expecting a good turn out.

Then, post run, I'm going to drink some cocktails with the fabulous Irene. I've not been out for what seems like ages so am looking forward to it. Drinking alcohol in general doesn't seem to mix well with running but I'm on holiday after all and Friday is a rest day so I shan't feel guilty.

I watched the legend that is Bradley Wiggins win gold in the time trial yesterday. What a massive achievement, wins the Tour de France one week & Olympic gold the next. He raced almost every day for 3 weeks and then had one week to prepare for the Olympics. I'll try to remember that on Monday when I'm moaning about a 35 minute 'recovery' run.