5k

I am being "hired" as a guinea pig for a study that people at my university are carrying out about the effect of electrostimulation on legs muscles. I was subjected to tests with machines that are only used for olimpyc athlets and could be very expensive.

I did a VO2 max test and with it I will be given my lactate threshold. I don't know the results as yet. I have also received a scan to measure my body fat percentage. Not very good news on that front. 31% was the result and my BMI is 24%. these are normal ranges but I found out that I have put weight on lately and I am not happy about it.

In 4 weeks they'll run the same tests again and then the real procedure starts: for 6 weeks, 3 day a week (1 hour each time) my legs muscles will be stimulated with electro...thing (can't remember the name) and then they'll see how strong they've become and the tests will be done for the final time. I am very curious to see how it goes.

future plans

tomorrow morning I am off to the states (L.A and San Francisco). I am going for a conference/job interview/holiday and to be honest right now I feel more nervous than excited!
If the job interview goes well, somehow, deep inside, the idea of moving to the states scares me a bit. if the job interview goes wrong, though, next academic year I will be unemployed, and that idea scares me too. I should just concentrate on the fact that I will see two amazing places (LA and san francisco) that I have never seen before and I should think about what comes when it comes. dunno....

anyway, I hope your holidays go well.

I might be able to blog from there, otherwise I'll "see" you in 2009 )

ciao!!!

for the first time in 3 years and 6 marathons I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the end. my training had been poor and my motivation quite low. the weather forecast had predicted rain and indeed the night before the marathon I could not sleep because of the noise outside: it was pouring down and the wind was strong too!! I said to myself that if the weather was going to be the same in morning I was not going to race.

when I woke up, though, the weather was really nice and I had no other choice than walk to the start line in piazzale michelangelo (there's a beautiful view of florence from there). but once there, I got literally soaked before I set off for my 7th marathon. fate!

From the first minute of my race I knew I was going to finish...not matter how!!! I had a friend along the course who cheered me on on 3 different occasions: 12km, 25km and 41km; I had certainly something to look forward to. my parents were supposed to come to florence too but decided not to the end, because of the weather.

I adopted the same strategy of my dublin marathon: 5 min run and 1 min walk and despite my lack of training, my lack of sleep and the rain I closed my race in 4:56. not my best time, but not my worst either.

The course was nice, even though the stretch from 32km to 38km was pretty boring and looooooong. I had started to get tired by then but at that point I was determined not to pull out. so I kept repeating my mantra ('till the finish line) and alternating walk and run...by then it had become 4 1/2 min run and 1 1/2 min walk. It was a bit discouraging not to have much support by then and some of the people I met along the route kept saying "they must be the last ones", nice!....but I tried to keep positive and I crossed the line with a big smile.

now I am in Italy, at my parents', until sunday and I am eating a lot and relaxing a bit before I start marking exam!

it's really cold here!!!

two days after dublin I finally have some time to blog.

It was my sixth marathon and my first dublin one. after two years in this city and two years of supporting friends and fetchies I finally got to run it myself. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. so, even if my training was really bad I decided to do dublin and use it as a training run for the florence marathon at the end of november.

that was a great choice!

I have been under the weather in the last few weeks. my uncle, who had cancer, got really worse really fast and he died on thursday. I couldn't make it to the funeral and I was (am) worried for my dad (my uncle was one of his younger brothers). I was not in the mood for a race.

I have also been stressed for work stuff and the job applications to the states.

but when I turned up at the dinner with the fetchies and few other people I started to feel the buzz and on monday morning I was ready to go. I finished the race in 4:47, my second personal worst, but I don't care. It was the best marathon ever. The support of the people was just amazing. I couldn't believe it. I keept saying thank you to everyone who called my name or said GO FETCH GO. I was so emotional that everything made me cry, but I felt also very happy. so basically I run the whole marathon with tears in my eyes and a big smile on my face. weird.

I did the whole marathon alternating 5 min run to 1 min walk and that worked very well. My legs feels great now and I am ready to keep training for florence.

there's so much more that I should say about this marathon, but I can always write another post hopefully I'll do that soon.

