EFFORT

WARNING: This blog post is a bit 'dear diary', I apologise. It was meant to be about putting in loads of effort, but it turned into a bit 'me me me', shocker........

As I have the Gloucester 10k coming up, I thought I should probably fit in a session of mile reps... Wow that sentence makes me sound super fit. Mile reps are probably my favourite but least favourite session in the week, mainly because running my tits off for a whole mile is actually bloody hard, but also really liberating and it makes me look faster than I actually am....... You'd never catch me going that fast on a long run.

After my week of debauchery at Glastonbury (PLEASE SEE PREVIOUS POST, SLACKERSSSS), my face (and heart) dropped when coach Dave said to me "so you're doing your mile reps this week?". UHHH DAAAAVE. Why does he do this to me? Run-guilt took over though, and I sweetly replied "yes Dave, how many would you like me to do" (so dedicated, back in ye olde day I would've told him to shove his mile reps somewhere else...). With the Glos 10k looming, he decided that four reps would be an adequate amount. Not toooooo bad.

Evidence for the h8rs

I have a mile route that I follow along the main road by my house - for those Keynshamers among us, I run from the Cadbury's site to just past Londonderry farm. According to Google maps it's exactly a mile, although it could be a bit less - I don't know how accurate it is and I'd rather say its less than more innittttt, don't want to get ahead of myself. Usually when I do my reps my eyes are pretty much fixed on my watch. NOT THIS WEEK SISTAAAA. I decided I'd probably be slower so to just run as fast as my little legs could take me, and accept the time when I got to the finish. I have a 3 minute rest between each mile, which is more than enough for me to get my breath back.

The last time I did these miles I was running at around 6.55-7.05 ish for each one, going flat out. This week I set off well fast, and finished the first one in 6.48. This week I also decided to dress as a pink flump and was attracting quite a lot of attention (oi oi, white van men) so I really had to get my ass in gear. CRAZILY the next three times went like this: 6.42, 6.44, 6.42... and I was running wellllllll out of my comfort zone and my face was clashing with my on-point outfit. On my third mile I wanted to give up and lie at the roadside, panting like a dog, but luckily my best friend Rosa drove past at the optimum moment and I couldn't let my babygirl down now, could I?

Flump

All in all, I was pretty chuffed with my effort on a FRIDAY EVENING (for christ sake Emma, get a life). I think it's my favourite session because it makes me work really, really hard and proves to me that I can run faster if I put my mind to it. I also noticed just how much effort I have to put into running, even on my warm down I was sweating like the pink little pig I was dressed as. I wish I could glide along looking effortlessly, a la my bestest running buddy from back in the day, Sophie (HOLLAAAA), but I have come to accept that I am not a pretty lady when it comes to exercise. But that's fine, as long as I'm not caught on camera...........

OH WAIT. Sorry to post this again #fugly 

*my boyfriend, Nath, has requested a mention in my blog. So to shoehorn him in: My boyfriend always notices how when I have a particularly heavy weekend of drinking and little sleep, I tend to run realllyyyy well the next week. This seems to be true post-Glasto. MAYBE I should just get drunk and race? I'll ask Dave about that one.

Glastonbury: the best rest

I couldn't decide whether to make this post about my actual time at Glastonbury, or whether to try and link it to running (easier than you might think), orrrrrr just to briefly mention how drunk I got for 5 days straight and move on. I've gone for the latter - mainly because my parents like to read this blog and I don't want to burden them with images of their youngest daughter being an absolute DEVIL in a field with her friends. So...

Everyone knows that Glastonbury is 1000000% the best festival in the entire world and tickets sell-out in a matter of minutes. I was lucky enough to get a ticket this year, as did looooads of my friends and we've been pretty bladddy excited ever since. I was very, very sadly a bit worried that I would get fat while I was there (LOL, christ I have something wrong with me) but walking across a mini-city of musical madness everyday did just about enough to keep my thighs from merging into one solid piece of flesh. Details shall be spared from the internet as there are too many tales to tell, but we drank a lot of wine/vodka/beer/pre-made mojito (Simone) and personally, I ate a LOT of shitty noodles and we all danced around like maniacs for the best part of five days. We all loved each other like never before and hugged and kissed each other lots. Total hippies...

