Competition time!

Today I have something super special for you all, something I've wanted to do for a while… my very first ever give away! 

First prize

• Brush off your running mojo with entry to either the Dorney Lake 5k or 10k on February 22nd 2014 courtesy of F3 events and Write This Run
• Kick your training into touch with 6 months membership to the Run Lounge
• Prep your body with a High 5 nutrition pack
• Relax post-training and get inspired with a copy of Running Like A Girl
• Pair of Sweat Pink shoe laces
• Recover well after the event with a sachet of Après Hot Chocmalt drink

I'm already entered into the 10k and really looking forward to it. Your Run Lounge membership will get you access to training plans, strengthening and stretching videos as well as discussion forums and a great community. I'm a big fan of Après so I can't resist including a sachet of this as well.

As well as the main prize I'm offering three runner's up prizes of Sweat Pink shoe laces. I may throw in a little something else as well as a surprise

Pink laces make you run faster, don't you know

For your chance to win all you have to do is enter via the Rafflecopter widget below and cross your fingers! The competition is open until the 20th December, the winners will be announced before Christmas day and the prizes will be sent out in time for you to make your New Year's resolutions. This does mean that you won't be able to give any of these as Christmas presents, but this is meant to be a treat for you.

Good luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Please note that no monetary alternative will be given for prizes and postage is within the UK only.

Write This Run Conference

One thing I didn’t expect from this weekend was to meet quite so many Santana fans but it just goes to show that there’s more than meets the eye to the people who attended the Write This Run conference at the Running Show this year.

Laura… not talking about sports bras

For those of you not in the know, Write This Run is a community for bringing people who are passionate about running and writing together. I’d known about them for a while, had heard excellent things about their workshops, met the girls at the Women’s Running 10k in London earlier in the year and so pounced on the opportunity to attend their second conference.

The Better Blogging panel

A rather over air-conditioned room at the back of the Running Show venue at Sandown park hosted around 5 hours of truly inspirational talks and panels which were broken up into themes which were in turn broken up by lunch (provided) and coffee breaks. My favourite personalities of the day were Jody Raynsford, Bangs and a Bun, Sophie Walker and Robbie Britton who made me belly laugh and is responsible for inspiring me to try 24 hour events, thereby giving my mum a few more grey hairs. The day was rounded off with a choice of a yoga session or a running techniques class. Also included in the ticket price was entry to the show and the 5k or 10k run on Sunday, which Idecided to take full advantage of.

Trying out a wordplay bag in the coffee break

Technically we had some time to look around the show before, during coffee and lunch breaks but really most of us just wanted to chat and get to know each other. Although I once again failed to pluck up the courage to go and talk to Bangs, I had a lovely time chatting to Lucy from Lucy Lemon, Lucy from Black and Tabby Runs, the Veggie Runners and Katherine Selby, Christina Macdonald and one of the lovely photographers from Women’s Running. In fact I got randomly chatting to quite a lot of people, even outside of the conference. I love that about the running community… it’s so friendly!

Brands and Bloggers panel

Indeed we created a bit of a buzz at the show all weekend. Almost every stand I went to asked if I was with the conference and when I went back to look around the Running Show properly on Sunday I got chatting to someone from the Run Mummy Run community (identified thanks to the funkycompression socks) who had thought about going to the conference but didn’t. I was fairly singing its praises and reducing my chances of getting a ticket next time.

As I sat in my car afterwards eating a bag of chips, bought purely because I needed to warm up from the inside, I reflected on the day. I’d come away with a fantastic goody bag including a lululemon yoga mat, nicely relaxed after a half hour of (chilly) yoga and a glass of vino from the after event social at the G!ro café down the road. I had met some great people, become inspired, enthused and felt full of confidence. That feeling hasn’t really left yet. And despite lusting over lots of lovely new kit and innovations I managed to resist and only spend a total of £10 - result!

