December's Cake Chart of Disaster

The good news is that both green and yellow are now officially confirmed as good.  The bad news is that blue is bad.  And it's bigger than I'd like.  Of course December features Christmas, but, as the wiggle of betrayal below shows, it was a bad month overall.  What I really need now is a new start.  A resolution maybe.  What perfect timing, eh?

The cake chart of disaster.  Probably due to too much cake.  I wish I'd never bought that "Gluten-Free Baking for Dummies" book.

The wiggle of betrayal reveals not much testing in the first few days, and a pretty dreadful mid month performance. Next month's wiggle will be better, I promise.

New Year Resolutions

I have trouble with New Year Resolutions.  I find it very difficult making promises that will last more than a few months - just ask any of my three ex husbands.  But something funny happened last year.  I tried to keep a blog - and I did it.  I decided to train for an Olympic distance triathlon - and I did it.  So maybe, just maybe I'm not that bad.

They say the art of setting resolutions/goals/targets/whatever is to make them SMART.  That means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, something beginning with 'R' and something beginning with 'T'.

I have already set myself a goal.  It's pretty specific, and it's very measurable.  But I think I've buggered it up on the achievable bit.  It is of course to complete a half Ironman in 2013.  But this means that I need to run a half marathon first.  Or more accurately after a 1,900m swim and 90km bike.

There are things I can do to help.  Like eat less cake and run round more circles.  That's as specific as I can get right now - it's only 30th December so I'm already way ahead of the game.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

My training calendar* told me that I needed to be running around a park in lower case this morning.  But I knew better, so had a bit of a lie in.

Instead, Sis, CS and I found ourselves dressed as Santa Claus together with almost 500 people.  Dressed as Santa Claus.  It was the most fun I've ever had running 5k - but to be honest, that's not saying much

Getting ready at the Santa Dash (I'm the one in red)

* Yes, I have a training calendar.  But the only thing in it is parkrun.

Reintroducing ... the Cake Chart

I got myself into the really good habit of producing a monthly cake chart* of my blood sugar measurements for my last blog, until I got a new blood sugar meter which outsmarted me.

But I am pleased to report that, thanks to a combination of research on google and brute force, I can now present my cake chart for November.  And it is supported by a wiggle.  The theme this month is slight confusion due to a new yellow category that I don't really understand.  

November's cake chart of confusion.  I need to get as many of my readings in the green.  And yellow.  I think.

A couple of interesting spikes, which almost certainly correspond with work meetings.

* This is also known as a pie chart, but I don't like pies.  I do however like cake.  A lot.

partwalk

Todays parkrun has been renamed partwalk.  Two reasons for this;

1) I only did part of it

2) I walked part of the part of it that I did

See what I did there?  No, neither did the organisers, so it still counts towards my next t-shirt.

Me, finishing 398th out of 407.  But I finished ahead of everyone who was still in bed.

10k PB!

Yes!  We did it!  See below for proof!  And we both set a 10k PB!*
I apologise for the excessive use of exclamation marks.  Actually, no, I don't!
Our time to beat next time (hell yes, there will be a next time!) is 1:07:26

Me and my sister with our finisher medals.  It took me another hour before I could stand up again.

Boring race report

The weather was perfect.  A lovely bit of early winter sun, not a hint of wind (except from the lentil soup I made the previous day), and temperatures around 12 degrees.  I couldn't have asked for better conditions.  I could have asked for better preparation, but I only have myself to blame.

I bumped into Jacko at the start line and introduced him to sis. I explained that he has diabetes too - he added that he was in his seventies and had a pacemaker.  I'd completely forgotten about the pacemaker.  Then suddenly he started running.  The race had started and we hadn't even noticed.

Luckily there's this thing called chip time.  Unluckily it doesn't involve chips.  But it does mean that the clock starts for you after you cross the start line.  There were so many people ahead of us that it took over 4 minutes to cross the start.

Off we went, at a nice gentle pace, which meant that I was knackered by 500m.  But the atmosphere was great, and sis was really encouraging.  I was almost enjoying myself.

We had to run around 1.5k out before heading back.  Jacko had already dropped us.  We crossed the finish line at 3k, but of course that was too good to be true.  We had to run another 7k before we would cross it again, this time for real.

