Wednesday 29 July 2009

Run Traveller Run!


Over 30K in the last five days. 13K planned for Saturday. Sprints tomorrow night.

Running is slowly taking over T's life.

T, along with a few friends, is booked in to run the Royal Parks Half-Marathon in October. The Royal Parks is one of the best running events in London - it's route goes past some of the most memorable London icons, such as Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Palace and it goes all through Hyde Park.

Now this all sounds lovely, except the furthest T has run previously in a race is 10k. Now, she knows that lots and lots of people have run half-marathons before and it's not really that big a deal - but T is a little bit scared. In fact, she is practically shaking in her running shoes, so to speak. T has many worrying questions racing through her mind, like, 'What if I run out of steam after 10K?', or 'What if I get a really sore knee or shin and simply can't run anymore?', or, perhaps even more embarrassingly, 'What if I have to take an emergency bathroom break in the middle of the race?'.

In order to get over the shakiness and the silly questions, T and one London friend have created a very strict schedule to make sure that they are ready. They have approximately 12 weeks until the starting gun sounds. The schedule has involved hill runs, intervals, long runs and a bit of swimming to give the knees a rest. One of the best things that T has discovered while preparing for the race is all of the running clubs that are around. One that she and her friend are now visiting on a Monday night is the Niketown Running Club.

The running club is seriously motivating. There are many people to race against on the night and there are a few freebies thrown in as well; you receive a free chip (so you can sign in easily), a free shirt after 3 runs and a bottle of water after each race - bargain! Each Monday night you can choose to run 3, 4 or 7 miles. We have been signing up to do the 7 mile run, which is led by a lovely grey-haired woman who is at least in her late 50's. Oh and the most humbling thing is that she absolutely whips us! She is so fast!

Each time we run it is different, sometimes we can sail through 7 miles without too much discomfort, but other times, particular this week for T, it can be absolute struggle-town! She was hurting about a quarter of the way into the race. Now even though this was tough, T secretly likes it better when it hurts like this. It seems to make finishing so much sweeter.

So that is where T is at with her running. Twelve weeks of serious training to go before her first half-marathon.

And...just between you and her, she absolutely loves it!

If anyone has any running or half-marathon tips (like what to do if you need to go to the loo!) - feel free to share in the comments section below. T would love to hear any advice!

photo by flickr

2 comments:

E.G. said...

Love the new look blog. Good luck with the half-marathon. Rather you than me :)

Traveller said...

Thanks, Emily ;) Good luck with the moving...and the new cat!

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