Leuven

I went to Belgium for work last week. I did not do any running at all, despite my best intentions. One month to go before a marathon - that's a good time for a break, right? However, I did drink beer and visit a magnificent toy shop, so not a wasted week. Also, the conference was pretty good.

Stats for the week (11th May)

ONE - Most of these in the course of one run, where we got hopelessly lost...
TWO - From me, whilst hopelessly lost, and in a forest. I thought we were going to have to make a camp and hold off the wolves all night.
THREE - Here are the extra 3 miles we accidentally ran, round and round in a lovely nature reserve at sunset. We were setting off on a 13 mile run from a friends house, our of town, having spent the afternoon eating and sunbathing; correct warm-up for a long run? Then we waved everyone off on the tram back to town, slightly apprehensive, and realised my phone was also speeding away from me, in Ilary's bag. With it our maps. On the plus side we saw a deer as close as anything! He was lovely, and startled. On the negative side I have only just regained the use of my legs, and we didn't get any pictures, since phones now double up as all electronic gadgets.
FOUR - nothing new, but a happy tally!

Safaricom Meeting in London

We had been getting e-mails from Mary-Jane at Tusk about a meeting in London to hear about the race from people that had done it before. I never even bothered to look at the date; once knew it was London-based I just assumed we couldn’t make it. Turns out, it was exactly the night we were driving back in from our muddy run with Morven. So we rocked up. VERY late due to forgetting that driving into Knightsbridge (very central and swanky London. I mean Harrods and £200-million flats swanky) at rush hour was only for numpties. And us.

Morven e-mailed round the rest of the running team after the meeting. She expresses it so well that I am shamelessly going to use her words from here on in (bits in non-Italics are my additions):

“Hey team.

So Laura, Rich and I made it to the marathon meet last night. Which was brill but hilarious seen as we arrived 45mins late, covered in Wessex Downs mud, into a room full of people in suits.

Luckily Mary Jane is delightful. She handed us booze and told everyone we had driven in from Wales specifically for the meeting. Slight exaggeration but we went with it.  Although we now need to speak in welsh accents for the entire race. Cool? (This is not the first time in my life that is has been difficult to explain where we were from, living and coming from that day. The upshot is that people there were not sure if we were Welsh, Swedish or Scottish, despite the fact that I was about 1 mile from where I was born at the time).

Was a great meeting with plenty folk who had run the race before. I think the best things they said were...

People regret focusing on their time rather than the giraffe running beside them. Focus on the giraffe.
There are misting stations.
We should all get white running caps with black on the underside. To reflect heat as well as look super snazzy.
There are 3 hard hills and we should expect to walk up at least one.
The temp gets to average 28 (not as bad as I thought)
No one else is staying in the campsite (we are such urchins) but Mary Jane is going to come find us on Friday night.
Breathe in before you drink water.
We will definitely get lapped by many barefooted sinewy Kenyans.

It's going to be soooo great.” 
 

Here are Bam and Kaz modeling our snazzy free t-shirts, with Tusks:

Worst Wales and Wessex

We had a glorious and ridiculous week of running last week, in two parts.

Wales –

We finally made it to see my Dad’s house in west Wales. Not worst Wales, that was a mishearing by Nosh. It’s full of amazing old cars in bits mostly (the house, not the country), and we had a fine old time kicking about there for a few days.

According to our training plan it was time to complete our first half marathon whilst we were there. This was a mixed blessing. On one hand we had plenty of time and pasta on our hands, so we were well fed and rested when we started out. On the other, Wales is a very hilly country.

On turning left out of the house we hit an immediate climb, which pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the run. 13.2 miles up and over a hill (mountain?) and then back, innumerable sheep and hill (mountain?) ponies and a couple of mouthfuls of raisins later we arrived back, just before one of the many biblical downpours of rain that week. Then we remembered that we didn’t have access to any washing facilities other than the kitchen sink.

It’s not a run that’s going to go down in the history of speedy runs, but for us it was a brilliant way to hit a milestone, and remember that at the beginning of this crazy plan, a half marathon was the very distant and daunting goal.

Time to crack on and do that twice then…

North Wessex ups and Downs –

Two days later (after visiting the nearest swimming pool 20 miles away at 7am in order to wash) we were back on the road heading towards London, through yet more of the week’s typical storms. We had the vaguest notion of a plan to meet Morven somewhere off the M4. Remarkably we found each other without incident, in a teeny tiny thatched village called East Garston, somewhere on the North Wessex Downs.

Morven had planned a wonder of a day running and swimming in this pretty part of the world, so we set off first on our run. I am still unsure how far we went – maybe 6 miles or so – but we felt like we were training for the army. We went up and down hills and farm tracks so wet and rutted with tractor tracks that you had to decide how exactly to place your feet in the pitted mud. It was bloody marvelous.  The same post-van passed us twice on the run, and then once whilst we were lying facedown on a tiny strip of grass trying to do planks. He must have wondered what the heck we were up to.

We ended up covered in mud and pretty wet, and tried to clamber down into the little stream running through the village to wash our faces and feet, before heading off to our next location of Hurley to wild swim in the Thames. Sadly the Thames was having none of this, as the week of rain had taken it’s toll on the force of the river. Despite determinedly running through the rain and ignoring signs not to go further Morven and I had to eventually admit (when we came across a fence about twice my height, through which the raging torrent which was once the river that ‘The Wind in the Willows’ was inspired by) that swimming wasn’t on the agenda for the day.

And thus we carried on to our next adventure in our post-run muddy and sweaty state….

Stats for the week (27th April)

ONE -  a marvelous week of running in the hills in Wales, in the mud in Wessex, and then round and round Peckham Rye on a sunny Saturday morning in a 10km race.

TWO - Peckham team! We did 10km in 57 minutes, thanks to Morven’s encouragement and occasional tugs by the hand up the hills.

THREE -  wise words from the Safaricom meeting on Thursday night. Although maybe my favourite quote of the meeting was “The majority of the runners will not be European. Do not try to keep up with them.”

FOUR - up this week thanks to my Aunty. Thank you Aunty-dear!

Update on Demibrain

For anyone I haven’t spoken to who is reading this blog and is wondering about Demibrain Rich, he is doing fine. He just completed the Kungsholmen 10km in Stockholm in 48.15 minutes, showing just how much I am slowing him down usually!

Stats for the week (20th April)

ONE - Best week so far! A large chunk of this was the lovely long run we did on Easter Sunday in the sunshine, round the...
TWO - dark side of Södermalm. At the moment one of my favourite things about running is ending up in parts of the city that I would never have gone to otherwise, and working out how other bits all connect up.
THREE - It was Rich's birthday this week, so we spent Tuesday evening having dinner with Stockholmies and drinking non-alcoholic champagne. This makes us sound very intense about training, but actually it's because of Demibrain's brain.
FOUR - Thank you to everyone that has sponsored me so far.