Overview

Given I've not blogged for over two and a half months, I've dithered over whether to write this at all, but have decided to as I owe you all a big thank you...

I think i've reached the end of my blogging career, so wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you so much. When I joined Realbuzz just over two years ago I never really thought I'd even be able to run the Great South that year, but with your encouragement I kept up with the training plan and dared to enter the London Marathon. Completing that remains one of my proudest moments, and I owe much of it to you.

Whilst running has taken a (big) back burner recently, I can 100% honestly say i'm a much fitter person from being on here, and am also much more fitness aware, so thank you again.

As well as thanking you for your support, I also want to thank you for your inspirational blogs too - there's a lot of incredible stories on here, and you all deserve to be hugely proud of yourselves too, so a final well done from me!

Wishing all of you all the best in all that lies ahead... in running, other challenges and life in general, but from me, it's over and out...

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Been ages again, and surprise surpise, i've done no running yet again. Work's been crazy as the last week has been our brand new national fundraising week which i had done a lot of the organisational work for, so loads of external promoting and then trying to get our office to take part in loads of activities and fundraising too, so I'm very glad it's Friday night! I've spent many an hour this week with a lime green wig and tutu on shaking a bucket across various London stations, have organised a work cake sale, quiz and comedy night, fancy dress day, talent show, inter-team competition and then all my normal work too.... but the good news is that I think just from our own staff we've raised around £2000 which i'm really pleased with. Just have to hope that people all over the country have been doing stuff too!

Then tonight I am obviously planning on winning Euromillions (along with half of Europe i guess!)... and tomorrow there is more excitement....

I'm going to be on a game show being made for Sky One! Sadly i don't think there's actually a huge chance of me winning any money, but do keep your fingers crossed just in case. I will at least get to look at the rather tasty Gethin Jones all day tomorrow, Mon, Tues and Wednesday which can't be a bad thing!

But running... well as i said, there's been none at all, sorry. Right now it's about all i can do to keep my eyes open, but hopefully life will calm down again soon (or i win £110 million and don't have to work anymore and can get myself a personal trainer for every day of the week!). Am mightily impressed with all the running you are all managing and am really sorry for the lack of commenting.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

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... including (finally!) the feeling that it'd be nice to go out for a run! Yes, the sun was shining and it wasn't that i felt i should go for a run, but that i'd actually like to.

Naturally after 5 weeks of not running there's the worry of not being able to do it anymore, but no matter what pretend complaints my body threw at me (hurty shins, stitch, sore shoulder, rubbed ankle), I managed to plod on til the Garmin bleeped it's 3 mile bleep and then walked home. Average pace 10.46 which i'm really pleased with after such a break. And despite all the pretend pains, I did enjoy being out there.

Whilst i've been a rubbish runner and blogger for the last, well, ages, I've really felt that i didn't want to feel that I 'should' get out and run, but instead i wanted to 'want' to get out and run... who knows how long it'll last, but hopefully a while!

Running aside, the walking is going well and I'm looking forward to a 22 mile stroll across the South Downs with Amy, Pam and Chris this Saturday before cheering on all you fabulous marathon runners on Sunday - think we'll be at mile 8.5 near the Asthma UK cheering point, so if any of you are running, please do look out for my mum, P &C and I!

Also with good old WW, I'm just two pounds off having lost 2 stone since New Year, so that's positive too - although I have come to realise that I seem to struggle focussing on weight loss and exercise at the same time... ah well, can't be perfect!

Big well done to all of you who have been doing so much better than me with the running, and massive good luck wishes to everyone running the marathon on Sunday, enjoy it all, with all the training you've done, you deserve to relish every moment - even the ones that may hurt!

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So it's been 4 weeks - where did they go?! I'm not proud to announce that in that time i've run a total of twice.... hmm, that's really really rubbish isn't it?! And the last of them was three weeks ago tomorrow, so I really must get back to it sometime very soon, or my legs will have forgotten what to do!

