Neither of us have been 100% recently and we've had a lot of family stuff going on. So we haven't managed to spend much time just the two of us or do as much exercise as we'd like. So this morning we rectified that in the best way possible...
We headed up to Richmond Park as it was opening and had it almost to ourselves. The seasons are turning and it was a clear blue sky crisp morning so there was a layer of mist hanging over the lower part of the park. It was stunning.
One of our favourite things is a barefoot or Vibram five fingers run which is completely unstructured - we just run whichever way we fancy when we get to a junction and see where we end up. So this is what we treated ourselves to today. I'm not quite sure why we did Vibrams rather than barefoot but that's what we did - maybe we were being chicken cos of autumn being round the corner!
It's rutting season for the deer at the moment and we could hear their bellows as we ran through the middle of the park away from the main paths. There were some impressive guys out there and we weren't too surprised to spot a photographer capturing it all - antlers appearing through the ferns with the sun peeking through the mist behind them.
It was a perfect start to the day and great to get the blood pumping a bit again after not being able to train for a week or so. And it was good just to spend some time together too, doing one of the things we enjoy most.
Friday 23 September 2011
Sunday 4 September 2011
The first post... (Hannah)
Today seems to be a pretty good day to write the first post on our blog. Today I ran the first ever Maidenhead half marathon. It was a really well organised race - definitely one to be repeated,
I've not been 100% for the past few months, doing battle with a virus that doesn't want to seem to go away despite my best efforts at eating well and resting as much as I can. So I decided to do the race completely on feel. I've actually been following that method for a year or so now and I'm really enjoying it. I've ditched the watch, the heart rate monitor and the stats and have just been basing my training and racing on how I feel. It makes it more enjoyable and removes a lot of the stress I used to put on myself.
It was a very humid day to be racing! And I'm not a huge fan of humidity - running in humidity, that is. I headed off at a decent pace getting caught up in the excitement. But quickly realised that keeping up this pace wouldn't be very sensible given my dodgy immune system - I've got bigger fish to fry in a few weeks time... And even more next year!
So I held back a bit and just got into a comfortable rhythm. My brother caught up with me at 4 miles. When I encouraged him to run his own race rather than hanging back to run with me, he asked "what pace are you running?". My response "this pace". Him "but what pace is that?" Me "This pace!", waving a empty wrist at him. And off he went.
I can't say the humidity was much fun but around the 10 mile point the rain we'd been promised arrived. I found my mojo again and a smile appeared on my face. I love running in the rain! My stride opened up, I relaxed into my new found pace and my smile got bigger and bigger.
The support on the course was fantastic. And even as the rain got heavier the supporters stayed out. I was impressed at the number of runners thanking them - better than average I'd say.
So there I was, running along in the pouring rain smiling and calling out to the supporters, pushing harder as the rain got heavier and I felt the best I've felt in a while. It might not have been a new PB but it ended on a high and I made sure I enjoyed it. That's my first kilomotres logged for my Gold Challenge - one hundredth of the way there, quite a way to go!
Check out http://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/user/bkeartland, https://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/user/hannah.miller and www.justgiving.com/brettandhannah2012 for more details of that...
I've not been 100% for the past few months, doing battle with a virus that doesn't want to seem to go away despite my best efforts at eating well and resting as much as I can. So I decided to do the race completely on feel. I've actually been following that method for a year or so now and I'm really enjoying it. I've ditched the watch, the heart rate monitor and the stats and have just been basing my training and racing on how I feel. It makes it more enjoyable and removes a lot of the stress I used to put on myself.
It was a very humid day to be racing! And I'm not a huge fan of humidity - running in humidity, that is. I headed off at a decent pace getting caught up in the excitement. But quickly realised that keeping up this pace wouldn't be very sensible given my dodgy immune system - I've got bigger fish to fry in a few weeks time... And even more next year!
So I held back a bit and just got into a comfortable rhythm. My brother caught up with me at 4 miles. When I encouraged him to run his own race rather than hanging back to run with me, he asked "what pace are you running?". My response "this pace". Him "but what pace is that?" Me "This pace!", waving a empty wrist at him. And off he went.
I can't say the humidity was much fun but around the 10 mile point the rain we'd been promised arrived. I found my mojo again and a smile appeared on my face. I love running in the rain! My stride opened up, I relaxed into my new found pace and my smile got bigger and bigger.
The support on the course was fantastic. And even as the rain got heavier the supporters stayed out. I was impressed at the number of runners thanking them - better than average I'd say.
So there I was, running along in the pouring rain smiling and calling out to the supporters, pushing harder as the rain got heavier and I felt the best I've felt in a while. It might not have been a new PB but it ended on a high and I made sure I enjoyed it. That's my first kilomotres logged for my Gold Challenge - one hundredth of the way there, quite a way to go!
Check out http://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/user/bkeartland, https://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/user/hannah.miller and www.justgiving.com/brettandhannah2012 for more details of that...
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