Dear diary: Day 2

Flickr image from Kirstea's photostream

Today was another successful day in the fight against the Desk of Filth! It was also my first morning run since before Paris, and it's safe to say I've lost my morning mojo. I'm kicking myself for not getting out there when the sun was up at 6am in those couple of weeks before the clocks went forward. Dear Timelords and Weather Gods, can you make it light and sunny for my morning runs please?

Day 2's food diary looks like this:

06:30 - 2x toast/peanut butter (post run)
         - 1 glass water
07:00 - Green tea
08:00 - Starbucks grande soy vanilla latte
11:30 - Plum
         - Wasabi peas
12:30 - Wrap with chicken breast, tzatziki, green salad and falafel
15:45 - Another plum (I'm bored of the plums now)
         - 1 litre water
20:00 - Spaghetti bolognese, 1 slice garlic bread
         - 1 glass water

Newspaper nails

Check these bad boys out.

A couple of days ago, on my usual lunchtime trawl of my favourite websites, I spotted this fabulous post on Grazia Daily about newspaper-print nails. Now, I usually manage to mess up even the simplest of paint jobs (for some inexplicable reason, I just cannot sit still and let them dry), but I promise this is idiot-proof.

Plus, you get to use vodka - best craft tool ever, no? One of my thumbnails had 'McQueen' printed on it, the other has 'cleavage'. I'm thinking lots of naughty words on hot pink next time. Find out how to do it here.

Dear diary

During last night's PT session, conversation turned to eating habits - in particular, people who eat badly and still expect to see the pounds melt off (and then get mad with PT when it doesn't). This makes PT mad.

This got me thinking about my own eating habits, and the next thing I knew, I was admitting that I don't always eat uber-healthy meals, which I know is the reason I don't have abs like Gwen Stefani/Gisele/a Pussycat Doll. Before I'd even finished speaking, I knew PT would utter the one sentence more terrifying to me than 'We'll just strap you into these bungee straps...' - 'Keep a 3-day food diary'.

I hate the whole food diary thing because it forces me to look at what I'm doing wrong, even though I already know. It's like picking a scab or not taking your make-up off properly and all those other things you know you shouldn't do, but do anyway. I don't spend my days munching on Big Macs and deep fried Mars Bars, but my approach to food is 'I'll eat what I want', and I do tend to indulge a bit more when I'm with the boy. So in the spirit of getting back into training properly, I'm keeping a food diary for 3 days, and I'll be sharing it on here.

Before I do that, let me show you what I have to look at every day:

That is the Desk of Filth. Pretty self-explanatory non? I spend quite a large chunk of my working day trying to talk myself out of eating the filth on offer. Most of the time I win, but when I don't, it's a complete snack-fest. Must. Avoid. If anyone has any flat-ab-making snack ideas or recipes to rival the lure of the Desk of Filth, PLEASE let me know!

Here's how Day 1 went down:

07:15 - 1.5 slices toast with peanut butter
07:30 - 1x white coffee (2 sweeteners)
10:50 - 1x Boots raspberry granola yoghurt
12:30 - Boots Shapers sushi, 2 plums
13:30 - Wasabi peas (handful?)
15:30 - Plum
         - 1 litre water
19:30 - 2x salmon fishcakes, green salad, beetroot, potato salad, mayonnaise 
         - 2x glasses water

The danger of doing nothing

Confession time. My name is Kaye and I haven't run since Paris. 22 days ago. Three weeks and one day.

Every day my worn in, mud-encrusted Asics lie on my bedroom floor, ready to pound the pavements once again. And every day, I've stepped over them, trying not to look directly at them while I squeeze my size 3's into my black heeled boots or lovely sparkly brogues. Is it just me or do they actually look sad? To borrow a sentiment from Friends, they're not fulfilling their destiny.

Here's how it happened: I got back from Paris desperate to sign up to another run. But obviously my body needed a recovery period, so I decided I'd give myself a leisurely week. 'You deserve it' people said, 'enjoy the fact that you've got nothing to train for', 'don't worry, you'll get back to it really easily, just take some time off'. So I thought it was ok that I was getting up at 6:45am and getting ready for work instead of 5:45am for my morning run and spending my Sunday mornings in bed instead of running somewhere between 10 and 18km around Hyde Park. IT WAS NOT OK.

It's not that I've done nothing fitness-wise, I have been keeping up my weekly PT sessions, but it's not enough. I trained for months to bring my body up to a certain fitness level, to the point where I ran for 2 hours (and 3 minutes) without stopping. I don't want to jump back into a hardcore half marathon training programme, but feel like I'm wasting all of that hard work by just stopping completely. Plus, that was never the plan - I was supposed to sign up for another event and keep training.

So here it is. This is the week I get off my (slightly wibbly) arse and get back into training. The next 10km race I've entered isn't till July, but I want to bring my PB down to sub-50 minutes (my current 10km PB is 00:55:42), so I'm going to work on speed, as well as distance. Get me my trainers, let's do this!

Introducing... Team Spirit Training

Apologies for the lack of blog posts recently, still no laptop *stares pointedly at Apple Store* and loads of work. Anyhow, I've not come back to moan. 

A couple of weeks ago, one of my lovely readers sent me an email asking about SUPERchick. She'd seen me raving about it, loved the sound of it, but followed the link only to find that SUPERchick is no more. 

But fear not fitness lovers, the lovely Cat has started up a fabulous new venture - Team Spirit Training. Offering pretty much the same group training services as SUPERchick (6 sessions a week across Hyde Park and Battersea Park) - Cat and hardcore (but also very lovely) trainer Mel mix one-hour sessions of full-body training with lots of laughs and delicious gossip.