Running aside, all is good in the life of me. I've been doing some walking and a few pilates sessions, so not all gone to pot. The osteopath has signed me off as being healthy again, and the back is mostly behaving itself now.

I did a very hilly 16 mile walk across the Kent countryside yesterday which went really well,and I even decided to carry a rucksack with me for the first time which was a real test for the back, and thankfully i had no probs with it. According to the Garmin, across the whole walk we did ascents totalling 2126m and descents totalling 1974m, so it really was pretty hilly.... sadly, due to vaguely trying to impress the company i was in, i couldn't even whinge too much about the 'undulations' so it was a heads down and get on with it sort of a thing! The scary thing is that Trailwalker will be almost 4 times the length of yesterday's walk - I think there'll be blisters on the blisters by the end of it!

Other excitement is that I randomly filled out an online application form for a new tv gameshow ages ago, and found out on Saturday that I'm going to be on it! It's called Sell Me The Answer and is going to be on Sky One, presented by the rather lovely Gethin Jones. I'm going to be on 12 shows from what i can work out, and they're being filmed on 9/11/12/13 May, so fingers crossed for me to try and win some money (although it seems I may have to lie and cheat to do so, so I'll have to practise my lying, cheating face over the next month!!).

In my 4 weeks of laziness, thankfully you have all been keeping the home fires burning with some great running, training and racing, a huge well done to all of you!

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Where to start.... as my mum has already said, we've made the decision not to do the Reading Half which I have to say is a big relief to me, I knew that I couldn't be properly ready for it and worried that a bad run there could really put me off for quite a long time.

Last week I had a good session at the gym on Tuesday evening and then had some good intentions to run Thursday evening and Saturday morning.... less said about that the better! Saturday afternoon Andy (TFO) came up to London (thankfully he managed the drive without petrol pump drama or more points on his license!), so we hada nice wander over the Common (which Andy has decided would be a great spot for totty watching given the huge number of girls running in lycra!) and down to Battersea for a drink (well, that bit might have only been me!). Then a nice dinner out and Andy headed off home, and I sat in being ultra cool and doing a jigsaw - haha, I sure know how to party on a Saturday night!

Sunday my walking buddy Kat picked me up at 9am. Now the last walk we did along the Thames path was very flat, so at the end of it I made a throwaway comment that perhaps we should find a slightly hillier route next time and Kat informed me she'd found something suitable... Now I think you're all more than aware of a slight genetic hatred of hills in the Hammond laydees, Kat had only gone and found the biggest hill in the South East!! It's called Leith Hill - and I was not impressed!!

Thankfully she let us drop our pace (she normally makes me walk as fast as possible, such a task master!) and we pootled around some bigs ups and downs for a total of about 7 miles. As we were nearing the end, we saw some runners and realised there was a race going on right at the summit of the hill. Now, I had seriously struggled with walking up the steepest part of the hill, and here were poor sods having to run up and down it. I was thinking it must be a 5 or 10k, and making a mental note to never ever ever even think about doing it, and then asked a marshal about the distance and it was actually a Half - seriously, hats off to all the people doing it - for the masochists/hill lovers among you, check out www.trionium.com for their range of evil races!

By the time I got home and showered I'm ashamed to say it was back off to the pub for me, and now i'm sitting at work considering quite how wrong it is to have a hangover on a Monday morning and also wondering how walking up hills has made some muscles in my bum (of whose existence i was until now unaware!) very very sore!

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After a lazy week (when i didn't quite manage to get out as planned on either Tuesday OR Thursday), there was no way I could think of any more excuses not to do my planned 7.5 miles yesterday.

After the race last week I put my time into the Runners World tool which tells you the pace you should do different sorts of training and was surprised to see it telling me to do my LSRs at something between 12 and 14 minute miles.... hmmm, that really does seem a bit slow, but it made me think that I pretty much always try and run as hard as I can with most runs, so yesterday I worked out how to set a workout on the Garmin and set to do 7.5 miles at an average of 11.30 - I normally aim to keep about an 11 min/mile average, so this seemed a bit of a compromise - couldn't bring myself to justify 12-14!

