What next?

Some of you will know that the 'Christmas Pudding anyone?' line at the end of last week's blog means I am considering the Christmas Pudding Race at Merthyr Mawr on 19th December.

There are several problems with this:

1. It's 10k. I haven't even managed 5k yet.

2. It's over sand dunes, rivers, hills and rough terrain. With my knees.

3. It's described as 'gruelling'. And it's still 10k.

4. On the plus side, you do get given a Christmas Pudding at the end.

At first I was quite excited about this until (a) Guy pointed out that it's my worst phase of a triathlon and (b) I realised I can buy a very nice Christmas Pudding from Asda.

So do I do it?

To try and help me decide (entries open today) on Monday night I went for a 5k run. Or 5k run and walk, in my case. I've devised a route through Machen which is 5k so that I can see my progress (or lack of). I started off quite brightly, running for the first 5 minutes without any trouble. Then I walked a bit. Then ran a bit. As I was on the main road, in the walking bits I kept checking my watch so that the passing cars would think I was doing some sort of 'training' rather than just walking. After the half way point I was struggling with the long uphill, and any pretence of 'looking like I'm training' went out the window - stuff the cars, I'm shattered!

I did my 'lap' in 41 minutes. So now I can see my progress over the coming weeks.

Perhaps not the Christmas Pudding race then...

Fit Mark has been reading my blog (thank you!) and sent me some suggestions - the first one being the 'Military Fitness 5k Mud Run' at the end of October. Here are a couple of pics to give you the idea:

Doesn't that look utterly brilliant!

So I entered. And so has my friend Sian. She's mad too. You know the 'Ryder Cup Rain' we had today (we're about 20 miles from the course). Sian went running for 12 miles in it. Mad. But lovely... so we're doing the Mud Run together - Sian is much better at running than me (as evidenced by the '12 miles in the rain' above) but promises that we'll stick together and get revolting together. Fab or what!

By way of practice I decided to run home tonight from work. Guy had a day off so he walked from home to work (in Caerphilly) and then drove my car home. I changed into my running gear (which my lovely sister-in-law describes as 'all the gear, no idea' stuff - spot on!) and set off to find the muddiest way home. It was fab! Going uphill I did stop a few times - after my rubbish running dog day I've found I'm better if I run and then stop for a while (about 15 seconds usually does it) then run again, rather than walking the 'getting your breath back' bits. This is probably because I'm rubbish at walking too. Anyway, I ran in stages to the top of Rudry Common (yes, the VERY top) and then ran (without stopping - yay!) all the way home. It was SUCH fun! I got very muddy, nearly had my trainers sucked off twice, got thwacked in the face by wet and overhanging leaves (strangely refreshing) and was sadly remarkably clean when I got home because the long grass cleaned my feet...

My trainers are now in the washing machine...

I had a nice hot bath and left a tide mark round the tub for the first time in over 40 years - brilliant!

If anyone fancies coming along to laugh/point/take pics, it'll be a nice day out. It's at 10am on Saturday 30th October 2010. Somewhere near Usk... On a 4x4 driving course...

And I honestly can't wait!

However, before that there's the little matter of warm weather training in Italy. Or a holiday, as it's sometimes known... We're taking the laptop with us, so there might even be a postcard from abroad...

Ciao!