Happy New Year but not Happy New Training

Happy New Year to one and all! I hope your Christmases were merry and bright and that New Year’s Day was as sunny for you as it was for me.

Somehow I managed to come through the festive period not feeling too stuffed although I have to confess to feeling a little sluggish. I managed to keep on top of my training plan over Christmas thanks to pre-planning less running and signing up to the Gut Buster run which I have reviewed here. Here’s what I’ve achieved in the last two weeks.

Week 4 (w/c 24^th December): 15.4 miles plus 1 x Tuff

Week 5: 17 miles plus 2 x Tuff

I don’t think I’d have gone out for a run at all on the 28^th December if it hadn’t been for my Aunt. I’d arrived home later than planned from Christmas visits so it was dark and cold (although dry) and I was feeling sluggish. I was due to do intervals and had a bit of a moan on twitter about it (@vikkiroberts if you’d care to follow). My Aunt gave me a virtual kick up the backside and reminded me that she was #VirtualTraining with me. It’s becoming a running joke that is helping to motivate me. Today's 11miler was pretty good. I found some new roads to run and stopped in a quiet pub for five minutes at mile 8 to have some water and a gel. The barmaid was rather worried about me, I guess I looked worse than I felt! I’m planning to go back to running with the Farnham Runners from this coming Wednesday as well as spending some of my Christmas money on a new pair of running trainers so maybe that will remedy the boredom I'm feeling on the majority of my runs. I’m enjoying the “Tuff” sessions as they don’t involve going outside.

My lovely friend Anita from work has now officially signed up to do Tough Mudder with me and also signed up for Iceman in a few weeks’ time which she’s persuading me to take part in. It fits with the training plan so I figure why not!

Finally in other news I’ve found out that the Great London Swim won’t be held until the end of August this year, indeed the earliest in the series isn’t until mid-July, which is a bit late for my plans. So instead I’m going to sign up for the Eton Swim which is on May 27^th. I’d kept my eyes on this one in case the GLS didn’t end up being when I’d hoped. It’s 1500m (just under the mile) and still in open water (Dorney Lake) so fits all the criteria. They also hold a 3km event but after much deliberation I think I’ll be sticking to the mile as planned. Quite frankly I don’t think I could swim 3km in the 1.5 hours they demand.

Does anyone have any tips on how to stay warm after long runs? Hot showers and multiple layer work but only slowly. I'm sure I shouldn't feel quite this cold afterwards!