My Marathon for Mum

TW: Parental Death

So much has happened since I last updated, some good, and a lot that was less than ideal. I don’t want to come across as overly maudlin, but the last two years have been particularly sh*t, and running has been the last thing on my mind. However, it is said that light shines brightest in darkness, and that has prompted me to find a new challenge.

The challenge in question is the Chester Marathon and I am running it to raise money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA). In 2017, my amazing Mum was diagnosed with a rare form of MND, called Progressive Bulbar Palsy, and since then, I have become acutely aware of the MDNA’s work. My Mum sadly passed away in November 2022, and it was devastating (I am tearing up writing this) but the MNDA was there until the end, supporting both her and my Dad.

Over the past two years, I have been helping my Mum and Dad every weekend, this combined with a very busy headspace means that my exercise levels have fallen dramatically. To put it mildly, I have lost a LOT of fitness. I know that I am asking a lot from my body by setting this challenge and that I will want to quit along the way, but I hope that putting this intention in writing and doing it in memory of Mum will keep me going. My Mum had a lot of fantastic qualities, and one of them was her determination, she did not let anything (including a progressive degenerative disease) get the best of her, and if she was here she would tell me “go for it”. So that is what I am going to do, and I will bring you all along for the journey.

Until next time,

Helen

PS: If you want to support me, my Justgiving page is here

10 Days of Running (Day 3)

Welcome to day 3 of my 10 days of running and today’s picture which featured in a number of my club mates’ lists as it was taken at the start of our inaugural XC race at Burton Dassett.

10 days of Running (Day 2)

Following on from my last post, here is the story behind my second of my 10 days of running.

10 days of Running

Last month, the following “challenge” was circulating around my friendship group on Facebook:

Every day I select a day from a life of running that has had an impact on me, or has been a memorable moment and post it without a single explanation. Be active, be positive, be passionate… Grow the sport.

I would not normally participate in these kinds of chain-mail posts, but this was slightly different. Firstly, it was positive and secondly, I loved looking through the other photos posted by my clubmates and wanted to add to that discussion. In the end I was nominated twice, and although I thoroughly enjoyed curating my ten photos, I resented the inability to add a proper caption; these moments are important to me and I wanted to explain why.

I wasn’t able to do it on Facebook, but I make the rules on this blog, so over the next 10 days, I will post my days of running with a full explination as to why they had such a profound impact on me and my running journey. I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoyed writing them!

I’m now on Instagram!

Hi All!

Exciting news! I am now on Instagram. I have decided that my challenge for 2020 is to complete a 70.3 triathlon, otherwise known as a half Ironman! What does this entail? Well, it’s a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike, followed by a half-marathon. I’m envisaging that this will be my toughest challenge to date, especially as I will have to fit the training around my full-time job!

What does this have this have to do with Instagram I hear you ask? Well, I am going to be documenting my training (or lack of) on Instagram for the world to see. So, if you want to check out my progress so far, head over to https://www.instagram.com/littlemissrunalot/ for my updates.

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Happy training!

Helen x

How I learnt not to hate swimming

I was checking out my Strava stats yesterday evening, and I noticed something. In the past 8-10 weeks, I have swum more than I did for the entirety of 2018. That might sound impressive, but I only did 3 hours of swimming in 2018, so it wasn’t an insurmountable challenge! Why did I swim so little last year? Easy! I hated swimming.

Hated.

That’s not an exaggeration. The very act of going to the swimming pool used to get me super stressed, and as a result, I didn’t go. When I did go, I got bored almost instantly, which resulted in me bailing after about 20 mins and declaring the whole palaver a waste of time. Yet now, I actively go swimming twice a week, I am even considering a monthly swimming membership to my local pool! What’s more, I am contemplating upgrading my Garmin to a multi-sport version which includes swimming metrics. I don’t know who is more shocked in this turnaround, my family or me!

If you really want to like swimming, but haven’t quite got there, these are the five changes I made that helped to make swimming a far more enjoyable experience. I hope they help for you too!

Come “Tri” with me!

Image by Russell Holden from Pixabay

Hi again!

First things first, I owe you an apology for how lax I have been with my blog posts. As a Marketing student/ tutor/ practitioner, I am well aware that the first rule of blogging is consistency, and that is a rule that I have not just broken over the past two years, I have obliterated it! My excuse, I have been busy studying for a MA, a task which has occupied every facet of my being since May 2016. But now it is done! I handed in my final assignment, a 7000-word behemoth of a dissertation and a 30-min presentation on the 5th April, and am now basking in the light of free-time.*

*For basking, read “walking around the house unsure of who I am, or what I used to do with my time before I started the course”.

Long story, short. I am back. I now have time to train, and have set my sights on new goal, an Olympic Distance Triathlon in July. Oh, and a Half Marathon in June, and a Marathon in October. As someone who is notorious for taking on too much and burning herself out with self-induced pressure, what could ever go wrong?!

1:58:50

Where do I even begin?

As you may, or may not, know. In January, Kelly Roberts of “Run.Selfie.Repeat” fame, tasked her followers (of which I am one), to name their challenge for 2018. For my “make the impossible, possible”, I chose to focus on my long-held goal to break 2-hours in the Half Marathon. This decision coincided with my club starting a “sub-2-hour” training group, with the view to all of us achieving our goals at the Coventry Half Marathon in March.

Keeping the Pace: Warwick Half Marathon

I did something recently that I have never done before.  I paced the 2:30 group at the Warwick Half Marathon. I had never planned to run the Warwick Half Marathon as I was due to run the Coventry Half Marathon two weeks later. However, on the 20th February, the British Heart Foundation contacted the Striders asking for pacers, and for some inexplicable reason (I must have been feeling super confident),  I said yes. The way I saw it, I needed to do a 13-mile run that week anyway (as per my plan) and if I was pacing other people, I would be forced to run slowly. After all, how hard can pacing be?

Answer: VERY!

Stratford Half Marathon Summary: FAIL

On the 14th May, I ran the Stratford Half Marathon with the aim of finally breaking 2-hours. As you can probably guess from the post title, it didn’t quite go to plan.

If I am being entirely honest, I didn’t expect to break two-hours as I had spent the week beforehand dosing up every over-the-counter cold and flu medication known to man; to try and rid myself of the lurg which had set in on Wednesday. On Saturday 13th May, it was debatable if I was going to make the start line at all. However, by Saturday evening, I was at least starting to feel human.