Got the Gear!

Last week I spotted an advert on Facebook for a sports-wear brand called Tikiboo who were advertising Mr Men and Little Miss printed running tights and capris. I commented on the advert pointing out that as I was running the London Marathon for Children with Cancer UK who use 'Team Mr Men and Little Miss' for their sports events, I would clearly neeeeeeed some of these legging to run in.

A very lovely friend suggested that she and her daughter, my Goddaughter, buy some for me so that I could have a 'Goddaughter Hug' for my legs on the big day. She was true to her word, and these fabulous running capris arrived today. Here I am modelling them (I think this pose is far more realistic than the models on the Tikiboo site.....) along with my CwC vest top. Not the best photo but in my defense I was just home from Pilates and also very very excited to grab a pic and send it to my friend.

So, I now have all the gear - I just hope that on the day I have some idea, too!

Little Miss Fun legs

I was tempted to test them this morning but will save them for a longer run. It was suprisingly cold again today and I struggled round my 7 miles this morning, but the sun coming up as I ran due East was pretty wonderful to see.

Hello Sunshine

6am Club

There are just five weeks to go now; please do sponsor me if you have not yet managed it. Thank you, lovely people!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

Running and Riding

I was out on the driveway washing the car in the sunshine yesterday when our good friends and neighbours walked past on their way back from a dog walk. We chatted for a bit, and when I said I was running today but just local loops as I was on my own, the lovely Sue basically said NOPE - I'll sort my bike out when I get home and cycle your route with you.

And that is exactly what she did. And I can't tell you how lovely that was! The first 8 mile loop was done before I had a chance to even think about what I was doing and how far I was going, just pottering along and nattering as we went. By 10/ 11 miles I was feeling tired, but Sue nailed the balance of distraction and encouragement. Hitting the home straight of the last mile was amazing (in fact my pace increased, the end in sight!!!) and we made it back to the start point, 16.19 miles DONE!!!!

Thank you for giving up a lie in and leisurely morning for me, Sue xxx

Ready for off!

Yes, ok, off to run/ride 16 miles. We are FIT. We still felt the need to suck our tummies in though :)

The proof. About right pace-wise for me too

2,093 calories - yep, inhaled my Sunday roast today

As always, here is the link; I'm edging up on the training miles and edging up on the fundraising too. Not far to go now. http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

Headcorn Half Marathon

Today I ran my first 'official' half marathon. Despite having run the exact route last weekend, I still had a sleepless night and ended up feeling really nervous! I met up with the rest of the Beginners2Runners crew who had entered, and also with Sarah Burden who I ran the Great South with and who is also training for the London Marathon for Prostate UK.

It was great to be our running with lots of people we knew, and the race conditions were pretty good - cool, breezy (OK sometimes too windy but better than being warm!) and a bit of steady drizzle to cool us all off. The whole route is very rural as we found last week, but there were water stations and a few hardy residents/ spectators with tubs of jelly babies to hand out! The base was at the primary school so there were also plenty of decent facilities; bag drop, refreshments and the all important loos!

It went well - Sarah and I ran together all the way, and we saw my other B2R friends off and on throughout. We also had some extra encouragement from Dean who tweaked his cycle training route so that he could ride down and cycle alongside for a chat and general coaxing along, which was lovely! I took a few minutes off my time from last week, and Sarah beat her previous half PB by almost 10 minutes which is amazing!

We still have a way to go before the marathon, but each of us has a motivation, and being able to enter local races and train together gives us a chance to say 'Yeah it IS a long way... Yeah today was bloody hard work..... but WE CAN DO IT!!!!!' And we WILL do it, for these superb charities:

Emma: Children with Cancer UK: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

Sarah: Prostate Cancer UK: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sarah-jane-burden1

Nick: Teenage Cancer Trust: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Nickthestone

Beginners2Runners

Sarah and me

Yes we were knackered, but seeing your mate crouched in the hedge waiting to take a photo makes you smile

Sprint-Finish Sarah

One...more....step.....

Yvette, Danny and Carolyn, fellow Early Birds

Nick and Danny

WE DID IT!

Chip times

I'll go with my Garmin time I think!

Gotta love some runners bling!

And as always, my lovely husband arrived home from damp rugby training and set about cooking a much needed very tasty Sunday roast!

Inhaled it in about 3 minutes flat

Only two months to go...

23rd of February..... so now only two months to go until the London Marathon. That is quiet a scary thought, so I won't think about it too much. I need to run as much as I can as per my plan, I need to eat better, I need to raise more funds.