FRIENDS!!!!

As a side note, the only time I was slightly below the line of 'happy' was when Simone saw the 'glastonbury running club' forming one morning by our campsite. Now, I know that I would've definitely politely declined, but to NOT EVEN GET AN INVITE was truly heartbreaking. Apparently the men were all very skinny and looked super professional, and bloody hell HOW DEDICATED?!?! But still, must promote my blog far and wide so I get invited to these little festival get-togethers. Even if I was still a hungover mess...

The two reasons for my hangovers...

So, back to the running. After a triumphant 45 minute 10km the day before I packed my life into a rucksack, I was feeling excellenttttt. My head may have swollen slightly, especially as I have the Gloucester 10km in a fortnight. Despite still feeling a bit sleepy today (I got back the early hours of Monday morning), I whacked on my trainers and decided to head out for a run. I dropped my glasto-depressed boyfriend at the train station so he could go back to London and went straight out. 

My aim was to do a good 4 miler, but as soon as I started running I felt the backlash of Glastonbury hit me like a train. It was 23 degree heat and I was wearing full-length, black leggings. As a definite fan of being as naked as possible, this was a huge faux-pas that I've vowed to never make again. I knew my legs were going to take a while to get going so I made it to Bitton cycle path, where they have a 5km route marked out - if I couldn't do a good 4 miles, I would at least do something good. Dramatically rolling up my leggings so I looked like I had fat knees (YAYYYY), I set off at quite a speed (for me, I still got overtaken by a 65year-old on a bike) and managed the first mile in 7 minutes......

Included this purely because my legs look long...ish

Approximately three minutes after this I lobbed my fingers down my throat and threw up what I can only imagine to be the vast amount of shitty noodles that I ate at Glasto. Weirdly, while this was happening, a reaaaallly old man walked past me and wolf-whistled. CHEERS MATE, super helpful. This spurred me on - I needed to earn that wolf-whistle - so I told myself to stop being such a pussy and 'its only 5 bloody km'. The route has every single 100m marked out on the floor - quite annoying when you're feeling like you've hiked across the Sahara Desert - but, being the thrifty optimist that I am, used them as 'sprint markers'. Hahahah, these were definitely not sprints, but they did make sure I kept moving. 

It seemed like a realllllly long time, but I made it to the end of my 5km route (there was a lot of spitting along the way, does being hugely hungover make other people spit?! what does it all mean!??!), I'd say in a 'respectable' time of 23.48, not too bad considering I genuinely thought I was close to death at more than one point... When I finished I was sick again (this time it was those really yummy beef 'space raider' crisps) and had an audience of three lycra'd cyclists - those bloody male cyclists. 

These photos are getting more and more irrelevant...

I did a VERYYYY slow warm-down back to my house, like slow as in I might as well have been walking, and then my sister picked me up in her car before I'd even got home. RESUUUULT. Overall it was about 11km (I think?!?!), and during my lower points (lol, like I was trapped down the Grand Canyon) I decided that WHO GIVES A SHIIIIT if I'm running like an elephant today - Glastonbury was one of the best times of my entire life, and if you're going to have a rest, it may as well be the best rest in the world. TA DAAAA

What more could you want in a weekend?!

OH and thank you to everyone who's Facebook photos I have stolen for this post...

#runningproblems

The more I run, the more I notice that this wonderful activity also comes with a few problems. I can imagine that proper professional runners have a whole different set of problems, such as being made to wee for the drugs people at the drop of a hat or which pair of trainers to wear that day, but these are real-life problems experienced by the average amateur runner, aka moi...

