9 June – Trooping The Colour

 

Today is Trooping The Colour Day, celebrating the Queen’s Official Birthday. And today I went out for a planned mini-run. I had polled my C25K buddies to get some opinions. I’ve got really close to the halfway stage of my challenge and I thought if I managed to do 2 x 12km runs over the weekend, I’d be at halfway, about 3 weeks ahead of my deadline.

The common theme was that there was no hurry and so don’t fret and just do your normal run. Then Ju-ju – my running mentor of note, said well you could have a go, if you take it slowly, rest and hydrate. So it was with some trepidation I left this morning, I’d decided just to see where my legs could take me. Genuinely I had no plan, no minimum kms, I just thought I’d see where I ended up. The temperature was cool and my pace was nice and steady, and I seemed to be ‘run bombing’ all sorts of events. First off in Cheapside, having to swerve to avoid a bunch of runners coming the other way. They were in a charity tee-shirt, some sort of City Foundation. Then around the corner, Cheapside and One New Change were being cordoned off, for the Mr Porter Nocturne Cycle Ride.

I’d decided I would do a game of snakes and ladders – well mainly ladders, taking one road then switching back up at major junctions. London is a bit higgledy piggledy so it looked more of a snake run than a ladder’s one. I laddered my way up West towards Covent Garden and decided to aim for Tottenham Court Road. This was when I did my third ‘run bomb’ I was running against the flow of hundreds of Crohn’s and Colitis walkers. In fact I started recognising some of them, when I passed them for the third or fourth time. I was 9km in and feeling ‘loose’ which in my terms is a good thing. Not so much if it’s relating to bowels.

I stopped for a coffee, and being unable to run with both coffee and water in hand, I paused my run for 10 minutes and rested. My laddering took me to Tottenham Court Road, when I ran past Paperchase who had the superb pizza slice lilo in the window. As I ran past, a man standing in their entrance, said ‘keep it up, you can do it’. That was very nice of him, it made me smile and gave me impetus.

I rounded the corner and continued down Store Street, passed the coffee shop again and decided I’d aim for 12km. 12km came and went, my next milestone was 15.3km, which would get me to 1000kms. At this stage I’d passed the charity walkers, for what seemed to be the 6/7th time and was in/around the British Museum area. I still felt fine and my pace hadn’t dropped overly much.

At this stage, I thought maybe I should call it quits, but then I remembered my longest ever run had been 16.7km, and the JCR competitive gene kicked in and I gave myself a challenge to do 18km, if I could. I was reasonably close to 18km and I still felt fine…, so yes the competitive gene kicked in again and I thought why not aim for 21km? I was not far from the HCA in the City, when we had the most amazing flypast – I looked at Map My Run and saw I’d run 20.8km. Brilliant I got aeroplanes for beating my best ever run. Except of course they weren’t for me, they were for Liz.

So the pics show one of the official photos of the flypast, and the plain blue sky was my attempt to capture them on film! I eventually run-hobbled towards home, having done a touch more than 22km, because I wanted to make sure it was definitely more than half marathon distance.

It wasn’t non-stop, I won’t claim that, but it was a run more than half marathon distance, and I’m proud, although slightly bandy-legged at present, with hips screaming in pain.

Mr JCR was already at home and he asked me how I’d done, I showed him my stats and he was impressed. Then I had a major Map My Run failure – my run disappeared from my screen. Nothing, zilch, zip, eff all, no proof of my longest ever run. Except Mr JCR came to the rescue, his phone had my run, whilst mine didn’t – so he took screenshots to prove my achievement. And then puff, about 2 minutes later it disappeared from his phone too.

Summary, I should actually listen to advice being given, but hell, I feel happy at having run more than 20km in one outing.  Face colour today was Monarch red, but that seems fine seeing as I shared Liz’s flypast. Oh, and I passed the 1000km mark in just over 5 months’ of running. And my final lesson of the day, always make sure Mr JCR is close at hand when record breaking.

Next milestone is to make the halfway point proper of 1009km. That’s tomorrow’s job. A nice little recovery run, I promise – no competitive gene issues raising their heads.

Playlist (this is the Ju-Ju 90’s playlist)

Get Here – Oleta Adams

Say My Name – Destiny’s Child

Lose Yourself – Eminem

Love Is All Around – The Wets

Barbie Girl – Aqua

Believe – Cher

(Everything I Do) I Do It For You – Bryan Adams

Baby One More Time – Britney Spears

I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston

Wannabe – Spice Girls

Killing Me Softly With His Song – The Fugees

Never Ever – All Saints

Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor

Dub Be Good To Me – Beats International

The Power – SNAP

Killer – Adamski, Seal

The Joker – Steve Miller Band

3am Eternal – KLF

The One and Only – Chesney Hawkes

Ebeneezer Goode – The Shamen

End Of The Road – Boyz II Men

Would I Lie To You – Charles and Eddie

Oh Carolina – Shaggy

Dreams – Gabrielle

Cream – His Purple Highness

Gangsta’s Paradise – Coolio

Rhythm Is A Dancer – SNAP

I See You Baby – Groove Armada

Groove Is In The Heart – Deee-Lite

Devotion – Nomad

The Key, The Secret – Urban Cookie Collective

Things Can Only Get Better – D:Ream

Everybody’s Free – Rozalla

Don’t Need The Sunshine – Catatonia

Girls and Boys – Blur

Dizzy – Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff

Something Good – Utah Saints

Stats

Distance 22.11km

Time 2:25:40

Average Pace 6:35 (mins/km) – this is understated though, as my pausing time doesn’t show here

Elevation Gain 93 metres

1 Flypast…

2 lives of water

1 cappuccino

Alzheimer’s Challenge

Kms Done – 1006.81 (yes over the 1,000 marker)

Kms To Run 1011.19