Socialising at the G!ro Cafe

Oh and the Santana fans… well it so happened that after the show I was going to see Viva Santana at the Boom Boom club down the road in Sutton. Everyone I mentioned it to claimed to really enjoy Santana’s music… who’d have thought!

Race Review: Running Show 10k

I keep glancing over to the clock on the sideboard. I'd have liked to have left the house half an hour ago but my house guest is still eating breakfast and I promised to drop them at the station before going to Sandown Park. I have rarely felt less prepared for a race. I've not run for weeks, with the exception of treadmill work, and no further than about 3 miles even then. It's cold and I'm tired from a full day of conference and a gig the night before. I've only the vaguest of ideas about the course layout and all I know is I need to register by 10am. It's 9:15 and the journey takes 40 minutes.

A rather aggressive car journey later and I get to the registration desk at 10am precisely. The people behind the desk don't show any signs of turning people away in the near future so I start to relax. Grasping my race number I wander around the Running Show for a bit to try and calm down. I snaffle some samples of Clif bar and enjoy a soothing and warming hot chocmalt drink from the chaps at Après. Breathe. It's fine. Just get round. 

By the time I get myself to the start area and meet up with the Write This Run girls I'm feeling a bit better and have amended my goal from "just get round" to "run a sub hour". The starting group is much smaller than I expected but the atmosphere is lively. I got race envy last year when I saw people wandering around the show with their medals so I was thrilled to discover that my conference ticket included entry to the race this year. No brainer, as Kevin Bacon would say.

The Write This Run girls. Photo from Write This Run

The course is two laps around the exhibition centre and part way round the race course. There are some long inclines that I hadn't been expecting but I hack away at them, picking off a couple of people. Afterwards I can see from the split data on my Garmin, which miles were uphill. I'm buoyed by James from 4Distance giving me a shout out as we pass each other going in opposite directions on the first lap and by seeing Debbie, who ran my pub quiz for me earlier in the year, marshalling at the top of quite a steep incline outside the exhibition centre.

We're off! Photo from Write This Run

I talk myself into walking the final incline, once I've passed the enthusiastic marshalls, and am passed by a lady in purple, who I'd overtaken moments earlier. "Come on, we've got this" she puffs, so I pick up the pace and run hard to the finish line. I break my PB by 20 seconds, completely unexpectedly, amazing! Lady-in-purple and I thank each other, we both did better than expected and I head back into the show, beaming, to freshen up a bit and guilty try on kit that I won't buy and will leave smelling slightly less fresh.

The Running Show 10k is well worth taking part in if you go to the show next year. There's a fun run for the kids and a 5k option too. Just don't expect it to be flat!

Bling and PB

Was that an entire week? Seriously?

Friday! Again! It keeps on happening doesn't it? I'm not really sure where all my time has vanished to this week, although reading back over my post gives me some idea.

Last Saturday was absolutely brilliant. I went to the very first Run Mummy Run social up in London to put some faces to the twitter handles and Facebook names. I was pretty nervous about it because I didn't really know anyone, I'd been a bit of a lurker on the Facebook page and of course I'm not a mum, so I felt a bit of a fraud, but it's not exclusively for mums. The whole thing was started by Leanne who wanted a way to find people to run with who were similarly constrained by partner's working hours and childcare. The group is incredibly supportive and contrary to my expectation we all talked about running rather than children. I met some truly amazing ladies, listened to some very interesting talks and got a fab goodybag. It was a really fun day and I feel so much more a part of the community now. There's talk of entering a run or two with some of the ladies near to me like the Knacker Cracker and the Bracknell Half Marathon.

However if I'm going to do things like that I need to start running a bit more. It's been a week since I last ran, at my PT session, on the treadmill. I had all good intentions this week but it's been cold and dark and, on some days, very wet, and I've been a wuss. I even gave up circuits in favour of a free cinema ticket on Tuesday and skipped circuits and Body Balance yesterday in order to get some study in. I did get to Urban Rebound again on Wednesday though, and was grateful to find it was a fair bit easier second time around and on an empty stomach. I did a half hour of hula hooping this morning, walked the dogs at lunch and have my PT session after work so I've at least done something active this week.

