Runners United: Where we support each other through the good runs, the bad runs and everything in between.

[Themasterandmargaritas]

15/10/11 - Donadea Forest Trail 10k - rhetorician
16/10/11 - Abingdon Marathon: MoshiMoshi
16/10/11 - Aviemore 10K: Piffpaffpoff
16/10/11 - Richmond Castle 10k: Stickylittlefingers
22/10/11 - Shockabsorber 10K Richmond Park - sfx
23/10/11 - Thruxton Mass Attack Duathlon- DebitheScot
23/10/11 - Big Fun Run 5k Edinburgh Holyrood Park - Bumply
23/10/11 - East Coast Run 10k - Ibbydibby
30/10/11 - Great South Run: Wheely, squix
30/10/11 - Nairobi Standard Chartered Half Marathon - M&M
05/11/11 - Glendalough Trail Run - rhetorician
06/11/11 - Lancaster Half Marathon - Fannybanjo
06/11/11 - Bonfire Burn 10K - Futurity
13/11/11 - Stebbing 10 Mile - bonkers20
19/11/11 - Maasai Mara Half Marathon - M&M
20/11/11 - Leeds Abbey Dash (10k) - DrNortherner
27/11/11 - City of Norwich half marathon: ibbydibby, MoshiMoshi
27/11/11 - Bicton Blister (10M) - RunningAllDay
22/01/12 - Four Villages Half Marathon (Helsby) - Fannybanjo
19/02/12 - Brighton Half marathon - Wheely
04/03/12 - Milton Keynes Half Marathon - pawsnclaws
11/03/12 - Cambridge Half Marathon - Futurity, Runnerstipple, Cherry (what have I done??)
25/03/12 - Edale Skyline - (21 miles. 4,500 ft climb) Hatwoman
10/03/12 - Blackpool Half Marathon - DrNortherner, Fannybanjo
01/04/12 - Reading Half-Marathon - RunningAllDay
22/04/12 - VLM: ibbydibby
29/04/12 - Shakespeare Half Marathon - FairyBasslet
27/05/12 - London Bupa 10K - Futurity
09/06/12 - Blenheim Sprint Triathlon - Cherry

tho fanny do you not have a park run near you if you're after a timed 5k?

Been reading the thread but have had no time to post due to half term/kitchen stuff. Kids back to school tomorrow (two training days this week!) and the kitchen is almost done. Just some flooring issues to sort out and the decorating. Good to have the house back to normal.

Congrats to runnerstipple on the Olympic place...and amazing to hear about your Iceland run N4NNY ..am of both of you!

Starting to think about training plan for Cambridge half in March as I like to follow a 16 week plan which I realised starts mid November. Not sure whether to do the SmartCoach one again (which did help me improve my last time by 5 mins) or try something else (make it up as I go along basically!).

I've got my 10K on Sunday...not really trained for it...just going to see what happens and enjoy my last race of the year.

blimey you lot talk fast!

re the lady garden thing.....i would suggest you do the veet thing very near to the time! ive done it once (the things mumsnet makes you do!!) and it wasnt terribly successful - i ended up with a bit of a goatee....and the regrowth is a bit quick, i think on reflection i would opt for a wax - though saying that im not sure i did any lady garden tidying with my two....it might have been like the secret garden but i couldnt see it to do much about it!

who is thinking about home edding? its something i considered with my boy as he has aspergers (and dyslexia and dyspraxia if we are counting)

if i find out when my 10 k is will you add it to the list purlease? going to the club again tomorrow!

(and btw - use Nair sensitive if you are going for the cream thing!)

No no no, I meant me, fanny! I am from Hong Kong!

Tis me, vicar, as we are heading to San Francisco and it is a possibility until we enter mainstream school in September (the schools we really loved). Then again, DH is suggesting we take the easy route of accepting places at the schools that have offered us places in January. Then the decision is made and we can focus on all the other move-related things...

Is your son not being dealt with very well in his school, vicar?

hi moshi - my DS time at school was pretty grim to say the least, but he got through it and he is now at uni - goes full time proper and everything next year

we had open day on Saturday - he has done the first 2 years at home but wants to go next year and get his BSc so it will be full time for a year - i think it will do him the world of good but ill be a nervous wreck. He is even talking of doing a masters....i will wait with baited breath!

so for you the home ed thing isnt a full time forever thing - i would go on gut instinct i think, it all sounds very exciting! how old are the children? what do they think? i think i could have done temporary home edding but not sure i would have done right by my lad if i had attempted it full time...he needed his exams and i dont think i could have taught him to that standard.

i am disproportionately excited to have just opened a very big bag of goodies from Sport direct....i am totally kitted out now (unless i lose lots and lots of weight! but i wouldnt complain!) i have found trying on all the running gear more exciting than normal clothes shopping! i have a hat with a hole in it for a pony tail and everything!