I forgot to say that I DNF the half marathon two weeks ago. I pulled out at mile 8 :( it was the first time for me and I hated the feeling. It's not fun cheering on people completing their race when you didn't. I know I did the right thing but I did not like it. that'll teach me :)

september was pathetic. I run a total of 72 miles spread in only 9 runs! dublin was getting closer and I was getting lazier. I didn't want to give up the idea of doing dublin, 'cause this might be my last year in this city and I wanted to do this mara once. I love the idea of a race around the place where I live. so I thought: "I'll do dublin as a walk but THERE IS NO WAY I'm doing florence...."

but last weekend something happened. I went to rome for a "running weekend" with some of the people I met on my italian blog. we are now a community of 60 bloggers who leave comments in each others' blogs and we've decided to form a group (a bit like fetch, but smaller). we are the BLOGTROTTERS. the meeting coincided with a 10k that we all run with the same t-shirts.


it was a lovely weeekend. 3 days of eating, drinking wine, chatting and running. what was great about my race was the fact that one of the faster guy, once he finished his race, came back to find me and push me through the last 2 ks which ended up being the fastest ones. even though my time wasn't good (1:00:13) I seem to have found my lost mojo.




Not only have I been out twice this week I have also entered florence marathon. So now the idea is to use dublin as a long run and try to do florence in a decent time. there will be many fetchies in dublin and many blogtrotters in florence, so it's going to be a nice party too!!

BRING IT ON!!

It's now time for another half-marathon. the adidas race series which included a 5 and a 10 miler ends on Saturday with the half. as a celebration I have finally officially entered the DUBLIN MARATHON. so now, there's no escaping it!! my training has been quite random....

some week I have gone out only once for a 5 miler; some other weeks I have gone out once and then attempted (and succeeded) a long run. two sundays ago I managed a 15,73 miler and last sunday a 18,63 one. I still don't know how that was possible. my legs feel fine really but tuesdays have become tough: I feel tired and HUNGRY! does that happen to me only? are the tuesdays after your LSRs tough??

the new academic year has started already and we are now in week 2! after spending the summer months working on my research in the peace and quiet of my flat, starting term with hundreds of students and colleagues trying to talk to me was a shock to the system. I love being surrounded by people and I love my students. it's just hard to adjust to the sudden change; I feel overwhelmed but I know it will get easier and easier.

this is going to be my last year at dublin university since my contract expires in august 2009. ideally I'd like to either stay here or move back to england but the situation is gloom. languages are not popular with the university power-that-be (probably none of the subjects belonging to the humanities area are). so the idea is now to apply somewhere else, and after ignoring the states for all my working life it's time for me to acknowledge the fact that I might have a chance to find a permanent job over there. it would be such a huge change for me and it will be difficult to explain this choice to my parents: england and ireland do not seem too far any more, but the states are. well...it might come to nothing, but the filling-the-application-form process has now started....scary!!

BUT

let's focus on what's happening at the moment and let's hope that the half marathon goes well. I'll meet up with the irish fetchies and I am sure it'll be fun!

yes, I am still alive but I guess my posting goes with my training and when I am not doing much I don't post much.

in the last few weeks my mojo has been coming and going; then it was time to hit the road with some italian friends of mine and go to Longford. They did the marathon and I did the half. my pb is 1:58 but I knew that I wasn't fit enough to beat that. as soon as we started it began to pour down (as you can see from the pic) and it wasn't pleasant. when the rain stopped I was drenched and tired.