I'll be active over the weekend too. I'm going to the Write This Run conference at the Running Show on Saturday at Sandown Park. There's a whole host of fantastic speakers including Bangs and a Bun, the opportunity to chat to some fellow bloggers and do a bit of networking over a glass of wine after either a group run or a yoga class. I cannot wait! I'm going to opt for the yoga as I'm running the Running Show 10k on Sunday. My conference ticket includes entrance to the show on both days as well as the 10k but as I won't get a chance to look around on the Saturday I'm looking forward to doing that on the Sunday, either side of the race. Bit nervous about the race given my current activity levels and the temperature out there but I'm sure I'll get round and can thaw out over a planned coffee with a friend in the afternoon.

I spent a few happy hours last Sunday doing what I like to call a "veg box cook", making some big batches of soup and snacks to have during the week, planning my meals and making sure I'm making best use of everything to avoid waste. I find a great deal of happiness in those sorts of tasks. I bought a book for my Nutrition and Weight Management course which was recommended to me by a fellow student; Carbs & Cals. It's really aimed at people with diabetes but I can see it's going to be pretty useful for judging portion sizes and working out nutrition content of meals. I'm in week three of the Nutrition and Weight Management course but have managed to get ahead a bit and am now on the material for week four. I hope to keep things that way, as it's all too easy to fall behind. I'm also keeping up with The Mind is Flat course… I'm in week three of that too.

I've finally finished writing all my articles on Soy Protein for The Protein Works and they're available here for you to read if you so wish. It was fun having a writing assignment and hopefully I'll get to do a bit more of that in the future but for now I'm kept busy enough.

Finally this week I shall leave you with a picture that I found especially inspiring… puts pay to the argument that lifting weights makes you bulky. If it's good enough for Marilyn, it's good enough for me. Rock on lady!

Early Bird or Night Owl? Try the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire

I read an interesting article the other day on Mark's Daily Apple about chronotypes, i.e. whether someone is a night owl or an early bird. It's not quite as straight forward as you might think and the majority of us are truly somewhere in the middle.

It's suggested that night owls are more prone to poor health and bad diet choices but largely because our society dictates that we should rise at a certain time which robs night owls of some much needed sleep. That lost hour or two of sleep can make huge differences. But our behaviours can be modified to some extent so all is not lost. I know I go through phases of not being able to get to sleep before midnight and others of waking up an hour or two earlier than usual.

There's a test you can take to find out if you're naturally an early or late chronotype. It's free and you can find it here. I am very firmly in the "normal" or "average" range, being neither an early bird nor a night owl. I'm perfectly fine with that.

My Race Wishlist

I've taken part in a LOT of races this year, more than I've ever run in a 12 month period before. What's more only a fraction of those were races I'd done before. I love the atmosphere of races (and the bling) and use them as an excuse to try different things, see different places and as motivation for continuing to maintain my fitness. I don't often use them as arenas to break PBs. Usually to complete in a "reasonable" time is good enough for me.

While it's tempting to keep entering the same races to try and improve my times over the same course I figure that's what parkrun is for and I'm also afraid races I really enjoyed wouldn't live up to expectations on a second try (which is why I won't be running Bournemouth Marathon again). There are masses of fantastic races out there to be run and if I keep doing the same ones I won't get to try them, especially as I've promised my mum I'll only do eight events next year.

I've already got three races in the diary for 2014 which only leaves me five to play with! If I had the time, money and ability to do as many races as I wanted next year this would be my list. As it stands I'm going to have to try to whittle this down A LOT. Let's start with the scary stuff... mum, you might not want to read any further.

