Family, sightseeing and fun running

The giant family party last weekend was a great success. Someone counted 39 of us, all in some way related, either through birth, marriage or partnership. Some of them I hadn't seen since the last such gathering 10 years ago, when my lovely great aunt was a mere 80 year old whippersnapper, some I had never met before as they have joined the family in the intervening years, and some I have seen more recently but not with everyone together, which is always a special treat. Of course there was a huge hole at the top table where Mum should have been, but she was very much there with us all in our hearts, and doubtless quaffing more than one celestial G&T in Aunty's honour.

Here we all are, having eventually been organised into some sort of order out of chaos:

It was a really splendid day, the sun shone on us and we all had a great time.

The next day, as the sun was still shining, I took my Dad to Polesden Lacey. As I work for the National Trust (albeit only temporarily) I have been given a membership card. To my shame I have been to very few NT places in recent years (well, since I left home donkey's years ago really - my parents often took us to visit stately homes and gardens which I didn't enjoy at the time! I have since regretted not doing more of it in my adult life) and so have determined to make use of my card while I have it. Polesden is a lovely grand Edwardian country house and estate which in the early 20th century played host to many a grand party, with royalty frequent visitors. It was particularly interesting to see an NT operation at the complete opposite end of the scale to the one where I work - so many people and such a huge estate and gardens. A lot of the house is not yet restored and open to the public but the rooms that are open are very well done and sympathetically presented. The gardens are beautiful, though unfortunately we were about a fortnight too early for the rose garden at its best, and the views across the rolling hills were quite lovely. I loved the deck chairs scattered on the South Lawn, with photos of King George VI and the Queen Mother, who honeymooned here.

View from the house across the Downs

Deckchair for two 

Rose garden not quite at its peak

And what of the running? Not a lot to be honest! I completed my first ever park run on Saturday, which I was surprisingly nervous about, but in the end it was good fun. I managed to run the whole way round Stoke Park, twice, without stopping for a walk, which I haven't done for years as I was previously much less fit than I am now. It's quite an undulating course with a lot of grass underfoot which is a bit different to road running but I completed the 5K in 31:55, finishing 197th out of 265 finishers. Not bad for a novice, and a good target to aim at. There is no run in Stoke Park this weekend due to the Surrey County Show on Monday (it'll be raining then...) so I think we'll just go into town for coffee and shopping and I'll run again next weekend. Apart from that, no running this week (a lot of walking to and from and at work though, with two school visits and six sessions of bug hunting and pond dipping) until yesterday, when my sister came to visit - not the one from New Zealand, the other one. We are doing the Marlow 10k together next Sunday and she hasn't run for a while so we went for a little jog yesterday to see how she was. It was great, we did the 5-ish mile route down to the river, along the towpath and back up through Jacob's Well, chatted all the way round and felt pretty ok. I was very disappointed, however, to find that, even though we both set our phones at exactly the same time and ran side by side, she ran 1/4 mile further than me...!! What's that all about hey William?! Ho ho.

5km Challenge

The sun is shining, Spring is here and it's time for a new challenge. Not a very big one, but just enough to keep me fit and motivated. 5 km in under 30 minutes...

I did my "base-line" test last week, running round the block at my usual pace until I got to 5km (actually I hadn't worked out how to switch William to km - he and I are very old-fashioned and use miles - so I had to guess when to stop soon after he'd said "3 miles...") and the time recorded was 32m 45s. So that's what I have to work on. I have a challenge with one of my 'tinterweb running buddies to see which of us can break 30 minutes first, but it has to be in an organised and timed running event - doing it out on a training run round the block doesn't count apparently. With that in mind I have registered to parkrun. This is an international series of free to enter, run by volunteers, 5km events held all over the world at 9:00 on a Saturday (...the regular crowd shuffles in... Billy Joel, Piano Man) and there is one in Stoke Park in Guildford, along with another 3 or 4 within 5-10 miles drive so I can vary the course if I wish. I won't go every week as Saturday mornings is "date day" with hubby (coffee and shopping!) but some weekends would be good, and a good test of any improvement.

This morning I went for a training run, having worked out how to switch William to km, and did some "fartlekking". For those of a non-running persuasion this is where you jog along for a bit, then pick a corner, or lamppost or tree, some way ahead and run like the clappers before settling back down to a gentle recovery jog, until the next corner/lamppost/tree. The idea is that you teach your body to run faster over short distances to start with but gradually increase the distance so you get used to running faster. I didn't go mad as it was a beautiful warm day but I did cover the 5km in 30m 59s - a huge improvement already!! I can't improve too quickly (much as I want to beat my running buddy) as I'll then have to revise the target down again - before I know it I'll be sprinting all the way and that sounds too much like hard work...!

Elsewhere the mass descent of global family went very smoothly; they came and went one after the other, not really long enough with each of them but, as they all only have a few weeks in the UK and loads of people to catch up with, all their various itineraries are a bit whistle-stop. We will all be together this Sunday at my lovely lovely great-aunt's 90th birthday celebrations in Worthing (looks like it's going to be a fabulous day to be by the seaside), together with all the UK family too so I am really looking forward to that. Unfortunately neither of our boys can be there as they are right slap bang in the middle of exam time, but they are both of an age to be excruciatingly embarrassed by a whole load of people they don't remember, telling them how much they've grown since the last time they were seen (about 10 years ago at Aunty's 80th!), so it's perhaps as well they're not coming.

