Day 6: Ahhh, the Scottish summer time

It was pissing with rain ALL DAY. We have had very little rain the past few months and so the weather powers decided to make up for it all at once. Needless to say I didn't really want to go running in it.

However, I didn't totally let it defeat me. I took my big umbrella for a lunchtime walk and me and Ian walked to the shops this evening. Both were miserable affairs and I got wet feet.

Welcome to the Scottish summer time...a few days where the sun kind of tries to make us feel it's summer before we get a solid month of rubbishness.

Stats!
Distance :11,294 steps so far
Conversations had about how rubbish the weather is: too many

Day 5: Unintended slacking

It wasn't my intention to sack off today. Had totally meant to go for a lunchtime walk and then a run after work. However, the boyfriend proved to get in the way

I managed a good, long walk at lunchtime but by the time I finished work Ian had woken up and put on Grimm on Netflix and before you know it, we've binge watched so many episodes it's already 9pm!

Thanks to my long walk I did still manage to get my minimum target of 10,000 steps, so not a total fail!

Stats :
Total steps :10,137 (including 3.2 mile walk)
Episodes of Grimm watched : 4 (so far)

Day 4: late but not slacking!

Oops! Didn't get round to blogging yesterday as I was mainly recovering from an epic night out. In line with Friday/Saturday, most of my exercise consisted of dancing between the hours of 11pm and 3am...with a bit of wandering from bar to bar in the underground labyrinth that is the Caves in Edinburgh (one of my favourite venues in this city).

This was followed by more dancing (and a few G&Ts) at an after party so the rest of Sunday was spent sleeping.

It will be back to the traditional walking/running/cycling for the week

Day 3 Clubbing is the best exercise

Even though during daylight hours I have mostly been indoors tidying my flat I had already done today's Juneathon before most people were up this morning. In fact I had managed to clock 14,500 steps before 7am!

Photo credit: Alex Devereaux‎

I hadn't even planned to go out last night but a few birthday drinks turned into a brilliant night of dancing to Drum and Bass in one of my favourite clubs in Edinburgh, Studio 24. It was just announced recently that it was closing down after a long battle with the council over noise complaints.  It is a very sad day for the Edinburgh music scene but they are going out in style with lots of farewell gigs on this month. I hope to be spending a couple more nights this month saying farewell on the dance floor.

Stats!
distance: not far but I'm sure a few miles clocked up in dance moves :)
time: was pretty much dancing from midnight to 3am

Day 2: Thank Janathon for warm tonic

Anyone got that Friday feeling? I certainly did and that usual means wanting to go home and crack open a bottle of red. Not put on my running gear. Thankfully I didn't have wine but I had bought some nice tonic as I have lots of nice gin in the flat. However, the tonic, just being bought was still warm so I needed something to do while it cooled. And 3 odd miles round Holyrood Park would give it the time to chill.

Unfortunately due to endomondo being rubbish it only recorded 2.3 miles :(

Run done I now get to enjoy my chilled G&T :)
Happy Friday!

Stats,
Distance : 3.4 miles (or 2.3 if you believe endomondo)
Time 24 mins (or probably 35 mins)

Junathon Revival Day 1

Cathy just happened to share a memory about Juneathon which got me to reminiscing about it and I thought 'I  miss the whole Junathon thing'. Not only that but the proper, old school Junathon when you had to 'jog, log and blog'. I always enjoyed the blogging bit and so I replied I would do it and Cathy said, 'Do it then!' So I am. :)

I will log on Twitter or facebook and blog here on my good old blogger.com page and share will all my facebook people, whether they want to read it or not!

It's actually pretty good timing as I am doing the Virgin Global Challenge (formally just the Corporate Global Challenge, before Virgin got their marketing mitts all over it and of course, everything must be sponsored by a bit corporation!). Like last year I am team captain of a team of 7 of my colleagues who are all being encouraged to get all fit and healthy by wearing a pedometer for 100 days trying to reach 10,000 steps a day or at least do more steps than they would normally do. So doing exercise for a month doesn't seem too bad. Last year for this challenge my competitiveness saw me walking to and from work several times a week (about 9 miles both ways). And that is for 3 months!

So, even if I am the only one, here's to the start of a successful Junethon!

Oh, almost forgot my stats! a wee lunchtime run today

distance: 3 miles
time: 31mins 10
Juneathons revived: 1

10 years of running... That's a lot of miles

This event was a special one for me as it will not only be the last one for me for a while, it also marks 10 years of running for me. Rather fittingly it was also the Lakeland Trails 10 year anniversary.

Thanks to various injuries I have decided to not to sign up to any more runs for a while (we'll see how long that lasts!). Anyhow, as it is 10 years to the month, I felt that this would a great opportunity for a wee race report/reminiscence on my running 'career' (haha!!) so far. 

I have come to proper trail races quite late on, but was lucky enough to come across Lakeland trails shortly after my folks bought  wee holiday house down that way a few years ago. The first one I signed up to was the Coniston half marathon which was hands down the best event I've done (having a lovely sunny day for it helped greatly!). Nothing helps the miles go by than stunning scenery.

The Derwent Water (or Keswick 10/15km) trail challenge was indeed that - a challenge. It  starts off rather tame - running along an old railway line out of Keswick. However, it soon takes a turn into the hill and then its all uphill...for what seems like a long way but is apparently only around 5km. But not only is it uphill but uphill through very boggy land - almost lost my right trainer at one point!

The course sort of skirts round one of the hills and you can see Skiddaw (3rd highest peak in England, in the distance. You can see all the dots of the runners ahead of you. Due to the narrow tracks we are pretty much going in single file in parts!

The views are the best thing about this run - you really don't notice the mile passing by (though the blister developing on my arch was noticing for me). My only little disappointment was that there was only one water station which was about 4km from the end of the race. If I had known this was going to be the case I would have brought my own water. To be fair because of the remoteness of the course it would have been difficult situating it anywhere! 

There was a pro photographer taking photos for this event. Now my run photos never come out well - I always look like I'm walking rather than running and I was hoping this time it I would get one that looked like I was zooming along. No such luck - the photographer had placed himself in a section of very rocky track so you had to really watch where you put your feet. However, the pic actually came out ok..ish..I certainly look like I'm concentrating!

I was thankful when I came to the downhill bit, though by this time my mud-covered laces kept coming undone so I lost time having to keep re-tieing them. (on a side-note, I discovered recently that I have been tying my shoes wrong ALL MY LIFE...I blame whoever taught me...).

Stunning view of Derwent water as you descend. 

My one other disappointment was that as I came speeding to the finish line expecting the MC to be calling out my name and number (while being in awe of my extreme speed) I arrived to noone, even my mum didn't manage to get her phone out to take a finishing photo! Apparently the power had gone off so my grand finish went unrecoreded :( though, someone did shout "I love your hair!" so thank you, random person!

So looking back over 10 years of running I have done 1 marathon, 7 half marathons, 2 10kms, a 15km and 2 Tough Mudders (I would have liked to do one more marathon but I just don't think I can be bothered with the training. 

And this is what that looks like in bling (note, I didn't receive a t-shirt for my marathon due to the bad organisation of the finish area, which is still a sore point for me!)