This week I hosted a charity Film Club, screening Girl on the Train.  I run the Film Club for work anyway, so it was no big deal to ask attendees to make a donation to my charity this time, which they seemed more than happy to do. I also extended invites to some local friends (the auditorium sits about 120 and given that I generally have 20 people tops, it seemed do-able!!!). We probably had about 25/30 attendees in the end (so I will invite even more along to the next one!!!) and raised £179 which I was really pleased with - a glass of wine, a few bags of popcorn and nibbles, and an evening spent watching a very good film. What's not to love! I will definitely be running some more; watch this space.....

Yep. Not me (sadly); even when you think you are having a rest day, you will see a character in the film you are watching go for a run. Just to remind you that you are not running. 

Pre-Headcorn Half and a Microlite

Today I headed out for my long run with Nick and Yvette again, who I've not managed to run with for weeks, We ran the Headcorn Half Marathon route, ahead of the Headcorn Half Marathon next week!

It was a stunning day and a stunning route. We started off too cold at 9am but soon warmed up as the sun rose higher, The route was fairly rural and took us past an assortment of beautiful houses, past cyclists, dog-walkers and other runners. We also watched a microlite take off from a tiny private airstrip at the top of a lane somewhere (a good excuse to stop for a few minutes, that's for sure!!

I was more than ready to finish by the end, but that is the furthest I have ever run (13.1 miles, so half marathon distance now ticked off) and it felt good to have completed it after a month of up and down training runs feeling rough with colds and bugs. It felt hard - but now I am sat here on Sunday night and skimming back through my blog, so did the 10 and 12K runs we were doing previously, so I guess I am getting there.

Don't forget that I am doing this for Children with Cancer UK and you can sponsor me here:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich


My running mate Nick is also keen to see the back end of cancer in young people and is raising money for his step-son Liam, and for The Teenage Cancer Trust. You can read about it here:
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Nickthestone

Hot, sweaty, tired at the end - shall we do it again next week.? Oh ok then...

I'm off out on my microlite

Taking off over our heads

The proof

Looking for Dawn

A regular 5k/ 3 mile run out with the Early Birds today. We spent much of the route looking for Dawn. We found it (her?!) somewhere around Linton Park.... just the glow of the 'Civic Dawn' that officially reaches us at about 6:36, bathing us in enough light to make torches redundant and to pick out the early morning mist across the fields. It meant that we felt brave enough to cut in behind the church and pick up the footpath along the driveway for Linton Park; we could see the muddy bits, horse pooh, sticking out roots and low branches. So nice to get off road a bit!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

The Early Bird crew (thanks to Danny for taking the photos today)

At Linton Park - it's getting light!

Running towards the dawn

Lovely photo Danny!

Linton Park - shame it is private, would be interesting to take a look!

DAYLIGHT!!!!

Ok, so it is half term so I was under less pressure to be out of the door by 6 on the dot, but today by the time I got half way round my 7.5 mile run, it was definitely almost light. By the time I hit the last mile, it WAS light! It felt good.... roll on the Spring, I think we may almost be through these dark winter training months. Yahoo!!!!

A bit gloomy still

Light! I could see sheep!

This is my 'fast' pace. No really.....

As always, if you can spare some sponsorship, here is the link: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

Treadmill miles

We decided to take a few days away this half term and booked a few days in Dublin. I knew that with only 10 weeks to go, I really needed to get some running in while we were away so dutifully packed the trainers. It was tricky to decided whether to attempt to run a route outside or give in a use the treadmill which I don't really enjoy, but in the end the treadmill won. Fuelled mainly by Guinness and Irish Stew, I plodded away for an hour in a deserted hotel gym. It wasn't too bad, I watched some TV and could see the family in the pool spurring me on.

Don't forget to sponsor me - I missed hotel breakfast to do this, such is the measure of my dedication!
Http://U.K.virginmoneygiving.com/Emma

All hot and sweaty!

Nice and cool

11 weeks and counting

It is now only 11 weeks to go until the London Marathon. I am doing my best to stick to my training plan, so this week consisted of a slow 3 miles, fast 7.5 miles, slow 3 miles and then 11 miles at race pace today. I am definitely feeling fitter, but those long 11 mile runs are still hard and vague panic at the size of the challenge is setting in.

I'm trying to pay more attention to nutrition, and also trying gel sachets on the go which are ok. It is still cold and mostly dark when I run, but my 7.5 miles on Thursday had me almost home as the sun was coming up, and that was pretty lovely. Feels like a while now since the early runs have been in daylight.

Today I plotted a route that kept me fairly local. It was a lot colder out that I was expecting and I was cold through by the time I got back. Still, another one under the belt. Next weekend I need to do between 13.1 and 15 miles. Yikes!!!

Sunrise spotted through the orchards at about 7am

Down in the Loose Valley today

I am about half way to my fundraising goal - please do sponsor me if you can - the link is on the right hand side of the page. Thank you!!