I stopped for the first time at mile 3 and then I walked at every drink station. half way through I realised that I wasn't going to finish under 2hs so I took it easy ending up doing a LSR rather than a race. I finished in 2:06' and I was pleased with it anyway.


the race was on august 24th and since then I managed to run only once. I must have caught something on race day and I have been ill with a silly flu since then. I had to skip my LSR last sunday. dublin is getting closer and I am not ready yet. I haven't run longer than 13 miles. hopefully this week will be better.

my press up challenge suffered too last week, but I keeping at it. I am now on W3 D1 and it's getting really tough. but I can see improvements in my upper body strength and I am loving it!!

this is not my bycicle, but this is how my bycicle looked when I went downstairs this morning. I just can't believe it. I live in a court, you know, a complex with a couple of blocks of flats and terraced houses and lots of security. the bike was locked but the wheels weren't. after all the bike should be safe here. the main gate of the complex has been broken for a while now and surely some twat came in and did the job. I am pi$$ed off! it will cost me more than a 100 euros to put new wheels so I am now trying to buy a second hand one and I need to find it before term starts. my bike is the only way to go to uni in a reasonable time and without having to take 2 buses. grrrr

JB will be pleased though...one less cyclist on the roads ;)

what can I say about paula? I watched the marathon live last night, chatting away with a friend on skype and with my fetchie peeps. it was nice to comment on the race and have a virtual laugh. but the laughters lasted up to the 35 k marker. at that point I saw her stop and strecth. she looked in real pain. I thought that she was going to pull out. she didn't. she got into the stadium. she crossed that finish line. great!! but I was very upset for her. I couldn't help crying when she hugged liz yelling and when she talked to the BBC. I can just imagine the pain she felt when her legs stopped working and she had to push herself .... I can only imagine her disappointment.

but today I am even more upset by some comments made on the papers by journalists and random people alike who criticize her for having taken part in the games being injured, for having taken away somebody else's chance of victory (!!) bla bla bla. I have realised for the first time how despised she is by many in UK and I just can't get my head around this. to me she is the greatest marathon runner ever and her inabilty to win a gold medal at the games doesn't change how I feel about her. I am not going to add much. I just hope that she'll recover soon from her injury and that she gets back into racing and winning soon.

as for my race yesterday, that went much better than I thought. I have been feeling out of sorts in the last few weeks. I did the same race last year, same course. It took me 1:36:49. I thought this time anything under 1:45 it's fine really. but I PBd!! by only one minute....but who cares? I finished the 10 miles in 1:35:29 and I am well pleased with that.

sometimes changes are needed :)

COME ON PAULA!!

she'll be running at 0.35 saturday night/sunday morning if you didn't know that. I'll be watching the race live....I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited!!!

it's been raining for days now and it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon. I am so glad I am working from home as the idea of getting on my bike in this weather somehow does not appeal to me :) it's funny how I have no problem whatsover in running in the rain, but I am not too keen in cycling. not that I have been running much these days either. I skipped my long run last week and considering that I have two races coming up it wasn't such a great idea.
Yeah, my training has been a bit lame so far and on saturday I'll be running a 10 miler in phoenix park, and on sunday 24th I'll be running a half-marathon in longford. I was hoping to pb in both races but considering my poor level of fitness I will just go there and enjoy it. they will both be a good social event :)
I have been trying to get back into the habit of running first thing in the morning. every morning I set the alarm and avery morning I keep sleeping. I know that I love the feeling it gives me, but the most difficult thing is to actually start. one day......maybe

One thing that I have been doing quite regularly is the pressup challenge. today is week2 day2 and I can already see the improvement in my strength and in my arms. The only problem I have is my elbow. It starts aching by the end of the 5th set of pressups and I don't know what it is. I hope that it stops once I get used to it, 'cause I want to get to the point in which I can do as many pressups as ILIKETOCOUNT ;)

there's a new challenge for us crazy runners (and not). it's called HUNDREDPUSHPS and it's fun..erm..not really fun, but I am curious to see how I will look like after the challenge.

who's up for it?

this is my first week and I am doing the girly ones on the knees. but you can join in at any time.

there are quite a few of us on Fetch doing the challenge. let's see how many bloggers fancy another challenge after juneathon :)

come on ... you know you want to!!

tonight I am going to a salsa club for the first time. I am not that keen so that would be another challenge for me. Let's hope I don't make a fool of myself.

