5 weeks to go

I am BACK. Again. No more ankle issues.

My thighs hurt from intervals and i am off to a 2 hours run tomorrow. Wish me luck, it is not going to be easy !

I received my confirmation email. I am definitely running the Berlin marathon ! YOUPI !

Gutted that the ballot of the 2011 London marathon is already closed :(. Will try to enter it through Thomas Cook Marathons though... It might cost me some money :S

Back to running. I hope...

I have been BUSY last week. Coming back from France, finishing my internship, having 6 cousins over for the week end (which was great :) ). Two things.

Bad news : I twisted my ankle last Thursday. Which means I have not been able to run since then. But I will try tomorrow and we will see.

Good news : I FOUND A JOB. And I mean a real job... At Christie's King Street ! I am over the moon. And that explains why I was not writing as much as I used to, when I did not have a "real" job.

But, more on my possible running tomorrow...

Back dans les Bacs

I had a busy week end in France & I have great news.

1. I have two interviews this week, so fingers crossed.

2. I had a gift from my parents. A beautiful (...) running watch. It gives me my pace, the kilometers, the time, everything while I run, so now I am ready.

3. I went for a quick run with my father on Sunday. It was supposed to be quick because I woke up at 5:20 am to take my plane to France on Saturday, and I had a little family reunion on Saturday night (we were about 120 !) so I did not sleep much. But my father kind of tricked me into my longest run ever.55 minutes on my watch, 47 minutes on his, I prefer mine :). But anyway it is the longest I have ever run since the debacle of the NYC marathon. There were some walking moments, but not that much. And most importantly, it was at 11 am, faaar too late for me, it was hot, but I quite enjoyed it ! It wasn't that hard, of course I would have rather stayed in bed reading or spending time with my family, but it was worth it at the end :)

4. Last but not least, I started intervals this morning... Oh God how I haven't miss those... The plan was to sprint for 30 seconds, then walk for 30 seconds, and to repeat that 10 times. It started bad as I wasn't even able to run the first 15 minutes I had planned before even starting the intervals. Then I sprinted for the first time : 10.3 km/h. Umph that's bad... I walked for 30 seconds, and sprinted a second time : 10.8. Already better. I am gonna spare you the details but the 30/30 ratio became a 30 seconds running / 1 minute walking, than a 30 seconds running / walking until I am ok, then a 20 seconds running / walking until I am ok, then running as long as I can / walking until I am able to breathe and my face stops burning... BUT at the end, I was sprinting at 12.6 km/h ! And I did all 10 of the intervals I had planned.
To finish, I decided to run home, and obviously enough, I was running at 7 km/h - 7.5 km/h, whereas my usual pace is 6 km/h (don't laugh !). I ran in total for 43 minutes so pretty good run/walk after all :)

ps : I am EXHAUSTED ! It's the first time since a long time that my legs hurt so much. Welcome back intervals ! I don't wanna think of Thursday... :(

First Three Things Thursday

1. Running : I ran today. True, I did not run yesterday, the day I was supposed to, but I had a good excuse, something to celebrate (which you will read on in 2.). So I decided to take a day off and did not even feel bad about it !
Yesterday I put my alarm clock at 6:45. And I almost fell off my bed when it rang. Grumph... I did not wanna go. No big deal, I'll go tomorrow, oh no I have to go, but I'm sooo tired, ok let's go you have a marathon in less than a 100 days !
I was out by 6:55, started walking, and running at 7 am sharp. Since the beginning I felt great, little pain in the knee that went away, little pain in my thigh that went away as fast. I was running slowly, nice and easy, no breathing issue, no cramps, I wasn't thirsty or hungry.
I looked at my watch : wow 20 minutes already gone ! I felt that I could keep on running forever. I decided to add a couple of extra minutes as I was feeling so good. That is how... I ran 41 minutes today ! Tadah !
11 more minutes that my best is pretty good I believe... Especially for me ! It was cloudy today, although still hot, but I think that helped. And I did not start too 'fast'. I understand that I need to work on my pace, but not on long distances. I am also wondering if my good run has something to do with the fact that I rested for 2 days. Last time I did not run 3 days, then I ran 30 minutes. This time I did not run 2 days, then I ran 41 minutes... Hmmm I'll talk about it with my coach, also known as Darounet.

2. I FOUND A JOB ! Ok a crappy job, but it is still a job ! I finish my internship on Tuesday, and I start working on Wednesday ! Talk about eficiency ! I will be working in a sports shop LOL, who would have thought... First paid job ever. I will finally take off some of the guilt from my shoulder :)

3. Last but not least... Drum roll... Federer lost in the quarter finals of Wimbledon ! YES ! I just LOVE tennis. And I know, I know Federer is the best player ever. He is the best. Or he was the best actually... I am sorry but I can't stand seeing him everywhere all the time. I love outsiders, and especially the most talented of them all : Rafael. Although he is not quite the outsider right now, but I love him anyway. So Vamos Rafa !

