The need for a little music.

Just before Christmas my laptop crashed most epically!

The true horror of this did not hit home until I started to get the feeling that I needed a new running playlist. The boy has taken his laptop and my iPad to Sweden, leaving me without iTunes and the only playlist I have on my phone; it has been like this now for almost 6 weeks. The playlist is from when I completed then Silverstone half last year... most definitely time for a change.

In preparation for a new playlist I have been thinking about what works for me and what doesn't. There are bands that I love, such as Alice in Chains, but as I have come to realise, they are not good for running and bring my pace right down! The bands that seem to work for me the most are; Iron Maiden, ACDC (especially Whole Lotta Rosie) and Rob Zombie. 

I feel that these are my starting point, but not sure where to go from here?! What feels like it could be a good running tune, can turn out to be an epic mistake! I suppose my question is this; what other tunes, based on my preferences, might work for me?

In other news; I managed to complete almost 14 miles this weekend!

Finally got past that half marathon hurdle... although only just! I have to say, the last mile became a mind over matter situation, my mind had to cancel out the aching I could feel in my thigh muscles! Stamina wise I was fine. I could have kept going and going!! Just wish my legs would learn to keep up.

In addition to this my snowboard arrived and I am uber excited about trying it out! As it is 2nd hand I took it for a service and the guy in the shop said that I got an absolute bargin. He could tell that it had barely been used and there was not a thing wrong with it... winner!

Then finally this evening, following almost 2yrs of abuse with bleach to get it white blonde and dealing the the fall out (literally), I had to get my hair cut off! The way I see it thought, is that it always grows back, so that's ok. I am missing the blonde though and feeling just a little too 'normal'

Birthday running!

Saturday I turned 32. I have to say that I feel a little old, and before you say, '32 is not that old!' It's already been said to me. Feeling old is not about a number, it's about a feeling surely?

Obviously it's not overly true, I don't really feel that old, maybe just a little run down as I still have a little of the snivels following my cold last week.

It was a different weekend. I was due to return home to Manchester, but was given the opportunity to spend time with my favourite 3yr old, who I had not seen for 4 weeks, whilst her daddy has been away. It was really lovely, she told me that she missed me lots, gave me lots of squeezes and we played games.

In terms of my training, last week was very reduced due to feeling too unwell to train properly. Mid week I managed a 5k run and 2 x trips to the gym to do strengthening. On Sunday I planned to do a 20k run, but I did something that I have never done before... I bailed on a run!

As mentioned in earlier posts I have had knee problems in the past. I have purposely worked my route to go out of town, back in again, back out again. This way I know that if something happens whilst out running, I am never too far from home.

This can have negative affects on motivation however, as sometimes the thought of turning left instead of turning right pops into your head and it's a difficult one to shake, but I always manage to shake it.

Sunday was different, Sunday I was just not there mentally. Usually I can switch off to the ache in my legs, sometimes I secretly enjoy it. Not Sunday though! For some reason my head was just full of negativity and it got to the point where I just thought, 'sod it!' Then I stopped!

This is normally something which I would dwell on, over anaylising what happened, over and over, trying to rationalise it. I didn't though, because I have started to realise that training for a marathon is tough, both physically and mentally. The fact that I manage to get out every weekend and do a distance run is amazing in itself. From now on, I will listen to how I am feeling and even congratulate myself on the days I don't succeed. I have never done a marathon before and the way I see it, at least I am trying! 

No choice but to have a break

Last week I started to complain about the fact that I felt my training had become far too samey and I received a lot of advice from those of you who follow on Google+. What a difference a couple of days make!

I ended up missing my gym session on Thursday due to me having to stay late and do a 12.5hour shift to cover staff sickness. I got home quite late and as I had just got in from work struggled to settle. This had a knock on effect to my Friday morning run, but as some of the advice given was to maybe take a couple of days break, I tried not to beat myself up over this.

Saturday I went Snowboarding and it was then that I started to feel unwell. I don't know what is going on this year, but there have been so many viruses and bugs going round, I can't remember the last time we had a full staff team in. 

Sunday I was due to increase my distance run by another mile. I woke up and although I did not feel the worst I had ever felt, I knew that had I have attempted to run 12 miles, I would have just made myself feel a million times worse!

So that's it, I now have a cold... again! It does not seem to be a particularly bad one yet, but it is enough to give my training schedule a wobble. So this week I will only be doing a couple of 5k runs and will do some strengthening at the gym. I will also probably eat all of the wrong foods... because I do that when I am poorly and to be honest I think it's fair enough!

This isn't a great picture as it was taken through glass, but for amusement purposes, here is me at the snow dome!