....well, slowly, but I am!!

so, this week is over and I have banked 31.5miles which I am pleased with. I went out 5 times and most of the times I avoided looking at the garmin. I am trying to follow my 'natural' pace as much as I can and guess what?! I am faster than I thought. the 5 runs included one hill session, one interval session (10 x 200m), 2 easy runs and a long run of almost 12miles and I am so glad that tomorrow is a rest day.

today I did my long run in sandymount and it was lovely. the weather was fantastic, there were lots of people enjoying the sunshine or having fun with their dogs. my garmin gives me an average temperature of 20c; summer then is here, and I guess this is as good as it gets. but after 3 weeks in horrid temperature in italy I am not going to complain about it all!! the run in itself was tough especially because I was thirsty. I normally don't take any water with me if I am running for less than 2 hours and I am normally fine, but today I suffered a lot. I was so tempted at one point to ask people with bottles of water if they could give it to me or of they could give me some money to buy something to drink. well, yes, I went out with no money, no water, nothing. just me, my garmin and my crappy mp3. how clever am I? so, when I got to k 15 I passed by a cool and stylish pub and the decision was made on the spot. in I went. stopped my garmin. I WANTED SOME WATER. there was noone around and I had to wait for 2-3 minutes before a cute (and very young) guy came to give me what I wanted...erm....water, with lots of ice!!! that felt soooo good. but maybe too good 'cause I lost it: I went outside, started my garmin again and off I went for the last 3ks of my run. but after a while I had a look at my garmin and realised that I hadn't started it!! DOH! it was stuck at 15.2ks and I had at least done 800m. damn it! well, I decided anyway to do 18k on the watch but when I loaded my data on motionbased I could see that I was right. I did 18.8ks, almost 12 miles! this motionbased is great, is even more precise than sportstracks.

I am still thirsty and in a while I'll hit the pub with some friends! YAY!

let's start by saying that on saturday I went to the cinema, which for many of you might not be a big deal. but lately, watching a movie outside the 4 walls of my apartment is quite a rare event. but what is even rarer for me is to go to the cinema with someone else (and no, it wasn't a date!). So basically I emerged from my shelter and became a social person. cool! I should do that more ofter! (?) anyway. I saw a very good movie: gone, baby, gone and I was so glad I went. Ben Affleck is an clever and sensitive director and his brother is just brilliant. it was difficult, though, to understand everything they said as they spoke with an accent I wasn't familiar with. there you go. the pleasure of being a foreign :)

after a week in which I struggled to find motivation to go out and run, I can say that I am happy about the milage and the quality of the work done. my first attempt of a decent run actually started back on tuesday, but I had to go back after only a mile as I was feeling really really bad. once at home I managed to do some of those exercises that you find on the flashy running magazines I read (I should stop buying them) and I used the ball I bought more than a month ago. yay!!
for the rest of the week I just went out to do 5 miles without caring about my pace and I ended up doing my fastest miles. weird things can happen. I concluded this unusual week of training with a painful painful 10 miler on sunday. I won't tell you how difficult it was but what I'll tell you is that I was soooooooo glad to be back home.

so, 4 runs this week with a total of 24 miles. not bad for a week of lack of motivation i'd say!

I have entered Longford half yesterday where I'll try to beat my pb. I have a month to get back on track and hopefully that would motivate me....who knows!

guys...have you seen my MOJO??? I can't find it anywhere. I am kind of worried....it's only week 2 FFS!!

tomorrow is going to be my last day in italy. I had 3 nice weeks, spent with old and new friends, with my family and my little nephew, eating ice creams and pizzas! but these 3 weeks have also been tough: it has been way too hot for me and I needed my space and privacy which it's difficult to have when I stay at my parents'. I am definitely ready to go back home!


today I did my first run of my first week of training for the dublin marathon: 4.35 miles in 41 minutes. nothing special but it's a start. I think I'm coming down with something and I struggled more than usual during the run. on top of this and of my lack of training in the last 2 weeks I had some problems with my first pair of running shorts ever. I bought them today but it was a bad idea:


they look really nice, but my inner (and fatty) thigh chafed big time and I had to cut my run short. I'll bin them. but I also bought some new cool headphones and they work just fine!

