Rosedawn Ramblings

Previously on 24... earlier in the year, I was given the opportunity to join Team Write this Run at the London Enduro - a 12 hour team challenge on Wimbledon Common. It was a great experience, a different kind of running and lots of inspiration from my team mates. We decided that one event and 12 hours just weren't enough, so we secured ourselves a place at the 24hr Spitfire Scramble at Hornchurch Country Park  and started preparing to run again. There was one change to the team with Christina joining Lenka , Josie , Hannah and I for team Write This Run part 2. Much of the last few months has been spent preparing for this 24 hour challenge. My goal was to run at least 4 laps of the 5.8 mile course, possibly more. Training went well until the final two weeks where I barely ran a step... my hope as I travelled down to Hornchurch on Friday afternoon via taxi, train, bus and tube was that the enforced rest would help! I was the first of my team mates to arrive and found us a go...

The Central Lancashire Half, starting and finishing in the small village of Lea just outside Preston, took place on a very cold and windy on the first Sunday of 2014. No time for New Year hangovers - my racing year has begun. This was my first chance to tackle one of my running goals for 201 4 - a sub 1:50 half marathon. And if I could achieve it, I'd obviously need to revisit my goals! Most of the route was on narrow country lanes and the scenery on a cold grey morning didn't offer up much inspiration. There were hardly any spectators and the runners seemed to be very spaced out, so no helpful clusters of runners to encourage each other along either. To achieve my sub 1:50 goal, I needed to run an average mile pace of approximately 8:24 over 13.1 miles. So this was definitely going to be a solo effort - a battle of wills with myself to see if I could keep going at the required pace. In order to keep going on a run like this one, I need to find lots of things to distract m...

Today was one of those days where running felt difficult, the going definitely got tough. But I kept going and completed the longest run that I’ve managed… ever…9 and ¾ miles. I’m getting steadily closer to the half marathon distance and keeping up with my training schedule. I actually exceeded 75 miles in January… which seems like a pretty long way even to me!  So what went wrong today? Nothing disastrous, just lots of little things that meant I didn’t get into a good running rhythm. I decided to stick to the canal towpath today to avoid too many serious inclines. I headed out along the Cauldon Canal through Milton and on to Stockton Brook before turning round and coming back the same way. First off, it was cold, very cold, as I left home. There was an icy wind blowing along the canal towpath and even though the sun was shining, it didn’t seem to make much difference to the temperature. The canal was pretty much frozen along the whole route and I don’t think that helped. I...