Mission Completed!

Well, it’s Monday morning, and I’m aching a bit!

Me after running 10K!

I completed the run yesterday with a time of 1hr15m39s – just 1m15s slower than last year… which is kind of good because I felt pretty rubbish in the run up to this one, but then I wonder whether I could have caught up that time and have beaten last year’s? What I do know though is that if it hadn’t been for Jamie pushing me this last week, I’d never have managed to do it in this time… so major thanks are definitely due to him! Cheers mate!

Anyway, I got into town for about 8.45am and went to the office to get changed and meet with Mike and his dad who were running as well. The lift still hadn’t been fixed, so walking up all the stairs was a nice treat to start with…

We headed down to the start to meet up with the 20,000 strong crowd that was waiting to run. Our particular section kicked off at 10.23am, and I managed to do the first 3km of it without slowing down, which took me from the city centre, around back of Granada and the Science Museum, and up to the main stretch of dual carriageway that leads to Old Trafford. I then decided to walk the next 1km – by now my calf muscles had gone rock hard and were hurting ever so slightly(!) – and then carried on running for the majority of it… I reckon I ran about 7½km in all, walking the other 2½km at a pretty reasonable pace.

Jamie, Oli and Rosie came down to see me at the finish line, but they totally managed to miss me actually crossing it! I bumped into them as I was heading back to get changed, so they came into the office until I got sorted (which brought the unwelcome return of the stair climb!)

We then headed into town to grab lunch (not sure a KFC was the best meal to have straight after running 10K!), and then me, Jamie and Oli went to see the new Star Wars film – Revenge Of The Sith and I really liked it. Definitely think it’s the best out of the three new ones.

I’m pretty glad the whole run thing is over now – just have to go and collect the sponsor money (you can still sponsor me if you want!)

I don’t really know if I’d do it again next year. I guess if I’m honest, when I signed up for last year’s, I was kind of doing it with the intention of trying to impress a certain person, which probably wasn’t the best reason for taking part (‘cos it obviously really worked! ) – and this year I ended up applying for it without really thinking. So with next year’s, I’d have to really think about it before signing up again, because I really would need to put a lot more effort in.

Oh, and apparently I came in 14,377th position. I don’t think I’m going to brag too much about that one!

Final preparations

Well it’s nearly here, and tonight I did my last run before Sunday with Jamie around Levenshulme.

Last night we did the same route as Tuesday and it took us exactly 40 minutes (although it did seem faster than before – maybe our calculations were a bit out on our first run?) Anyway, tonight we ran a shorter route which was just over 2miles (which is 3¼km, so just over a third of the real thing).

One thing that is worrying me a little bit is that when I’m running I get quite a bit of pain across my shins and through my calf muscles. And I’ve noticed that I seem to put more force down on my right foot, and that’s the side that is hurting the most. I think I’ll have to take some painkillers on Sunday morning to get me through it!

It’s actually been really helpful running with Jamie this week – it’s certainly helped with motivation, though I’d still rather not be doing it! He reckons I should carry on going running each week now that I’m doing it, but I said I’d wait until Sunday’s passed before I think about that!

I’m not going to do anything tomorrow – I just need to rest a bit, because my legs are feeling pretty tired after this week. And at work the last 3 days, our lift’s been broken, and our office is four floors up, so that’s not been ideal! And what’s worse, is that I need to go there to get changed straight after the run, and the thought of climbing 4 flights of stairs immediately after completing 10K does not appeal!

Also, if anyone does still want to sponsor me for Sunday to help make the pain of it all more worthwhile, then I’m raising money for Cancer Research UK, so just let me know how much to put you down for!

Are you bored of this yet?

Another post about the run! Like anyone really cares!

Well, this evening straight after work I met up with Jamie to go for a run to help me get a bit motivated for Sunday. We didn’t run the whole time, but we hardly stopped at all, which is kind of my strategy for the real thing. I found it hard going – especially when I got pretty bad stitch half way round(!) – but it was so much better running with someone else compared to just being on a running machine at the gym. The only thing that I find harder is that concrete is a lot harder on your feet, and they felt well squashed by the time we finished!

