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.

I'm back!

I am SO sorry. Where the hell have I been? Well, actually, nowhere, but my poor laptop is still dead and as much as I love my iPhone, it's no good for blogging. I've been having major blog withdrawl symptoms though, so I've hijacked my work PC (and my lunch break) for a quick catch-up.

There's so much I want to tell you about: the Love Run; my birthday; my fabulous new Shock Absorber sports bra; the fact that my boyfriend's started running(!) - but for now, I just want to concentrate on one thing:

THE PARIS HALF MARATHON IS SIX DAYS AWAY!

How did that happen?! It feels like it's been months away for ages, and now *wham* it's in six days.

Right now (and this changes on an hourly basis), I'm feeling confident and excited. I've been cranking out my long runs at a strong and steady pace, taking care of my legs and overall flexibility, and continuing my strength training to ensure my posture and alignment is what it should be. I had my last long run yesterday (8.8 miles), and today is my last PT session before Paris (we usually work out mid-week, but I should be winding down the exercise by then apparently). I'm planning to do a couple of short runs in the next couple of days, and then stop on Thursday to give my muscles a rest, so everything is ready for Sunday.

I've been getting really nervous too, and throwing myself a bunch of 'what if's - basically trying to drive myself crazy. What if I have a bad day and a really crap run? What if I trip over my own feet (it has been known) and injure myself before the run? What if I need the toilet half way through (I really don't want to spend 30 minutes in the toilet queue)? I'm trying not to let those thoughts get to me because, well, if any of them happen, they happen, and I'll just have to deal with it (I say this now, but you know I'll sulk like a muhfugga if I do injure myself).

When I started training for the Paris Half Marathon, I decided not to set myself a target time. Mainly because a) I'd never run anything over 10 km before so how the hell would I know when I'd finish? and B) I'd be so chuffed to finish the race, time wouldn't matter. But having done all the training, I want to come in under 2 hours 30 minutes (the average time of yesterday's run put me in at just under 2 hours, but I know I wouldn't have been able to maintain that for another 4 miles). If I come in under that, I'm going to eat a cupcake/drink a cocktail for every minute I had to spare. How's that for incentive?

I'm going to try and blog lots more this week - mainly because I need an outlet for the running anxiety, but man, I've missed you guys!

On a completely different note, I'm going to see Anna Nicole The Opera tomorrow night - what the hell do I wear to that?!

Just a quickie...

Flickr image from Beneath_B1ue_Skies' photostream

I have been a bad blogger. I'm still here, I promise, but my laptop's broken and is going to the laptop doctor this week, so I won't be able to blog for the next few days at least. I have lots to tell you about, including this weekend's Action Duchenne Love Run (where I ran 10km in a love heart costume), but apparently I'll get fired if I spend all day at work blogging.. So stay tuned for that, I'll be bombarding you with posts as soon as my laptop's back in action. 

I hope you all have a fabulous Valentine's Day, or a fabulous Monday if you're not celebrating.

Kx

Run Sweeney Run: Take 1

Remember that VERY scary challenge I told you about? It happened on Saturday. Let me give you a bit of background:

[In the gym, about a month ago. I'm discussing my training plan with PT]

PT: "You know you can run the full distance? Do it a few weeks before the race then you can bring your long run distances down."
Me: "Um... no? No."

[A couple of days later. In between working really hard, I'm on messenger to Gemma]

Me: "So, PT said I should run the full half mara distance a few weeks before the race. Do you want to do a test run with me in February?"
Gemma:



Thankfully she came round to the idea in the end, and we set a date. Then the Timelords decided they hated us and that date whizzed round in the manner of bikini wax day (you know what I mean?).

I took my Nike+ Sportband for a run around the block to re-calibrate it (it was being a little generous with my distances, which is fabulous, but not fair). I don't have a running track near me, so I used RunKeeper to set the correct distance.

GG found a half marathon route which took us around the river from Barnes, across Kew Bridge, through Kew, Chiswick and Hammersmith to Putney, across Putney Bridge, and back to Barnes. That doesn't sound too long, but looky.

It was horrible. Awful. The worst run of my training so far. I'm used to running on the tarmac and pavement of Central London, not the uneven trail of the Thames Path. The track was hell on my calves, and I had to stop when we were only 3km in to stretch them out. I knew then that this wasn't going to be a great run. Thankfully it wasn't all trail, and we did come across some blessed tarmac, but even then, there were a lot of stretching stops and walking breaks.

