Rosedawn Ramblings

Christmas Week. Like most people, I've been confused about what day it is, eaten too much, slept too little and not moved too much from my sofa. I did manage a Christmas Day parkrun at Hanley for the first time in several years, but running and training for Race to the Castle has hit a bit of roadblock - perhaps starting a training plan the week before Christmas wasn't the best idea. On Thursday (Boxing Day), I had profiteroles for breakfast... my justification being they were Christmas leftovers that really needed to be eaten up. They were lovely; I had two helpings. I even added extra cream. On Friday, I spent three hours in the M&S café... coffee, toasted teacake, another coffee, a slice of cake. I did blitz lots of emails and other admin... but only moved about 500 steps in the process. I should have been running but my knee was aching slightly - I opted for rest instead but didn't really take much persuading. On Saturday, I was back in Hanley Park...

An early start this week for a very significant Sunday run with the Potters Trotters... a few weeks ago, one of our club members sadly passed away. We decided as a club to dedicate April 7th as our day to run for Kate; to celebrate her life and inspire us as runners to keep on running.  There were little groups of runners from the club out and about everywhere; I joined a group meeting early to run their last long training run before the London Marathon.  Ready to Run Our plan was to run for an about an hour then join up with another group of runners training for their first half marathon... and the plan worked. We followed the Caldon Canal for a while then looped around Etruria before meeting the second group and heading out on the Trent and Mersey Canal towards Barlaston. Getting Together Everyone had their own personal challenges for the day; some were hoping to run further than ever before; I was hoping to continue my training momentum of the last ...