today I have entered the three races of the adidas race series: 5m-10m-half and on saturday it's already time to run the 5 miler. not sure I am ready for it, but I'll do it anyway :)

here is bloody hot. today the temperature reached 31c and it wasn't the hottest day. what really bugs me, though, is the high percentage of humidity.

as you know i did some allergy tests and apparently i'm allergic to some silly substances and now i've got to check all the products and food that i use daily... i just hope this is not going to be a waste of time and that my eczema will go away once and for all. i was housebound until thursday and that wasn't pleasant (you can see the different phases of the allergy tests in the pics). thankgod there's got air -con at my parents' and staying in was the only way for me not to sweat and compromise the tests.


since thursday i have been to the swimming pool twice: i swum 1,5k the first time and 2k the second time. so that makes it 3,5k which is 2,2 miles. not too bad considering that when we swim the effort is allegedly 4 times harder than when we run. today, I braved the weather and went out for a 5 miler. i can say only one thing: it was HOT!!!!!




Juneathon is over and JJ gave me permission to complete it, despite my problems. so, here is my GRAND total:

18/30 done (i started on june 5th)
miles done in june: 78,90 (bike + run + swim = am I ready for triathlon or what????)

there you go!!

here it's incredibly hot and i am hating it. i've never liked the heat. i can only take it if i am lying on the beach, which it's not happening.

i couldn't run on friday 'cause my tendon was still aching. i used my bike instead to move around my village. i didn't do much, maybe a couple of Ks, but I have taken nice pictures:

on saturday afternoon i had a wedding to go to and since i still couldn't run i decided to go to the swimming pool in the morning. there's a 50m outdoor swimming pool in my village and that's really a great thing. i wanted to complete 10 lengths so to do 500m. i hadn't been to a swimming pool in 2 years and i wasn't sure i could do it. after the first 4 lengths i felt tired but suddenly i found myself sailing and i managed 20 lengths for a grand total of 1k!! i was really quite pleased with it.

i banked 5 more miles today. but now i'm limping. my achilles tendons is hurting. i guess that for the next two days i will have to do something else for juneathon....damn!







15/30 done
miles done in june: 71.09

I woke up at 3.15am and the taxi picked me up at 3.45am. I think that early flights should be made illegal! once home I spent the whole afternoon in a comatose state. I slept for a couple of hours and then I went out for my juneathon. 5 miles which were more like torture. I was really tired and it was quite hot for my standars. I should take inspiration from JoggerBlogger and go out early mornings. not that I can do his milage....



there are no parks in my village, but there is a really long stretch along a canal ideal for running. there are always many people running there as it avoids getting killed on main roads by italian drivers. they don't really care, as you might be aware. the only problems of this quite beautiful and peaceful route are the mosquitos and the lack of shade.

I will go for a walk soon so that I can take some pictures and show you the place :)


juneathon
14/30 done
miles done in june: 66.09

this is going to be my last post from ireland before I go to italy for 3 weeks. I'm going to stay with my parents; my mum will drive me mad but at least I won't have to worry about cleaning, cooking and all that. I can concentrate on my writing and running; plus, I can go to the nice open air swimming pool and do parts of juneathon there. It's a 50 metre one and that's how I like it :)

today another busy day on my bike.


it's almost a 7mile route (out and back).

I had a few things to do today in different parts of dublin and since I don't have a car and the trasport system here is quite lame, I used my bike. I did 8.5miles + 2 hours of horrible shopping to find a dress for a wedding I'm going to on saturday. not really sure about the dress...but who cares?!

yesterday i felt much much better. my mind was working and i was finally making some progress with the article i am trying to finish. so i decided to skip my run and take advantage of a rare moment of inspiration. i knew anyway that i was going to town to meet some friends so i decided to walk there and back as my juneathon activity:









i walked quite briskly and as i was walking i felt like i could have conquered the world. whatever is wrong with me, whatever it is that doesn't make me get a permanent job... i'll fight it. total of 2.77miles yay!

