My confession

I confess that today didn’t start quite as I had planned. I could lie but I am officially the world’s worst liar and always have a guilty conscious, so the truth it is. After writing last night’s post I carried on reading ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ on my Kindle and I just could not put it down. If you haven’t read it, you must. It takes a while to get in to but then it grabs you and just doesn’t let go. I ended up collapsing into bed at just after 3am. Not ideal, as I was due to be up at 7:30 to do parkrun as I mentioned in last night’s post.

My alarm did go off and I even got out of bed but I felt absolutely shattered. 17 days of exercise is definitely having an effect. I made a deal with myself that I would give the 5k parkrun a miss but I would definitely do my 6.5k loop after I had the chance to have a little more sleep. I went back to sleep and woke up at 10am feeling so much more refreshed and ready to go but I still had that guilty feeling  in the pit of my stomach. I pottered around, had breakfast, watched Saturday kitchen and then made a few family phone calls before pulling on my running gear.

Running along the river on a really windy day with rubbish music on your I-pod is bloody hard. The first half of my run up to Hammersmith Bridge was really tough. I crossed the river and although I was now running into the wind, which made running even tougher, my playlist had improved and a few old garage classics got me going. Although I was tired and my calf was still giving me pain I kept going and  I completed my 6.5k route in under 40 minutes. Definitely no athlete  but I'm pleased with my progress.

I’d made my mind up that I was going to have a good day after a little bit of a morning wobble so we headed to the gym. I spent 45 minutes focusing on core-strength exercises, free weights to strengthen my arms and then rolled around on a swiss ball for a bit.  I did 50 press-ups, 120 sit-ups and a few planks until I was shaking violently. I still had more left in me so I changed into my swimsuit and did 40 lengths before flopping into the sauna with an intensive hair treatment on. I was hot because I was sweating profusely in a sauna but I had that glowing, warm feeling of achievement inside. No matter how tough it is when you are training the great feeling of achievement you get when you finish cancels the bad feeling out.

Although I’m tired, I have been buzzing round the house all afternoon. Exercise, though it does hurt sometimes, definitely makes you feel good! Cleaning the kitchen and preparing dinner I was jigging round listening to Radio 1 Extra having a little party all of my own. I ran Jon a bath as he was a little worse for wear after hockey this morning and I think my hyper mode was making him dizzy.

 I’m confident that I redeemed myself today after failing miserably first thing ( So that means no need for hail Mary’s) but there is no risk of me missing parkrun next week. I have rounded up a few of the #TeamBangsontheRun ladies that live in London and we are doing the Richmond Park 5k next Saturday morning. @gemmakgraham and @alexandravasey have it in their diaries. Does anybody else fancy joining us? Check out http://www.parkrun.com/  to find out more info. It really is such a great organisation.

If you don’t want to join us in running then why not support us in another way. As you can see from my blog entries, I am really making an effort, as are the other girls in the team.  I am committed to completing the Paris Half mara and I am also committed to achieving our fundraising target of £10,000. We have raised lots of money so far and really are extremely grateful to all those that have donated but we would be even more grateful if those of you that haven’t managed to could consider making a donation. www.justgiving.com/teambangsontherun The donations, no matter how small, really help to motivate me and the rest of the TeamBangs girls. If you want to keep up with some of the other girls on the team that are training hard then check out their blogs. Both Gemma and Kaye are taking part in #Janathon and have been logging their exercise on a daily basis. http://www.kayesweeswee.blogspot.com/  and http://www.junglegg.com/  . Have a little nose and see just how well they are doing. Come on, you know want to sponsor us!

I’m off to finish my book now and as there is only 13% to go  so my Kindle tells me), there is little risk of reading until the early hours to give me an excuse to miss tomorrow’s long run. Damn!