It turns out we did 3½ miles (which is just over 5½ km) in around 40 minutes (forget to check our exact start time!), which I thought was pretty good considering it’s the first time I’ve ran outside since doing the 10K last year! Jamie’s offered to go out for a run again on Thursday evening, and then a short one on Friday, and I’m going to try and get to the gym tomorrow during work to do a little bit as well.

Still not looking forward to Sunday at all, but tonight has helped I guess. It’s scary to think that it’s nearly twice what we did tonight, but hopefully the atmosphere of the day will make it a bit easier.

Trashed wall

I’m in a foul mood now.

Decided to put up some really smart IKEA shelves on the chimney breast in the dining room – they’ve been waiting to be done for over a year now – so I started with the first one, which was a bit tricky to do on my own but I eventually managed it. I had another two to do, so got the second one ready, and decided that to get the spacing right between the two, I’d use a couple of box files to get the gap right, and place the next shelf on that to mark on the wall.

I did that, and turned away to get the end brackets and a pencil, when suddenly there was an almighty crash as both shelves went tumbling to the floor, hitting the old concrete hearth below.

So now I have two dented shelves with scratched chrome end brackets, but much worse I have trashed the wall, which was newly plastered last year (which cost a small fortune). The rawlplugs have pulled loads of plaster out, and cracked a large section around each hole. I don’t know what I’m going to do because I can’t see how I’ll be able to do a patch-up job without it being obvious. So now I’m really fed up.

Also, I haven’t done any training this weekend at all – I planned to go out today, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. Arghh – why is life so rubbish?

‘United’ States

Has been a bit of a funny couple of days at work – if you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look here.

Anyway, aside from that, I’ve been to the gym just 3 times this week to try and get prepared for the 10K a week on Sunday.

I’m still not enjoying it one little bit. I’m struggling to run more than 1km at a time, so goodness knows how I’m going to do on the day. And the trouble is, when I’m there, it just makes me even more down with the realisation of how useless I am. I’ve also been doing at least 6km each time on the cycling machine to try and help with the whole fitness thing, but I don’t think it’ll be enough.

Part of me is still tempted just to forget about it and not turn up on the day, even though it would mean I’d lose the entry fee – though that doesn’t seem such a big sacrifice at the moment! Like I said before, the only nagging thing is the sponsor money, but it’s going to take a lot to convince me to run it, because I really have absolutely no motivation for it at all.

‘Trick Of The Mind’?

Just been watching Derren Brown’s Trick Of The Mind on Channel 4 – seriously weird! I don’t quite get the guy… I find it fascinating, but there’s something just freaky about the stuff he does! He just apparently put someone into a hypnotic trance whilst they were playing an arcade game in a pub, then they transported him to a real version of the game, and then brought him back round to see zombies trying to attack him, and he went on a killing spree! Then they put him back under and took him back to the pub and stuck him back in front of the arcade game! I expect to see a few complaints made about this one!

Anyway, went to the gym for the first time since I stormed out the other week. The 10K is just two weeks away now, and I so can’t be bothered with it. The only reason I’m still doing it is because I’ve been sponsored, although tonight I’ve been thinking that that’s maybe not enough to make me turn up on the day. The pack with my number and chip arrived in the post this morning, and I guess I really need to make a decision soon. I only managed to run about a mile tonight before I felt exhausted which doesn’t bode well! I also did 15 minutes on a bike just to try and help with my fitness, but I can’t see how I’ll be able to to 6½ miles in two weeks time!

The only other thing of note from the last 2 weeks is that I went to see ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy‘ on Monday night, after working the whole of the Bank Holiday. I thought it was alright, although I have vague memories of watching the tv version when I was a kid, so was aware that they’d changed bits, and also seemed to have cut a heck of a lot out of it!