today..it was just great. I did 13k which is 8.09 miles and this is the longest i've run since the newry marathon. and it felt great!!! i decided not to go to phoenix park and thought that maybe the 10 miler that i had in mind was a bit too far for me right now. so i decided to go to sandymount and then, since the cars around weren't that many, to come back following a nice road full of trees, amazing and huge georgian houses which are now embassies. it's nice to run in dublin on a sunday morning. everybody is in bed with a hungover so it's a totally different place. quite and peaceful almost.


i was thinking...maybe i should take pictures to show all the juneathoners the beautiful canal and amazing is sandymount, but as i said in one comment to jb's post, i don't like to have things with me while a run. but I have some pics of the route which i took during my walks so i'm using those. it's kind of cheating and it's nothing like the beautiful london parks or cornwal landscape but that's the best i can do. this is sandymount:



while i was running back home i met that guy who asked me out, had a nice evening chatting away and then didn't call me back and ignored my texts. i didn't push him into the canal as i said i would do if i saw him...maybe next time. i'm too nice!! and what is it in dublin that you meet the same people day in day out???? this would have never happened in london!

10 and 11/30 done
miles done yesterday and today: 2.77 + 8.09 = 10.86

I THINK I AM BACK!!

miles done in june: 45.59

yesterday for juneathon i did A BIG FAT NOTHING!! I guess that being so down in the last few days, feeling sorry for myself, thinking at times how bad i am and then how good i am, it's only that people cannot see it...i guess that all that has taken its toll on me and when it was time to go out for my run i felt completly exhausted!
sorry guys!
what happens next? have we decided what to do with losers like me?? :) I am planning a higher milage for the weekend because i've decided to put up a fight..they won't have me!
let me know what the deal is and i hope it's not going to be corporal punishement!!

been in a bad mood all day and the run didn't help.

5 miles done and dusted

9/30 done
miles done today: 4.97
miles done in june: 34.73

finally a decent (-ish) run today. am I recovering from the last 2 marathons? who knows! I managed 40 mins and 4.35 miles and I didn't feel in pain for the whole duration of the run. so maybe that's a good sign. let's see how it goes tomorrow.




today I went and bought one of those fitness balls. I have cancelled my gym membership and I'll do some excercise at home. it took me ages to inflate it 'cause it come with a silly little pump but I did it. i'll have to watch the dvd included in the package to see what kind of exercice i can do o it other than abs. i am sur it's going to be fun....

oh...and I have entered the overseas ballot for FLM...not that I trust the way they do things but there's no harm in trying, right?

8/30 done
miles done today: 4.35
miles done in june: 29.76

just a short walk today to go to the restaurant :) but every little helps....says someone!!


7/30 done
miles done today: 1.8
miles done in june: 25.41

I am watching the pretty little girls playing (and losing) against holland in the european cup, maybe i should read a book instead, i will feel much more happier. first, they should all have a hair cut; then, they should learn how to play with dignity passion and skills. i should be their coach i think!

today i went out for a lame run, an even more lame than yesterday's. i wanted to do 30 mins but ended up doing only 22. my legs haven't recovered yet from the 2 maras in a months and from a very demanding preparation for them. i am so glad that i have joined the juneathoners otherwise i wouldn't be doing much before the beggining of july, when preparation for the next 2 maras in autumn start. even though i feel tired (and quite discouraged from my lack of fitness) i'm running every day. i hope that counts for something.

this is today's route (away from the canal):


6/30 done
miles done today: 2.5
miles done in june: 23.61

my legs didn't feel quite right but i went out all the same for a lame run....but a plegde is a pledge, right? and after juneathon continues....erm...i know...it has just started, but there you go! i went to the small park next to my house today instead of following the usual route along the canal where i alway see the guy who asked me out and never called again. one day i'll push him into the canal just for the fun of it.

they have built tennis courts in the park, nice ones really, not like those in downhills park in haringey where i used to live when i was in london. but at least those had some sort of nets in the middle of the court. here not nets as yet so not sure what's the point of having a nice tennis court.

anyway 5/30 done!