Membership to Team Spirit training also gives you access to the famous Learn To Run course (well, if it's not famous yet, it will be). The very same Learn To Run course that kick-started my love for running, it's that good. And if that's not enough, Cat can review your food diary and training results to ensure you constantly achieve.

So go on, check out their website and have a nosey round their Facebook page. You'll love them, I promise. 

We did it!

After months of training, fundraising, tweeting, blogging and more training, Team Bangs on the Run finally pounded the streets of Paris on Sunday. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my certificate to prove it. 

My time: 2 hours 3 minutes 21 seconds

I was totally stunned when I found out my official time. As I said before, I was aiming to get round a) in one piece and b) in 2 hours 30 mins or less, so it's safe to say I am chuffed with my time and the fact that I ran the whole way round. Before Sunday, I'd never run that far without stopping for a drink/stretch/walk/pee/cry, and I am immensely proud of my body for being able to carry me that far without needing to do any of that. A testament to training, rest days, eating and drinking properly beforehand. 

The race was amazing. But that wasn't the case the whole way through. Here are the highs and lows (I'll update with pictures as soon as I can):

Highs:

• Bumping into Alicia, one of my best friends from secondary school as I entered the Parc Floral. We hadn't seen each other in years and there she was! 
• The beautiful (if chilly) weather.
• The amazing crowds (especially the adorable kids)
• Spotting Alicia's boyfriend Bruce at about 8km and running with him until...
• ...THE FIREMEN. FRENCH FIREMEN. FYI, this is where the hot firemen cliché comes from.
• The entertainment around the course - brass bands, rock bands, bongo players, ABBA tribute bands, drunks...
• Being cheered on by Jon and Michael (our amazing Team Bangs cheerleaders) at 16km - that really kept me going.
• Realising I was going to run the whole freaking way!
• The atmosphere of the final 500m.
• Crossing the finish line, bursting into tears and being reunited with some of the Team Bangs girls.

Lows:

• Not having time to go to the toilet before the race (6 portaloos? Seriously?!).
• The bottleneck for the first few kilometres.
• Trying not to break my neck running past the rehydration stations - orange peel and bottle tops everywhere.
• The cobbles.
• The hill at 9km.
• The even bigger hill at 17km - that one kept on climbing to the 18km mark. Not cool, Paris.
• Sticky tarmac - a result of hundreds of litres of Powerade being chucked away. 
• Getting my miles and kilometres muddled up (for some reason I thought I was running 20.1km, not 21km) and having to dig deep to get that final kilometre out of my legs.
• Not running with any of the Team Bangs girls.

Now, I'm going to try not to get too emotional (I can't promise anything, I still get a bit teary when I think about the race), but I want to say a huge THANK YOU to some amazing people:

All of you fantastic people who sponsored Team Bangs on the Run: We ran for you, for the money you'd so kindly donated to Refuge. Thanks to you, we've raised over £6,000, which will help women and children escaping domestic violence in so many ways. 

Muireann (Bangs and a Bun): Our fearless leader, hero and inspiration. It's because of you that any of this happened. Thank you for your support, encouragement and kick-ass attitude, and congratulations on knocking 25 minutes off your previous half marathon PB!

Team Bangs on the Run: What an incredible group of women. Without you, I wouldn't have made it through my training and to Paris. Love you!

Gemma (Jungle GG): I only signed up because I thought you were joking, but thank you so much for making me do it.

Nike and Shock Absorber: Thank you for the awesome t-shirts, printing costs and amazing sports bra - my tatas are forever grateful!

Check out Bangs' Team Bangs in Paris video to meet some of the team and see how we got on. Also, there's still time to donate on our JustGiving page for Refuge, so if the urge to donate takes you, don't fight it. 

PS: Sorry this post is late, I'm still having laptop woe. 

Lists

I love a bit of organisation. I plan trips away with military precision (and have been known to send Al documents on possible holiday destinations, including maps, beach quality and expected temperature), I even have a lovely leather travel wallet for my holiday gubbins. This time round, my organisation skills have truly failed me.

Above is my to-do list. It's the first Paris-themed to-do list I've written. This is hugely out of character for me - by now (3 days to go), I'd usually have written several drafts of that list, with most of the items crossed off. This is what happens when you get yourself a social life - your anal list-making qualities suffer.

However, I have had a rather fabulous week so far. Monday was my last PT session before Paris, Tuesday was Anna Nicole the Opera night (A.MAZE.), and yesterday I went for a lovely dinner with Al's mum and his brother's girlfriend at First Floor Restaurant, which is just the prettiest eaterie in the world.

But all the fabulousness has meant late nights, not enough sleep, and no time to even think about what I need to do for Paris, never mind doing it. So I'm sadly having to cancel tonight's plan to see Al play with the lovely Xantoné Blacq at Mau Mau, and instead I'll be zipping to Oxford Street for some last-minute essentials, doing laundry, calling my bank, digging out my travel adaptor, packing a small case (repeat: I do NOT need to take four pairs of shoes), learning to speak French from scratch and getting some much-needed sleep. And panicking about all the stuff I haven't written on the list. I wrote the above list about 10 minutes ago, and I've already added two more things.

PS: Thank you so much to all my lovely friends (real life and virtual) who've sponsored Team Bangs on the Run so far. If you haven't - there's still time to show us and Refuge some love on our JustGiving page.