Dream On, Dream On, Dream Until Your Dream Come True

No running for me today, day off. And as always I am wandering on running blog to find inspiration, and the will to keep on running... And as it is raining on London (THANK. GOD.), I am more comfortable thinking of myself running... And my mind wanders too... What race would I like to do... Hmmm... Let's see.

1. ATHENS MARATHON : I love History of Art, it is my passion and hopefully it will be my job someday. Thanks to my dear parents who allowed me to visit a lot of foreign countries while being very young (especially Greece and Turkey), I have a real passion for Ancient Greece. So what could be better than to run on the route of the first marathon ever, between Marathon and Athens...

2. GREAT WALL MARATHON : Oh My God, just looking at the picture I am exhausted ! How many steps are there ? I don't wanna know... But how cool could it be to run a marathon on the Great Wall of China... Exotic !

3. BIG FIVE MARATHON : This one looks difficult... Africa. Sun. Hot. But look at the pictures ! Who wouldn't wanna do it ! 42,195 km, what it it in a life ? Nothing ! But the memories... Oh my god what a reward ! (side note : let me tell you that at the 20th km in NYC I knew that 42,195 was actually SOMETHING...)

4. NORTH POLE MARATHON : Brrrr... That must be life altering. I sooo wanna do this one !

5. BOSTON MARATHON : Again my love for History... It is the oldest marathon of all the modern marathons. The most famous one. And... there are qualifying times to be allowed to run it... So let's say that this one is not gonna happen any time soon lol. But for someone who's remotely interested in running marathons, it is a must.

6. NEW YORK CITY MARATHON : I wanna run it again. It was my first (and maybe my last ? Hell no !), and the atmosphere was unbelievable. Maybe it is like that for all the other big marathons, but I don't kinow that. Yet... I wanna run it again because I wasn't prepared when I ran it in 2009, I was a mess and I didn't enjoy it enough.

7. And for fun, I would like to add the CHICAGO MARATHON and the LONDON MARATHON, because with Boston, New York and Berlin, they form the world marathon majors. And that would be cooool, wouldn't it ? :)

Sooooo, for now I am struggling to run for 30 minutes, let alone my pace that I didn't know... All these are dreams... Or are they ?... Daaaaadddounet ?! :D

Set Back

I went running this morning. And it was HARD !

I left my flat at 7:05. I started with my 5 minutes walk. Then I started running, everything was fine. I thought I was going faster than the other times, but looking at my watch I realised I was going REALLY faster than on Saturday.
I just added about 2 miles to my usual route to go to the Queen's Club Gardens, and I was there 2 minutes early than when I did not add those 2 miles... And obviously I started having trouble breathing well. So I decided to walk for 2 minutes. After that I was ok, so I started running again. After 5 minutes, I got a cramp on my left thigh. So I stopped to stretch a little then continued running. After 2 minutes I had a cramp in my right thigh ! I was PISSED. I stopped to stretch and went on running. After 5 minutes I couldn't breathe well and my lung hurt. And I was SOOO hungry ! I had a hole in my stomach...

That was it. I kept running/walking. Finally, I did that for 30 minutes, but it was hard and I ran nowhere 30 minutes, maybe 20 minutes but that is a max.

Not every day can be a good day. I had a bad day running but on Thursday I will rock my run. Especially since I have a little money and am about to treat myself with some running goodies :)

Back at the top, or my top

I didn't write yesterday... Because I didn't run yesterday... Again... Same excuses but as true as last time : preview, too much champagne, standing up all night, Alys here & so on. I was feeling kind of bad but everything's back in place after this morning run.

I woke up at 7:26 am. I was out by 7:30. Then I decided to include the 5 minutes warm up walk that I read everybody's doing on different blogs. So after some stretching and a 5 min walk, I started running. I didn't know what to expect because of me stopping running completely for 3 days, and at first it started bad. I couldn't move my legs, I ran but it was small steps and not fast... I think I probably would have walked faster but I needed to run. Concerning my breathing, everything went fine after a false start.

At first I wanted to run 20 minutes, no more 30 minutes because of my days off, but I was feeling ok so I started wandering (while running of course...) through the streets and discovered some nice things :
- there is a swimming pool just around the corner ! So that's good for crossed training
- I discovered the most beautiful street ever discovered in London ! Too bad I didn't have my camera. It's farther than I usually go but it's definitely worth it.
- there is a parc not so far too, so I could run there. But I don't know because there is no shadow at all in this parc, and right now in London, it is SO HOT. Moreover, there is no clear path to run, you just have to run your way through the grass, and being the freak I am I don't like that very much... We'll see
- it is the first time it is so hot in London in the morning, it is hell. I can't stand running in the sun. I didn't know I could sweat that much on an early morning run. And viva the cold shower !

I made a decision too : I can't totally stop running for a few days like that anymore... I need to go out running, even if it's for 15 minutes, because I need my legs to understand that I'm not gonna let them rest until September the 26th !

That's it for today, I'm proud of me, at least for the time, not for the pace (thnk God I don't have a Garmin yet :) ). Monday, or maybe tomorrow (remember I'm not gonna stop myself when I want to go running so who knows...), I thing I'll stay at 30 minutes. But the time after that, we're heading up ;)