Finally for now, I have another "medal". Not a real medal, more of a digital certificate really, but it celebrates my participation in "Walk Your AS Off". You may recall I told you about my friend Gerry who runs extreme events despite suffering from AS. Well, through him and another friend, Kathy, who also suffers, I got involved in a campaign to walk to Mars. The AS charity hopes to inspire those affected and their friends to raise awareness of the illness by counting the number of steps walked between March 1st and May 3rd - they reckon it'll take ten years to walk to Mars, but I did my little bit this year and contributed 631,228 steps (obviously running a marathon is a LOT of steps). Next year I hope to beat that, although without marathon training I'll have to try harder.

What to do now?

Almost three weeks have passed now since my triumphant day in London. I am still insanely happy and excited that I actually did it; I carry my medal around with me almost everywhere so I can fish it out and show people who haven't yet seen it; and I keep looking at my photos and re-reading my blog in order to relive it all. I am unsure as to whether to continue blogging as I now have very little to tell you (though when did that ever stop me?!), but I have enjoyed committing my thoughts to the blogosphere so I may well just continue to add random posts a propos of not a lot. Mainly just for my own fun rather than with any expectation that someone might read it! (Might have to change the blog title though, if I can work out how to do it - "Further Adventures of a Slightly Soiled Marathon non-Virgin...?!"). Here's a last Marathon picture of me - this is an official photo, taken on the Mall just before the finish, which I had to purchase at exorbitant cost, but it so sums up how I felt the whole day that I just had to get it:

It took me a while to go out running again, mainly because I was quite busy at work - the weekend after the race was Easter and I had to go to the National Trust three out of the four days and we had family here on the other day. It was Easter Egg Trail time, which is quite intensive, except for Easter Sunday when it poured with rain and I sat in the Barge Building Shed freezing cold and doing my knitting! We had about 20 visitors all day, and only about 8 kids to do the trail, so it wasn't a lot of fun. We did have one lady, in her late 20s I would think, who had communication difficulties (so she "told" me by writing notes in a little notebook) who came and sat in the Shed to get a bit dry after she'd walked around in the rain for ages completing all the children's trails. We did some badge making and had a cup of tea, and she sat quietly listening to us chattering on for about an hour, and as she left she wrote a note to say what a nice time she had had, she didn't go out much on her own but she was going to tell her carer all about what she had done. Kind of made it all worth while.

I finally got my running shoes back on about 10 days after the Marathon, and did a "quick"jog round the block. I took no technology with me, not even a watch, so I have no idea how far I went or how fast I was running but I was out for about 40 minutes. I really wasn't sure how I felt about running again, given the euphoria of the last time I ran. I didn't know if I'd feel it was all a bit pointless now with nothing to aim for, but actually I really enjoyed myself. I felt very comfortable and happy just pootling around on my own two feet. I guess I like running now...

Since then I've done a couple more short runs, including one off-road run around Wix Hill with Debbie. It was very up and down and quite muddy but really good fun. We were very slow but I managed to keep going up some pretty good hills. I think I need to incorporate more hills, and more off-roading; it is much nicer than roads all the time. 

I didn't apply for the 2015 Ballot. I thought about it, although not very hard. Much as I absolutely loved doing it, it was very hard work, and very time-consuming. I also felt very selfish doing it - much as hubby was incredibly supportive (once he realised I wasn't going to go mad and do myself serious harm) and enormously proud of me, it did take over my life, and therefore his too, particularly as the runs got longer and took up more of the weekend, and when I wasn't running I was thinking about it or talking about it. And I also felt like I'd had such a super day and had some fabulous memories so I wanted to keep it special by not doing it again. It would never be the same and I'd never again have that same nervous but excited "not knowing what to expect" feeling; also I now have a time to beat and so I'd have to take it more seriously (not that I took it lightly at all, but for me it was always about so much more than the time it took) and worry about pacing and strategy in order to get a PB - and where's the fun in that? I think for now it's just going to be running for fun and fitness, although I also need to go to the gym more as I haven't been for ages - since I started work really; it's just difficult to fit in! - or decide to give up my membership. I am starting to look at a few smaller (i.e. shorter) events, to give me some motivation. I may do the Marlow 10k with my sister at the beginning of June, and I have found the Bacchus Half Marathon in September at Denbies Wine Estate near Dorking, complete with wine tasting on the way round and hog roast after. What's not to love?!

In the meantime it's family time. We had son no. 2 home for Easter (for some reason their holidays just didn't coincide) which was great. He had a week away in Cornwall with his old school "helping out" with their Junior Surf Trip - at the same time as hubby was away in Oman on business and we got burgled... Not a nice time that (actually just the week before the Marathon so not ideal as I was trying to stay calm and relaxed. They didn't come into the house at all but they did a very thorough job in the garage and cleaned out pretty much all of hubby's power tools. But no-one was hurt, the insurance covered everything very swiftly and efficiently and it's all been replaced. And we have Fort Knox in the garage now.) He went back to Exeter last week, two days before son no. 1 arrived home from Bath. He is here now, along with his lovely girlfriend; we have Dad arriving from Cyprus tomorrow, uncle and cousins from Oz coming on Sunday, and sister and partner from NZ next week... Not all staying at once, thank heavens!