1. Having to wash your hair EVERY SINGLE BLOODY DAY
This was a problem highlighted by Hen at training the other day - going for a run in the evening is all well and good but then you can't exactly turn up for work the next morning rocking a greasy ponytail and hope you don't get sacked. My hair is super dry, super bleached and actually quite grim on a good day, so washing it pretty much every day means I resemble a scarecrow half the time. Also it means I have to get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning, totally nottttttt cool.

Double whammy of running problems...

2. The dreaded strawberry face
When I run, I go veryyyyyy red in the face. If I run 30 seconds up the road I'd probably be a salmony pink colour. Sometimes, I go red in work when I walk to the water cooler - haha sorry, too far. Going for a 'quick run' before going out to meet people can be tricky when you are faced with the 'crimson cheek' and shiny forehead - especially irritating that the pinkness stays for at least an hour afterwards, the photo above was taken 36 hours after I raced. Make-up is essential when race photographers are about!

3. People asking why you run
BECAUSE I WANT TO!!!!! Some people choose to play chess, others like video games and a select few enjoy chasing a huge roll of cheese down a hill, but I spend some of my time running. Just because a large majority of people think its boring/hard/weird, doesn't mean I'm to be viewed with suspicion - it's not a cult, it's just a running club. It also means I can eat this family sized bag of 'mini matchmakers' (right now - so good) and not feel too guilty about it, so there.

THIS IS WHY

4. Camel toe
WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT. Hahahah, not really. I think my dad was scarred for life after reading my cycling post. All I shall say is: lycra is sometimes unforgiving and it can really put a girl off her stride if she is constantly worrying about what she looks like down south.......

5. Being told running is bad for your knees
I kid you not, once someone actually said to me "don't you run a lot? Did you know that running is literally the worse thing you can do". Right, THE WORST THING I CAN DO? I can think of a few things off the top of my head that are worse than running - selling drugs to children, picking your toenails and forgetting your mum's birthday just to name a few. Yes, running is hard on the old knees but so is being fat and carrying 45 stone of weight around all day. So swings and roundabouts, really. 

6. Having a favourite sports bra
Not that I do that clothes washing in my house - shoutout to my momma - but if you get attached to one sports bra, it can be so frustrating having to wait for it to go through the wash (hahaha, I'm going to get so much shit from my mum after this). I'm currently quite clingy to my Nike sports bra; I've got some good Shock Absorber ones but they just aren't as cool and I'm starting to resent having to wear them when my favourite one isn't available... Oh god I'm actually moaning about a sports bra. Such a hard life. 

7. Being a drunken mess
At a mere 5ft 1 and a half, I was never built to be a big-time drinker - but everyone loves a trier. During uni I was pretty much guaranteed to be a mess at least once a week, whether that be being sick by 11pm, having to go home early or being found in the toilet by the manager of a club because I'd fallen asleep with the door locked....... So you get the point, I'm a bit of a lightweight. But since I've started running more, I've gotten even worse - maybe it's because I'm nearly always dehydrated? One Smirnoff Ice down and I start to feel tipsy, and the other day I actually felt a bit drunk after having a LIME AND SODA, no alcohol. Maybe I just have booze running through my veins.

Napping on a night out, life and soul of the party

8. Non-running people thinking you are better than you are
LOL, this isn't really a problem but it does make me feel like a bit of a fraud. My wonderful friends have so patiently listened to me talk about running, training plans and racing over the years, and to be honest I've probably made out I'm a bit of a speed machine. Alas, my running lingo can be very deceiving and most of my friends could probably give me a run (OH, a pun) for my money if they did a few weeks of training. Although, when all the girls came to cheer me on at the Bristol Half Marathon I did feel like a maaaaassive superhero, so maybe they don't even care how fast I am, they just want to slap my bum in lycra, absolute babes. 

Waving to the fans, such a hero