Haha moshi I realised that - I was being "humorous"!! .

Ooooh vicar (that sounds a bit Carry On, doesn't it?!) I'm even excited by other people and their running gear - how sad is that? I ordered a headband with a ponytail bit, but sadly they had run out of stock so nothing to keep my ears warm and toasty yet (I don't like my head being covered, so it's a visor in summer and a headband in winter for me). Lucky it's so mild at the moment.

Well done to your ds, that's amazing that he overcame so much - what is his BSc in? Has he had any thoughts as to what he would like to do after his Masters?

Moshi does your DH mean put the dcs in the second choice school as a temporary measure until the places at the chosen schools come up next September, or does he mean permanently? I had a colleague who had her son at prep school 1 for less than a week because a place at prep school 2 came up - as you can imagine she got stung for two lots of fees, though.

I don't think I personally have the patience to home ed although I very much admire people that do it. Maybe I could do it as a temporary measure though?

Quick question - who here trains by heart-rate? I did a nice interval workout at the gym this morning, 4.5 miles in total of which 3 were at my faster pace (sort of on a pyramid basis, so starting with 0.25 mile and working up to 1 mile then down again). My heart rate was 163 at the highest (resting is 50-ish). Does that sound OK or too high? It seemed quite bearable, just wondered.

Thank monkeywench, he is doing his degree in computer information systems ( I know he would have liked to do computer science but the wheels fell off a bit during A levels) but he is doing well! And I am excited for him to have a bit of independence! ( I say that now.... Ask me in a year! )
I've thought about heart rate but I'm sure that if I saw mine I would need to sit down off for a cheeky wine and to watch a bit of stuff I've taped... Not enough hours in a day.

Hello all -

runnertipple lucky lucky you!

vicar am going to have to browse now you have said that... bought some calf guards which are great but now my thighs feel tired after running (displaced wobble?!)

interested to hear about running thoughts - find it difficult to keep my mind off the pain... so (iPod issues continuing) I listen to Radio 4 on my phone. As I usually run after school dropoff, I end up with Melvyn Bragg or some other difficult program that doesn't really help with the pain much!

monkey - thanks to new Garmin have been examining HR - rhet suggested a great website (somewhere upthread). If you play with it, the zones seem to depend a lot on max and resting HRs, and max seems a bit elusive unless it is properly tested. 163 sounds good; maybe on the low side for high intensity? - tho' depends on lots of things it seems. I reckon I can feel my anaerobic threshold (that dead leg feeling - about 165bpm for me) which would help map the max HR. I still don't know if I am 'using' HR correctly to train though - any more advice would be appreciated by me too!

moshi no brainwaves from me, sounds really tricky - we did the opposite, moving bacl to UK when DD1 reached Y1 partly because we were dissatisfied with overseas schooling. But left us with situation of moving DD1 into non-preferred primary school, then finally into preferred primary a year later. She didn't enjoy the 2nd move AT ALL - she's fine now, but she'd made lots of nice little girlfriends and it was a wrench. But DSs may be diff, I wouldn't know! I half-wish I had home ed'd, but I may be in a loony bin now if I had. And she did make lots of nice friends in the process - and that's a big part of life, isn't it?!

11 miles yesterday for me; felt fine yesterday but am knackered today. I am trying out the opposite of the 'less is more' strategy - am running longer distances than necessary in an attempt to make the race distance feel easier - whilst keeping up the hill and speed training recommended by you pros! Don't know if it will work, but I just feel tired now!

Glad you enjoyed Iceland N4NNY, sounds lovely.
runnerstipple, congratulations on your place.
I have not heard of hats with pony tail hole
Vicar nice to hear a happy ending. My son having tough time at school, he has not been actually dx with anything yet but have been told list of things he is showing signs of ocd, tourettes and on autistic scale. However he is a excellent reader, loves school work and very good at computers just the social side he struggles with. I did think of home schooling him as he does better with one to one but don't think it would do him any favours in the long run as he already struggling with social cues and relationships.You sound so proud of your son.

Runnerstipple am very jealous

I forgot to say a few days ago, congrats to all the racing people from these weekend, especially wheely and squix for the GSR.

futurity i have just been looking at smart coach for the cambridge half. I am having a moment of feeling a bit scared about the distance as it will be the longest I have ever run. I got the sponsorship pack today from Cancer Research, I think I will get on with getting the justgiving page set up, then if people start sponsoring me now, I have no excuse not to do it! Just crazily busy at work at the mo, and feeling a bit nervous about how I'll fit everything in. Hmm.

Moshi, I was born in HK! . I hope you get your schooling dilemas resolved soon. When is the big move to SF?