We crossed that fake finish line at 24 minutes, but this meant absolutely nothing to us because a) we had to adjust for the time it took to cross the start line, and b) I can't do mental maths.  Sis and I kept checking in on each other to make sure that we were a) still there and b) OK with the pace.  So far so good.  We crossed the 5k mark feeling reasonably comfortable.  And then I saw some friends!  They cheered really loudly and I got all excited.  I ran over to them and high fived everyone.  I realised a couple of things immediately.  1) I didn't actually know who half of those people were, and 2) it is really really hard work high-fiving people in the middle of a 10k run.

But sis and I carried on regardless.  We were pacing ourselves nicely.  Sis asked me a question about where the turnaround point was, and I managed to answer her and run at the same time, which was good.  About 1k before the turnaround (which was around 6.5k I think), we saw Jacko running the other way.  He smiled and waved - hadn't even broken sweat.

Before we knew it, we reached the turn point.  I almost carried on running ahead I was that oblivious.  But now we were on our way back.  And now, instead of us watching the really fast runners coming back to the finish, we were the slightly faster runners to the slow coaches behind us.  I liked that.

If I didn't know any better, I think the last 2k or so was a little faster than the rest of the race.  I don't know better because I don't have an all-singing, all-dancing Garmin 310.  Yet.  Father Christmas please take note. I suspect it was faster because we both wanted to finish now.  We'd been running for about an hour and were getting tired.  And we knew that CS & LORVFS were waiting for us at the end.  More importantly, there were a couple of milkshakes with our names on in LORVFS**.

I was so smug at the end that I signed up for the Sussex Half Marathon on 7th April.  There really should be an embargo on signing up for races immediately after just finishing one.  It's bad for you.

Our 10k PBs.  Gun time is the first number, chip time is the second number.  But as far as I'm concerned, there's never a wrong time for chips.  For some silly reason my sister changed her name to Kay McMenamin and moved to Burgess Hill.  Without telling me.

* OK that's sort of not true.  A week earlier I got a call from "Kay", saying that she had just completed a 10k run in 1:03.  Of course I wouldn't ever call her a liar.  Well, not to her face anyway.

** If our names were "Mars" & "Galaxy" instead of "Issi" and "Sis".  Or "Kay".

Third time lucky?

Tomorrow is the Brooks 10k run.

I've signed up for this race a record three times.  I missed the first one because I got hit by a truck.  I missed the second one because I was leaving my third husband at the time and couldn't find my trainers.  Sad.  True.

So is it going to be third time lucky tomorrow?  I haven't been hit by a truck.  I haven't left a husband recently, and I have more trainers than you can shake a stick at.  Some of them even match.

However, remember, although I'm an Olympic triathlete*, I still haven't ever managed to run 10k in one go.  Let alone without crying.  Not many Olympic triathletes* can claim that.

But I have a secret weapon.  My sister is coming down to help - to pace me round the course and to carry me from 5k onwards if required.  I'm almost looking forward to it.



* OK, I mean a person who has completed an Olympic distance triathlon, not a Brownlee.

Previously in IssiLand......

My name is Isabelle Hodge.  Well, officially it's Isabelle Doyle.  I've also been Isabelle Adams, Isabelle Doyle (again), Isabelle Chambers, and finally (or firstly) Isabelle Hope-Smith*.

Call me Issi.

This is my second blog, and it's called "Really trying to be really athletic".

My first blog was called "Trying to be athletic"** and I did.  This trying lark got me to not only finish my first ever Olympic distance triathlon, but, fuelled with sufficient (and some would say potentially excessive) curly wurlies, I went on to complete two thirds of a half Ironman a couple of weeks later.  After several hours with a cake for help, I worked out that two thirds of a half is a third.  That means that I am a third Iron. I ate that third.  I then repeated the experiment just to make sure.

I am still completely amazed by what I managed to achieve.  I mean, I tried and everything, but I didn't really try.  I wonder what can happen if I really try?  Can I finish that cake?  I mean half Ironman?

Time, and this blog, will tell


* You know you've been married too many times when your mother asks you what your surname is.  And you're not sure yourself.

** It's here in all its glory.  http://try-athletic.blogspot.co.uk/