Adios Juneathon

Hello blog, apologies for having neglected you and missing the end of Juneathon.  Yep, despite good intentions I yet again didn't complete the move/blog every day challenge.  I have quite enjoyed catching up on with the blogs and reports of the other participants but I have fallen into the habit of reading them on my tablet using the feedly app at bedtime and it doesn't lend to easy commenting sometimes.  Oh sure I will think to myself I need to go back and comment but 99% of the time I fail to do so, my memory is like a sieve nowadays.  On the upside I have finally started familiarising myself with google calendar and actually USING it!

Activity wise I have dialled back the running slightly in order to get back into the habit of cross training because I have been neglecting the weights and they are oh so important for women of a certain age to help prevent osteoporosis...Not saying they aren't important for everyone but once you hit the point when you are closer to 50 than 40 then it does become a bit more of an issue with the bone density loss (this loss generally starts around age 35).  Of course you also have the added benefits of preventing injuries and keeping the weight at a healthy level, so yeah pumping some iron is kind of important.  I know I certainly run better if I do a full body weight workout at least twice a week.

Last week's running had some interesting twists.  Tuesday's club run was on a gorgeously hot evening that I think I enjoyed more than most of the others but then again I was out for a laid back trot and stayed at the back of the group and I think some took off at a balls to the wall pace for the temp so there was some suffering happening.

My new friend 

Thursday most of the club was doing one race or another so a handful of us went out on a bit of an offroad adventure recce run.  Parts of it was absolutely gorgeous but there were some mishaps of the sort I usually find myself on when I'm exploring by myself.  There was a two mile detour to avoid a pasture of cows and a machete wouldn't have gone amiss in order to cut our way through the nettles, thistles, and brambles!  Some awesome views though and I don't regret a moment of it --well there might have been a WTF have we gotten ourselves into a couple of times, lol. The pics above and below were taken on the run by a club mate (Hi Richard!).

Looks more like a jungle path rather than an English one!

Saturday I made a last minute decision to make the drive over for parkrun despite it being unbearably humid and experiencing some hellacious DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) from Friday's weight session. It's not a good sign when you are covered in sweat from your 1 mile warmup slog!  This time around I seeded myself closer to the front of the pack despite knowing it would cause me to run my first mile too fast (no discipline!).  Of course I jackrabbited and it felt hard from the very first step...what I didn't expect to see was 7:10 flash up for the first mile.

I did my best to push on but miles 2 and 3 were both 7:40 and I ended up having 2 women pass me in the last mile.  The first went on to finish in 22:54 and was running so strong that I had absolutely no chance of reeling her back in, the 2nd I managed to sprint by in the last .10 of a mile and finished ONE second ahead of her. That's why you always run through to the finish, no celebrating or relaxing as the guy in the Peachtree 10k found out over the weekend!

Despite the pacing mishap, I managed to get a pb (UK times) of 23:10, Still need to get those splits into a more even keel though. Let's see if I can match that time at tonight's club handicap!

Start of 2nd lap, don't let the smile fool you, I was suffering