Edinburgh Rock and Roll half marathon

On April 15th I am stupidly running the Edinburgh half marathon. This is the woman who finds or rather found running 100 yatds a challenge!

Running has always been one of those things I have struggled to do. I hated it with a passion in school and would dread those dreary, windy days when PE was a cross country run. I kind of found the whole breathing thing an issue! Minor problem.

2 years ago, after years of continued congestion in my nose I was eventually referred to a consultant who within 5 minutes told me had a collapsed septum between my sinuses and it had probably been like that from birth. It can be corrected with surgery but it is a 2 week recovery time. My surgery came through 3 weeks before our 200 mile move up north and when t’husband was already moved so I would have been alone with 2 kids and as much as I love my mum, I couldn’t cope with her fussing while trying to recover, so I canceled it and to be honest have now lost the bottle, but at least I now know why I snore like a pig and can’t breathe through my nose.

I think it is psychological as I am now really getting into running, have accepted I can’t breathe through my nose and have been convinced by a friend to run a half marathon. I love a challenge. T’husband is registered to do it with me but he isn’t going to – he has been for about 3 runs in the last 2 months and has now all but given up. To be fair he has had groin strain but he is so knackered from work he can’t face then running.

As for me, I continue to amaze myself. I have built up slowly but can now run about 3.5 miles without stopping – OK so I know I have another 10 miles to go to complete a half marathon but all in good time!

I am planning on doing a weekly update on how the training is going to try and motivate myself and keep a log of how I am doing.

I have just had 3 weeks off as I hurt my knee and then got flu. On Thursday night under the cover of darkness I did a 2 mile run and it went better than hoped. Today I ran with the dog and although the route was 4.8 miles I didn’t run it all as I ran 2.4 miles to the football field where Mini Man was doing football, stopped for about 10 minutes to watch and then walked the boys back to the car, then I ran back but some of it was too muddy to properly run. I did however make it all the way up this massive hill which I have been trying to achieve since December so I am very chuffed (and the dog was off his lead so didn’t pull me up!).

So from this week I hope to do a run every other day – I am in Rome Wed – Fri so hope the hotel has a gym and will do some on the treadmill.

Running nightmare today though was a new pair of running trousers. When walking the bit to the football field a couple of cars did slow and the men driving seemed to be having a good look at me – I was strutting along thinking I obviously looked good from behind. Once home I was hosing the dog in the garden, bent over him, t’husband came out and nearly spat his coffee out and was ‘Jesus Christ wifey, they are a bit see-through aren’t they’ and proceeded to take a photo, then made me stand up and take another one. I am absolutely mortified with the photos – I may as well of been wearing my thong on the outside of them it was that obvious.  Worst bit was I saw mum’s and dad’s from school on the football field and in the woods bumped into my old Biology teacher who stopped me as he recognized me from 20 years ago (this is the man who I can credit with the reason why I am doing what I do today and loving it – him and his belief in me, he inspired me and showed me I could do science and love it). Needless to say I have already been to town and bought some proper running knickers to now wear as well.