If this were a film, I'd indicate the passing of time with a wee video montage. It's not, so I'll do it with pictures instead:

Don't worry, I won't talk you through the entire thing. But here's what I took away from it:

1. Boiled egg and soldiers is not a sufficient half marathon breakfast. EAT MORE.
2. Scoffing a handful of gummy bears behind the Chiswick Boat House then trying to run will give you cramp.
3. Tiny kids on bikes will not move out of the way for you.
4. There are no downhill sections on that route. Bad. 
5. I do not fancy boys who row. (Or, y'know, any boys that aren't you, Al)
6. Running with achey arms does not improve the ache.
7. GG makes an awesome bacon sandwich.
8. I CAN RUN A HALF MARATHON WITHOUT DYING.

We finished in 2 hours 37 minutes. Longer than I'd hoped, but we stopped a lot, and hopefully that won't be the case in Paris.

My efforts at re-calibrating my Nike+ Sportband clearly didn't work - it told me I'd only run 18.4km, and GG's RunKeeper had us at over 20km. I really need something with GPS to track my runs, the Sportband just isn't accurate enough for my liking. If anyone has any tips on how to sort it, please let me know!

Janathon: Day 31 - thank you!

Flickr image from vistamommy's photostream

So, the last day of Janathon. Did I crank out a 1 mile/ 5km/ 10km PB? Conquer the evil stairs? Rack up a sweaty 60 minutes on the Nike Training Club app? No. I did NOTHING.

I'm so ashamed to say that, and I won't even make any excuses. I could have got up early in the morning and run, but I let myself sleep in instead. So there it is - laziness won out in the end. But overall, Janathon has been brilliant. I ran a total of 98 km - the most I've ever run in a month - and did a fair bit of cross training. I never would have done all of that without Janathon. Those of you who ran and blogged every day - you are my heroes, go and eat lots of cake.

I've discovered some fabulous blogs this month, which I will continue to follow (if the blogging bug has bitten the previously non-bloggers). Here are a few of my favourites:

• Girl On A Mission
• Jungle GG
• FortnightFlo
• Thru The Blue
• Lazy Girl Running
• JogBlog
• abradypus
• Steve and Katie Run
• Releasing The Inner Thin And Fit Person
• Travelling Hopefully
• RunHelenRun
• Cake Of Good Hope
• Ramblings of a multi-tasker

Thank you to everyone who's read and commented on my Janathon posts (and the rest), knowing you guys were keeping an eye on me really cheered and geared me up when I was struggling. I'd love you all to stay for my Paris Half Marathon adventures and beyond!

Now, will you all join me in a massive round of applause for the wonderful Cathy, who organised the whole shebang? Cathy, take a bow:

Flickr image from vxla's photostream

Now that Janathon's over, normal service will be resumed here at ksweeswee towers. Training for Paris ramps up, with a VERY scary challenge this weekend (more on that later this week). Stay tuned! 

Janathon: Days 28, 29 & 30

Whoops. I dropped the ball on the whole blogging aspect of Janathon there. And on Day 28, I dropped the ball on the exercise part too. Eek. I blame the mystery bug - I'm not quite sure what it was, but I felt like I'd been hit by a bus full of tranquilizers on Friday. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open at work, and when I got home and started crying because I'd forgotten to charge my electric toothbrush, I decided to skip my planned teeny 3km run and go to bed.

I took to Twitter to moan about feeling poorly, and was warned off my planned long run the next day by a couple of my fellow Team Bangs on the Run girls. But when I woke up on Day 29 feeling human again, I thought I'd risk it and went to meet the Sunday Run Club girls for a Saturday morning run around Hyde Park. The lovely Lucinda had mapped us out a 14.75km run taking in Green Park, St James' Park, one and a half loops of the Serpentine, and lots of other bits of Hyde Park.

I was fully prepared to drop out part way through the run if I felt at all dodgy, so I was chuffed I was able to run the full distance, plus the 1.5km I'd run from home to the park (I got the bus back, please don't judge me). I LOVE Sunday Run Club - without those girls, I'd have had such a hard time getting myself out there. Thank you lovely Justine for organizing us! Here's the route we took (I think - I lost the print-out that Lucinda gave me):

I've spent the best part of Day 30 in Milton Keynes, eating, drinking and shopping with my lovely friend Charlotte. I did think about logging the 50 miles we walked around that shopping centre as today's Janathon activity, but that might be pushing it. So on went the Nike Training Club app, and a 15 minute Leg Sculptor workout:

As tomorrow's the last day of Janathon, I feel like I should do something special - a 10km PB perhaps? That's clearly not going to happen, but I'll try and think of something fabulous.