Just seen an advert for warrior dash, one in London and one in Yorkshie. Looks really good fun anyone doing it?

blimey....just googled warrior dash but think that may just be a weeeeeee bit beyond me. wow! quite like the idea of beer and helmets but thats where my interest stopped - when i read about obstacles and fire and mud i pretty much went off the idea - maybe one day - im in Yorkshire!

Orange - thats pretty much what i figured for my boy - but we chose a school very carefully - secondary school only had 400 pupils so was small and intimate and friendly - was the best we could do unless we took him out - that would have benefited him in the short term but not in the long term - we were right but it was hard work and at times i felt so sorry for him,

Cherry - what are you running?

got to say hats off to all you runners of races! im determined to be ready for my 10k next year, then who knows what...

im sure this will have moved on at a rate of knots by the time i get back - bear with me while i get my bearings and get to know everyone!

hello vicar

great times for GSR, by the way; monkey at the moment, I use heart rate - I don't always, but my times have been a bit shit lately and I needed to take things down a notch. A good working formula is 180-age gives you aerobic threshold (or MAF) - yours may be higher, but probably not by that much (you can run up hills and the like to try and determine HR max); your resting heart-rate will give you a sense of the shape you're in (e.g. take pulse before even moving in the mornings).

Using heart rate isn't for everyone, and after doing it for a bit you start to be able to sense it by feel - even within a few beats - but I quite like it for base building phases of training, e.g. lots of slow miles

thoughts when running - sometimes troubles of one kind or another, sometimes mundane, practical stuff, sometimes about ideas for work. Being outside helps, as there is always something to look at. Not a music person for running, but use podcasts when on treadmill...yawn

thoughts when running.... hot young studs errr, shopping, cleaning, how much ironing I've got. Usual mundane shite.

Ohh ? mega catch up time, it?s really tricky to keep up!

Hello to new / returning folks

Jimmy Saville - he was at the start of my first ever ½ Marathon in Glasgow about 8 years ago, but I don?t think I?ve ever forgiven him for not fixing it for me to be Alice in Wonderland

M&M what a pain ? sometimes our bodies are our best friends and can do amazing things and sometimes they seem to be ready to sabotage us

Moshi - I am starting to get ready excited for your big adventure. No advice on schools, I am sure that there are others on here well able to help .

Peach - I don?t think I?d have been able to reach down there myself to do any tidying up in the last few weeks. Oh and thanks for the link -have been looking for how to enter but I guess it will be publicised nearer the time

I have been very thrifty this week. I discovered that I had an old reflective/high vis jacket (I bought a new one last year as old one was too big ) and I cut the sleeves off to make a stylish gillet.

Pan - I do maths when I am running - working out times and splits and stuff and also day dream a wee bit ? imagine how exactly I would divide up a £100m lottery win, that sort of thing.

ironing Fanny ? is that as an incentive to run as fast as possible away from it?

I need new shoes mine have holes at the big toe

squix one of dh's best friends went on Jim will fix it thing (sorry foreign person here) and apparently it was quite a small ambition he had, can't recall what exactly, something about putting up posters or something, he was a bit of star for a while

Ha ha sfx, Jim'll Fix It! When we were wee, my sister and I used to refer to him as Jim'll as we thought that was his name...

Squix, you can register now, here speedoflight2012.org.uk/#!/page/12/Runners
just pick the night you want to do. I was feeling very gung ho about it earlier but this would tie me, DP, and the two little'uns to a weekend in Scotland, which would be lovely but thinking maybe I can't be planning that far ahead for weekends away

should have been in bed hours ago, better get offski!

I must confess that sometimes when I am running I think about what I will post about the run when i get back

Thanks peach - have signed up for the 25th August - I am intrigued as to what the light suit will be like!

I have also arranged to go for a taster session at a running club.

I am full of action tonight (even if it is from my sofa via my laptop!)

rhet me too

Tonight on my 4.5 mile run I thought about what I think about on a run
I think mostly rubbish but I do spend lots of time working out what my HM time would be if I did 9m/m or 9.25 m/m etc.
I also do some lesson planning sometimes if it's the evening before a day I work. This evening I came up with a great differentiated task for tomorrow but because I was out running I didn't have time to make the resource for it

My photos from the Big Fun run weren't as bad as the previous race photos.

I did a slow 6k run last night. Didn't think about much other than how running amongst the trick or treaters made for more of an audience than I was expecting at that time of night. Mostly I just enjoy not being in ear shot of DS1 and DS2

I other thing I think about is about how my 7.5-8 mins / km pace would look much better if it matched the 7-8 mins / mile that most of you seem to be capable of. Still, a few months ago I wouldn't have believed that I could run 6k without stopping.