The Ultras
Gatliff marathon just your bog-standard 50k ultra (ha!)
Toad Ultra I really fancy a multi-day event sometime and Susie sold this one well.
Oner (I'm hopeless at navigating though so maybe not)

The Foreign Ones
Chicago marathon to run with one of my best friends
Reykjavik half marathon I've been sold on this by Laura

The Halves
Race Your Pace Half at Dorney Lake
Lydd Half down in Kent, my home county
Eden Project Half because I love Cornwall and the Eden Project
Richmond Half because... I can't remember actually... I'm sure I heard good things

The Small/Local Ones
Shinfield 10k
Marlow 5
Wargrave 10k
Samaritans 10k - literally a mile down the road from my house. Been meaning to do it for about 3 years.
Royal Berkshire 10k - a new race i got an email about earlier in the year

The "Fun" Ones
Glow in the Park - oh come on! Glowsticks! And the National Trust! That's two of my favourite things!
The Tough 5/10/15 - I fancy challenging myself with some hills
Moon Walk - the fundraising aspect puts me off this one unfortunately
Kilomathon - there used to be a London version of this so I'm hoping they'll bring it back
Hellrunner - I'm not sure why... I have generally sworn off these types of events

Quite a list huh? I've just realised there aren't any marathons in there. I guess none have really taken my fancy this time around, although if I had to put one in it would be the Vegas Rock 'n' Roll marathon. I'd also have to include Brighton so that I can run with Alex, even though the course doesn't especially appeal, and I'd definitely tackle the Paris marathon if I won a place in the Women's Running 26.2 project. You see how they start piling up? There's even more that I'd like to do in my lifetime (MdS for instance) and that's without considering triathlons or duathons (Blenheim and London Duathlon if you're wondering).

What's on your race wishlist next year? Or do you avoid them like the plague?

Segway, Sweat and Socialising

What adventures have been had in the last seven days? Well last Saturday morning I took my friends 13 year old son  to Dinton Pastures for an off road segway experience as a belated birthday present. The weather forecast had not been favourable and no sooner did we step onto the segways than the rain started and just got heavier over the course of the hour. There were just six of us in the group so we got plenty of help if we needed it. Kiddo took to it like a duck to water (though thankfully didn't drive the thing INTO the water... there path was largely on the banks of the lake) and despite the cold and the rain he had a whale of a time so it was all worthwhile. He ended up at the front of the group right behind the instructor who seemed to take a shine to him and answer all his questions. We may go back in the summer and try it again.

Sunday was ice hockey night again! I could see myself becoming a bit of a regular at the Bracknell Bees games. This time I went with my fella and sat upstairs which meant we could hear the commentator more clearly but I didn't feel quite so close to the action. Although we didn't win the shirt-off-their-back raffle nor the duck/puck game the Bees did win so that's what matters.

My certificates came through for my Gym Instructor qualification and I've and booked my PT module up. It's a long module and by starting in March I'm looking at a June 2014 finish. At that point I'll still have a few modules to complete for the diploma but I will be REPs level 3 PT qualified so I could start taking clients, which is really exciting.

I managed to force myself through a gym session on Monday, doing my intervals and strength routine and seeing small steps towards improvements there, and I've got my PT session tonight for more of the same... My PT runs a circuits class twice a week so I tried it out on Tuesday and followed it up with Body Balance. The circuit was ok, the squat thrusts followed by burpees were killer, but I did pretty well. I'm not sure if I'll make it a regular thing. Staying to do Body Balance afterwards was well worth doing though. I've not been out for a run for ages and I'm missing it a bit so maybe I'll make the effort to get out on Sunday (giving myself a day to recover from PT).

I'm missing parkrun tomorrow as I'm heading up to London for the very first Run Mummy Run social. I know I'm not a mum but they're very inclusive. There'll be speakers and lunch and a chance to just have a natter to other like-minded women. Can't go wrong with that now can you? Continuing with the social theme I met up with Anita for dinner at her gym last night. It's pretty swanky and I got momentary envy but honestly couldn't justify spending that sort of money on a membership. The food was great though and I even had a glass of wine. At the gym!

What have you been up to this week? Lamenting not having achieved something you intended to or celebrating having done something new and exciting?