miles done today: 3.11
miles done in june: 21.11

yesterday i took my friend around dublin and i decided to replace my juneathon run with a juneathon walk which probably won't happen again. I HATE WALKING! my legs hurt today much more than they normally do after a LSR!!! we walked for hours on end and so lots of dogs and runners and kite surfers and ate icecreams :) the great thing was that we managed to catch up on 2 years of gossips and that the weather was glorious. so overall i had a fab day.

i didn't take my garmin with me so i used the pedometre map to check our milage and these are yesterday's routes:

morning:

afternoon:

juneathon:
4/30
miles done today: 7.7
miles done in june: 18.9

very short run today. i have a guest this weekend and it was nice to run with someone else for a change. we did only 2.68miles but at least day 3 is done and dusted. not much time to post. i'm exhausted. good night juneathoners :)

juneathon:
1st: none
2nd: none
3rd: none
4th june: 4.21mi
5th june: 4.35mi
6th june: 2.68mi

total: 11.24mi

i bought something today which i may regret soon: a tanita body fat scale. not only does it give you the weight but also the body fat - body water - body muscle percentages. I tried it this afternoon and i didn't like what i saw. i'll try again tomorrow morning and from then i'll start another challenge this time to myself: lose weight before dublin marathon (october 27th). the target is 60kg...let's see tomorrow what's the real starting point, but it should be around 66kg.

i went out for a run today again. i normally run from 3 to 5 times a week so running every day is quite a new challenge for me. i will have to find new routes though and maybe a bit more adventurous. nothing happens along my route: no creepy men, no crazy cyclist (I'm a cyclist so maybe i just don't dotice them)...nothing. i only see lots of people and cars and runners and swans.


did 4.35 miles (7km) in a very slow pace which felt quite fast... :(

juneathon:
1st: none
2nd: none
3rd: none
4th june: 4.21mi
5th june: 4.35mi

total: 8.56mi

well, i've joined in BUT i'm not sure what to do now. i'm waiting for instructions. i got it all wrong and i thought juneathon was a challenge to run 100 miles during june, but that something jogblog is doing. it's not running to and from different tube stations, i know that for sure, that's warriorwomen's job

JUNEATHON is different. it challenges you to run every day of the month. right, I got that now :) and i'm on!! but joining in today without having run yesterday and the day before yesterday now...that's a bit complicated and the masters (JJ and JB) are trying to find a solution to my special case.

in the meantime I'll just skip the fact that I did 4,64 miles on sunday.

today i went out for 40 mins and after 1 min my crappy mp3 run out of battery. so i set off without music under the rain to put the miles in (still thinking at that stage that i needed to complete 100miles this month). i did 4,21 miles and this is the proof (even though my sporttracks is set in ks):

now, i know that all the people involved in the variuos challenges have lovely gadgets. i don't. but i have a lovely pic of mine: my new fetchie t-shirt (is this a gadget?), my garmin 205 and my crappy mp3....only 512mb :)

waiting for the verdict....

juneathon summary:
1/30 runs
4,21 miles

I have been very quite these days. I had a blogger friend over from italy so I took him around dublin and we did a nice run (my first after newry) in phoenix park. we walked like mad and if i had joined the juneathon i would have already won - well, if they make up their mind that is and decide whether walking counts or not!!
saturday though was taken over by my obsession with the most amazing and difficult race ever that some of my italian blogger friends were doing: the passatore 100k. i was getting live updated by friends who were there supporting and i could not concentrate properly on my guest :) every marathon runner in italy knows about it and many dreams of completing it; very few manage to do it. i am not thinking of doing it NO WAY, i am just fascinated by the idea that someone could run so long and on such A difficult route. one of my blogger friends finished among the first 4 italians and he will now join the national 100k team for the world cup...whoohoo!!
simone, the-winner-of-connemarathon-simone, is thinking of doing it and I'll be his support on a bike...that should be amazing.

PS: I HAVE JOINED THE JUNEATHON CHALLENGE....YAY!!
I don't have a nike thing and after what i've read on my bloggerfriends' posts i am not going to buy one. my gorgeous garmin will do the job.

