Two In One!

Hello readers.

Two blogs in one today.  My computer was having a hissy fit on Thursday, wanting to download, upload or do stuff that I never asked it too!  So it was taking ages!  I will wrap up two blogs here instead.

The first is all about IllustriousLeader's Thursday evening Speed and Core training!  I arrived, with Shalini and Tracy, dead on time at 19:30, but it still appears that every one else turned up earlier, still did a two lap warm up jog of the rec, and had finished the laps, waiting for the drills to begin!  Now they are keen athletes!  My warm up jog was one to the loo before the drills started!  I got back in time for the lovely drills though, being put through our paces by the IllustriousLeader, the 'Iron fist in a velvet glove' queen!

Our first running activity was the pyramid style of running, we had teams of five, I think, and about 5 teams too.  I am sure you all know the pyramid running by now.  I.L. had put us in teams of mixed ability, I was thinking, Ok, this is going to be a competition then!  There is me feeling fat and bloated and I am going to have to try and do best by my team!  I think we cam third actually!  But oh my goodness, I did try my best!  I had forgot to start my Garmin, I only got some of the speedy pyramid runs, Oh well!  I kept it going, just so that it could calculate calories for the core exercises that we did, which were, star jumps, burpees, lunges, planks, push ups and something else which has escaped my memory!  We finished with our par luffs or relay running to those that don't know!  Groups of three, running around the rec. 

Loved the session, but I must work harder!

So we are up to date, it's now Saturday and of course that is known as parkrun day!  It was Wendimoo's 100th parkrun this morning so I had to be there.  She came to mine a couple of weeks back, even though she really didn't want to, (she was totally pleased that she did though!) and so of course I just had to go to hers.  The weather forecast for Saturday was.....rain!  I was not looking forward to getting out there in the rain.  The Old Boy had told me Friday night that it was set for torrential rain! I really wasn't looking forward to it!

I was quite pleased to hear the rain come on Friday night, maybe just maybe the forecasters had got it wrong, well, it's quite possible isn't it!  But then I work up this morning to a dark room and the sound of rain outside the window.  Darn it!  I quickly checked to make sure that Wendimoo herself hadn't cancelled it, but she hadn't, she was encouraging us all to come, she had made cake! Darn it!  The rain then got heavier! "Oh really!?" I said as I looked at the torrent of rain coming down! "Come on, Old Girl, get hard core!  it's only for an hour!"  I got my self ready, checked to see if Naggy or Shalini were coming!  They were not coming by the way!  Shalini said it was too wet, and Naggy had that work stuff that we all need to do! Everyone else was grabbing a lift with LittleJ!  So no room for me!  I wasn't looking forward to driving there. Usually it will be fine, but the road that I need to take to get into the park is closed!  It's the blimmin water mains again!  I could have gone down Chatterton road, but I thought that maybe everyone would be doing that and that road is really squishy!  So I decided to go through to the other car park by going up towards Keston Mark and then going thought Hayes!  Simples!........Nope! There was another blimmin water main gone in the middle of the road!

Anyway, I did get there, and would you believe the rain had stopped too! I looked around for Wendimoo and the girls! And RefMichael too! We all moved to be able to hear the R.D. do the announcements and milestone role call. A big cheer from us lot with Wendimoo!

Then it was the run!  I started in middle of the park, very unusual for me, but at least I got to hear the official starter say 'GO' and pushed my Garmin button to go.  We all started at once, that's me, Wendimoo, Tracy, Auriol and LittleJ, we didn't stay together that long though.  LittleJ was walking, Auriol started to pull away straight away and that left just the three of us to run along together.  We are all virtually the same pace and we kept in shoulder contact.  I pulled away a bit from Tracy along with Wendimoo, we could see Auriol just ahead of us.  There was also some Zero's to Heroes running close to us too, there were having their graduation of the new beginners, there were so many of them!  It's brilliant to see!  Anyway, me and Wendimoo running along, having a walk when we needed or wanted it, no Naggy to nag us, CarolWithAnE wasn't here, she is on the injury list!  So we really missed behaved with the walking sections.  But then Wendimoo on the last time running along the long straight found her 'inner Naggy' and started nagging me to keep going.  I was hoping the rain would start up again, I was just so warm!  It was so muggy out!  But I kept on going right to the top of the park, along the top and then it was the last short straight! 

When we was running towards the finish funnels we were chatting about the Tracy could sprint so fast!  When we do our Thursday evenings, she can even out sprint me!  Wendimoo said that Tracy once surprised her as she ran up behind her for a sprint finish.  I told Wendimoo that she had done the exact same thing to me, and that prompted me to sprint for the finish!  We both laughed.  Then Wendimoo found her inner sprinter and made of towards the finish funnels, I couldn't keep up with her, my legs were feeling like lead, they felt like lead at the beginning of the run and the still feel like it now!  Just then I had that familiar sound of running feet coming up on the outside of me, I turned my head slightly to the right and the there was Tracy! No!!! The competitiveness came over me yet again and I started sprinting towards the funnels.  Tracy was right by my side, matching me step for step the whole way! ' She's gonna beat me this time' I thought to myself, I really wasn't prepared for a sprint finish!  I almost gave up but then I heard Tracy laugh and she backed off!  I kept the pressure up for just a little bit further hoping that she wasn't going to find a second wind because I was truly done it!  That awful 'sick' feeling was just creeping up, I knew if I pushed just a little bit more I would be heaving as I went through the funnel!  She didn't catch me.....but she wasn't that far behind!  I am sure next time she will do it!

My Garmin time said 41:44.5 and my official parkrun time was 41:45!  Not bad for accuracy, there's something to be said about starting near the official starter (you can push the button at the same time)  Still a very long way to my pb.  Must try harder!