Hello! *waves*

Well, I'm still here and still running. I have missed a couple of scheduled longer runs with the icy weather and then a streaming horrible cold, but have been trying to stick to the shorter and intermediate runs.

Trouble is, most of those take place in the pitch dark; limits photo opportunities and makes for repetitive blogging too. However, today I managed to get out late morning for a three mile 'jog' as per my training plan, and although it wasn't warm, the temperature has come up above 4 degrees and the sun was out!

So.... less than three months to go now. Just 12 more Sunday before the big day, and a whole lot of long runs to fit in and more fundraising to do.

Don't forget you can sponsor me any time - I've added a link to the right side of the page now, anything you can spare for this great charity will be very appreciated!

Looking down across the valley

No ice!!

Grumpy

This week has not been great on the training front owing to the snow. I missed my usual Early Birds slot after the heavy snowfall on the Thursday night before, and today was not much better. 

I got up super early so I would have time to eat and digest breakfast. I had planned an 11 mile route (which Nick D and Yvette from the running club are gamely up for doing too) and we met in Coxheath in the sleety rain today. We set off but found that less than 500metres in we were slipping on ice which was impossible to see as the roads and pavements all looked wet rather than icy. 

Given that our routes all have an element of rural roads/ pavements and hills, we realised we had no hope of getting a proper run in without risking injury and had to turn back. 

Once upon a time I might have been secretly pleased to have a good excuse to head back into the warm, but I actually look forward to these long Sunday runs. I will make up some distance in the coming week, and will get out again next Sunday,  but for now I'm just grumpy. 

100 Days!

This popped up on my social media feeds yesterday - only 100 days to go now. That is quite a scary prospect. There are a lot of training miles to be run over the next couple of months and a a lot of money to be raised.

Thanks Virgin Money - cos we weren't panicking at all already!

Current Status - looking good! More to go though....

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

Another 10 miler

Another 10 miles for me today - and unlike Monday where I ran alone and then ended up stranded, I headed out with good running friends Nick and Yvette. Nick plotted a really lovely route from Coxheath, through Linton to Wierton and Boughton, and we managed a reasonable pace (they even waited for me to get up the horrible hills that are so unavoidable round here).

We stopped briefly for a chat with a group of runners we saw at a junction, and made 10 miles in about 1 hour 45 which I was happy with. I also tried some post-run protein shake today and so far so good - my legs feel pretty good at the moment, so even if the effect is largely psychological, it is working for me!

View from the top of the hill at about 8 miles

Me, Nick, Yvette looking knackered

These are the other runners we saw - they are a group called Maidstone Selfie Sunday Runners - I swiped this photo from their Twitter feed (if any of you are reading this and want the photo gone, pm me via twitter or faceboook!). They ran on down the road we had just come up and visited their goat at the goat sanctuary. Love it! Wonder if I can incorporate goat visits into my Marathon training....hmmmmmmm......

As always, if you would like to donate to the wonderful Children with Cancer UK charity that I am running for, here is the link: 

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

Dad to the rescue

Well, I am now into the 'Going Further' phase of training, just about, so planned a 10 mile run for the Bank Holiday. It was also my Dad's birthday, so I made a good plan to run 10 miles from home to Wrotham Heath services, where Nick and kids would pick me up before getting onto the motorway and heading to my parents in Croydon, where I could get freshened up before enjoying a birthday/ Christmas get-together with my side of the family.

All good. Until Nick called me when I was about 6.5 miles into a non-circular route to tell me that he had met an ambulance travelling at speed through the lanes and burst a tyre in the process. Psychologically I find it really hard to make a change to a planned route of that distance so had to carry on regardless. Nick and my parents were concerned that by the time the car was sorted, I would be frozen, so my lovely Dad drove out on his birthday to pick me up. Luckily I carry a phone and card with me for these long runs so was able to wait in the nearest pub with a hot drink!

Thanks Dad!

My dad (who also ran the London Marathon a 'few' years ago)

My route - not a bad time given that I had to stop a couple of times to answer my phone!

Not very long at all now - don't forget that you can sponsor me at 

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

Ice run

We spent a few days over the festive period down in Broadstairs, so I plotted a 10K route along the coast towards  Ramsgate, in a vague effort to stay on track with training and work off some of the Christmas excesses.

I had intended to get up and go very early but slept through my alarm; in the end that did me a favour as it meant that I could watch the sun coming up over the Eastern horizon and it was a stunning day. It was also very very icy which is unusual on the coast (there was even frost on the sand!) and it made for a very slow run (I almost slipped over in the road 1k in, so the rest of the route was spent tip-toeing between path/ road/ grass trying to find the safest terrain.

I now have just 115 days to go until the London Marathon. It suddenly seems quite close!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EmmaAldrich

The camera on my phone didn't do this justice at all

By the end of my 10K the sun was up but fog had rolled in.