The first two miles I had to force myself to slow down, then in the third mile I was surprised to glance down occasionally and see that I was really managing to slow down, going at slower than 12 m/m at times! So then I had to pick it back up again. I always enjoy running along the Embankment, and with it being a longer run it meant I could get down there again. I finished fairly comfortably with an average of 11.22 m/m feeling that I could have gone a bit further, so that was good.

It's not only the furthest I've run in ages, but it's the first time since new year that I haven't stopped to walk for 30 seconds at each mile, so all in all, I was pleased with myself. Perhaps slowing down even more than my normal ploddy plod is the answer for now!

Then last night I was out for dinner and some bad dancing for my lovely flatmates birthday. I have to admit that a bailed at a meagre 12.20am, but by the time I'd legged it to the tube to ensure catching the last one home, my heels were really starting to kill the soles of my feet. When i got out the tube near home I was positively limping home - and wondering how on earth I was going to meet Amy for a nice Trailwalking training walk today.

Woke up with a blister on the ball of my foot - ouch - couldn't decide if you can really put Compeed on the sole of your foot... decided maybe not, so pulled on my walking socks and boots and went to get the train to Guildford where Amy was waiting for me. We had a lovely walk along the river to Godalming where we had a yummy lunch, then walked back again - 10.5 miles in total with plenty of time to assess the benefits of moving to the North West along the way!

Really shattered now, my foot is really sore, so i'll be trying out the Compeed after all. Have a good week everyone.

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I'm a bit late in posting and perhaps it's all been said! Thank you to Kitten for chivvying us all into signing up, and to everyone for making it the weekend it was.

I can't say I was looking forward to the actual race as my preparation had been worse than feeble, so in the end to finish in 1h07.37 (garmin time) I'm happy with - my only other two 10k times are 1h07.07 and 1h07.49, so I can't complain.

But I wasn't really going for the race, it was all about meeting up with all of the lovely bloggy people who I've spent the last two years getting to know. And what a lovely lot we are heh?! From dinner and drinks on the Saturday, to sharing pre-race jitteriness (or just plain over-energeticness in some cases Ms Wright!), and post-race lunch, it was great to meet so many of you fab people!

Sadly the traffic on the way home was terrible so I didn't get to experience the speedy driving by Andy that you were all preparing me for - but huge thanks to Andy for going so far out of his way and spending 5 hours driving me home.

Looking forward to seeing you all again sometime soon - if any of you are free on July 18th you could always come and hang out round the South Downs and see if Amy can sustain such high energy levels for 30 hours straight - I'm sure there'd be cake in it for you....

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Right, so it seems that my lower back didn't appreciate the fun I showed it this weekend... I followed up Saturday's 5 mile run with a 9-10 mile walk on Sunday which I think has just about finished it off. By last night I was almost in tears when i was walking, but with the power of ibuprofen and bio-freeze, it did calm down enough to get to sleep, and i'm back on the ibuprofen today as well. I've got an osteo appointment on Thursday which is good timing as at the last appointment I was so upbeat about how much it had improved that I almost thought he wouldn't offer me another appointment.

Short term I guess it's not too bad, I know that it'll get better again within a few days, but I really have to get it properly sorted before Trailwalker as otherwise I just can't see me getting through all 62 miles of the course, and I'm determined to not let the girls down, so i guess it's more core exercises for me!

I'm off shortly to a conference in Telford - I've been booked overnight in a motorway service station 'hotel'... which would be fine if i just had a car, but given i'm travelling up on the train means that once I've got a taxi there, I'm pretty much stranded for the evening, unless i fancy a quick trip to Burger King followed up with an hour on the slot machines!!  And Burger King and Weight Watchers don't really mix too well! Talking of which, I've lost 11 pounds so far since 5 Jan, so that is at least going well.

Hope you all have a more fun Tuesday evening than me!

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