JUNEATHON: day 4 - mile 0!! (i'm doing great eh?!)

i woke up yesterday to realise that my legs were just FINE! got on the bike to go to work and ....no, nothing, no pain. i got up and down the steps at work and no, still nothing! what's wrong people??? i thought i run a marathon on monday but maybe i just dreamt about it?! oh no, no...i know what it is...it must be what NUTELLA does to my legs :-)

oh dear...i am aching all over this morning and the official time is ever crapper than i thought: 4:39! there you have it...crap race, crap time :)

yesterday i woke up at 5.20am, in the car at 6am. I felt really exhausted and my eyes were closing. i was so happy i wasn't driving. evelyin though was very energetic. i don't how she does that. i should ask her what she's on :-) when we got to newry we met with some fetchie and once more i forgot to take pictures, silly me! there's one with me and eveylin but i think that for the sake of both of us i should NOT make it public! then off we went. i was supposed to run with geprig who wanted to finish in around 4 hours but wanted to take the first half easy. we knew about the hills, but maybe we didn't know them well enough. i lost him at mile 5 as i had to go to the loo. after that, i put my crappy mp3 on and i did the whole race on my own. at times i didn't see anyone in front of me. i tried to focus on the amazing views of the hills and valley surrounding us instead of the hills we were running on but that wasn't easy. they were tough and never ending. once i thought great this is done now we go down hill another one started. contiunously. i walked twice. i started to feel tired at the 10k marker!!!

half way through we headed back even though not on the same road (thankgod!). we run the second half on a beautiful towpath. we were a bit isolated, there were very few runners around but every now and then the marshalls on the bike would ride along you to ask you if you were fine if you wanted any water or gel. i thought that was a really nice touch. the day was beautiful, sunny, nice breeze and great temperature, at least for me. there was a nice shade on the towpath, which made it easier. well...a bit.

just half way through i started to get a nasty headache, which is very unusual for me, really. i started to think why that was. i was well hydrated, i ate properly for breakfast. i thought, maybe it's the wall, the dreaded wall is coming to get me. i was supposed to take a gel at 13miles but my tummy was a bit upset as usual. i had two choices: take the gel and run away from the wall but risking to upset my tummy too much; not take the gel and risking that my tummy could get worse anyway and the wall will hit me completly. it took me another mile to make up my mind and then i made my decision: take the gel and hope for the best.

my tummy strangely calmed down, but not my headache. my legs were getting tired, my glutei were very stiff. from 13 to 18miles i had to fight my demons. they were telling me to give up, that it was not for me, that i couldn't do it. but i kept going and i won. i crossed that line and got my medal! i kept running all the way through, slowly, grunting but i run. i walked very little, i kept going. the last two miles were hell. my ankles were hurting. the twopath was never ending. the last 800m was more than hell (what's more than hell i don't really know, but you know what i mean). we got into town again and the finish line was not in sight. at the last 200m i saw it. i heard people clapping, loud music and the speaker. i took off my crappy mp3 and i sucked in the nice atmosphere, people screaming when the speaker said my name. i run the bloody thing on my own, i run the last 200m minute on my own and on my own i crossed the finish line.

at the end HowFar? from fetch was waiting for me and that made my day. he had finished in 2:48 in fourth position! amamzing!!! the I met up with BS ans waited for eveylin to cross the line. and she did it in great style taking home her second best time. she and BS will be doing cork next monday....they're barking mad.

when i got to get changed i found out that my periods had arrived during the race. so maybe, after all, it wasn't the wall to give me headache and to take away my energy.

i am disappointed, but not defeated. the 4h mark seems far right now. but, since i've started to train for the 4hs in january i have improved so much. I took off:
3min my 5miles pb
4min my half marathon pb doing by best race to date
17' min my marathon pb

now i'll have to work on my speed and try to get my weight down to 60kg (now i'm 64.5kg). i know that i can do it. the 4h wall will be destroyed. i'm stronger. I WILL WIN, i know it :-)