Day 29 - parkrun PB for Becca and a mini Tweet up!

It's parkrun day again! This week seems to have gone so fast, certainly doesn't feel like a week since we were making last minute relay plans.

The 4 of us HARP relayers who made it to parkrun today all wore our shirts and Ian took a great photo:

(Photo by Ian Tatman)

Was great that Steve finally made it back to parkrun so we could meet up after so long chatting on Twitter :

Agreed with Becca that as it was pretty warm and I was tired and sore we'd just concentrate on comfortably making it around ... As usual, it took me a while to settle into the run but once I had, with about half a mile to go I realised that actually, with a bit of speeding up we could still beat Becca's PB from her birthday. 

We did it! I may have got a bit over enthusiastic and almost dragged poor Becca the last few metres but she knocked 41 seconds off her PB. Amazing stuff!

(Another great photo by Ian)

(Not sure what's going on there, I wasn't pushing her out the way like it looks, I was trying to help!)

Today - 3.14

Total so far - 125.82

Day 28 -

Today's run was just a loop of half of the parkrun course before picking Olivia up from school.  I didn't struggle as much as I had expected to so I could have gone further if I had enough time left! Typical!

Today - 2.7

Total so far - 122.76 

Day 27 - 10K (mostly) with Sam

Arranged to meet Sam this morning to go for a run - we were undecided if we would do 4 or 5 miles. I'm tired and Sam has a couple of niggles so we agreed to just see how we felt.

We headed from hers, through Gunners Park and along the seafront. Very slowly! My foot has been pretty sore again today but after a few miles the numbness sets in and it's easier to run.  This wasn't an easy one but I enjoyed it. I love running and chatting, I always have a laugh with Sam and also it makes it easier to talk about stuff that might be difficult sometimes - we could probably run a bit quicker if we didn't talk so much!  

We looped back through the Burgess estate and then eventually back through Gunners and around the cricket pitch. Back at Sam's for 5.1 miles.

Was very tempted by the offer of a lift home but after a quick stop for a drink I ran the long way home (carrying a hoodie, bottle of water and some shopping!) to make it up to 10k.

Today - 6.2

Total so far - 119.98 

Day 26 - New Target

6.2 emotional miles along the seafront.

I struggled with the first few but got into it about 4 miles in. Felt ok finishing so was a bit tempted to do more but don't want to be too stupid. Juneathon *is* stupid though ... 

This week is getting to me a bit, but I'm still going and I have a new target - at least 131.5 miles.

Today - 6.2

Total so far - 113.8

Day 25 - Target Achieved!

(I know I haven't blogged days 22, 23 and 24 yet, I'm working on it just in the wrong order!)

This morning I met my friend Becca to do a 10k along the seafront. She did her first 10k with me at the start of the month and wanted to do a few more to build up confidence for her first race on 14th July.

My legs were sore when I first got out of bed this morning but I walked 2 miles before meeting Becca and I felt a bit better by the time we started.

On the way towards the pier we were running into a slight breeze but on the homeward stretch there was none at all, just hot sun. This weather, combined with me still aching from the weekend's efforts meant I didn't find a lot of this easy, my legs felt really heavy.  Lots of chatting and plan making (I've come up with some brilliantly crazy ideas!) helped the time pass and by the time we reached 5 miles I was relaxing into it and feeling good.

10k done! I have reached my Juneathon target of 100 miles! This felt like it may be too much at the start of the month, I'm so pleased I did it. Especially that I managed to do it today. 

Today - 6.26

Total so far - 100.9

(May run again this evening!)

*** Edited to add :

Have now run 3.2 and then 3.5 miles on the dreadmill.

Total today - 12.94

Total so far - 107.58

Day 24 - Recovering

Still recovering after the weekend of lots of running and lots of not sleeping!

Decided to run on the dreadmill and aim for my minimum of 2 miles.  As often happens, I got to 2 mile then thought, may as well do 2.5.  Got to 2.5 and figured I may as well do 5k. Slowly, obviously, but it's done!

Day 23 - HARP day 2

I think the feeling of most of us this morning is best illustrated by this brilliant photo Sam took of me :

I think I may actually have slept like this for a few minutes!

Thankfully, not long after this, some clever person spotted the cafe over the road had opened so me and Rich headed over. A bacon sarnie and a coffee which strangely looked awful yet tasted amazing and I woke up slightly. 

Steve M had returned from holiday to join us and did some laps and then some other people did some! 

Kieran had done a great job looking after us all over the weekend and wanted a look at the course so was heading out with Andy so I decided to join them, realising it would be the last lap I could manage.

We started off nice and slow as it was all I could manage and Andy was apparently injured .... A couple of miles in and me and Kieran were a little behind, we came round a corner and Andy was almost out of sight! He sped off and we just took it easy, glad to get back!

Keith did the final lap for our team, managing to look better after his 5th than I did before I started:

There was a little presentation thing in the clubhouse ... We didn't win ;)

Me - 4

Sam - 3

Andy - 3

Steve R - 7

Steve M - 4

Keith - 5

Scotty - 3

A few laps didn't count where more than one of us ran at once - 109.2 miles counted and 12.6 that didn't!

My Juneathon miles for days 22 and 23 total - 16.73