marathonmummy

Due to circumstances beyond my control (exhausted overworked husband locking his keys in the boot of the car 70 miles away) my long run this afternoon turned into a long drive – to deliver spare keys. So my schedule is out the window for this weekend, because tomorrow morning I’m lying in bed being pampered as it’s Mother’s Day.

I have to confess though, there’s a tiny sneaky little bit of me that is thinking ‘you can lie in any time, get up and run’. What have I become?
But no, I’m going to pop little no4 into preschool on Monday and hurtle round 15 miles with a time limit of 3.5 hours. Perfectly do-able, even for a slowcoach like me. Plus there’s the incentive of knowing there’ll be nobody to collect him if I don’t make it.

Other exciting news: Lucozade have been reading the blog and want to send me some lovely things! Yum.

I’ve got an idea for marathon day – no, two ideas, actually – which are so exciting that I want to burst. I’ll blog about them later in the week.

Ooh and one last thing! Coming soon – a guest post from Karin at CafeBebe who has been inspired by my attempts at running to have a go herself. And I’ll be guest posting over there on her lovely blog. I’ll be wearing a tiara for the occasion, of course.

Right, enough rambling from me. Tomorrow afternoon I’m off with my Mum to watch some of my lovely Twitter friends run in the Silverstone Half Marathon. It’s run by the same team who organise the London Marathon, so it seemed like a good chance to see what race day will be like.

Good luck to Twitter chums Helen, Tess and Lisa. I’ll be looking out for you at the start and taking photographs!

PS – Still having a bit of trouble with the new comment system – you have so scroll right down to the bottom to post, and then even further down to see your post. Very odd. Will fix it later, I promise.

I could come on here and pretend everything is lovely and that I’ve had a fabulous week. But I’d be lying.

I’m only human. I’m a mother of four children, I’m self employed, and there isn’t enough of me to go round at the moment.
I’m fundraising like mad.
Oh yes, and I’m trying to persuade my reluctant body to run 26.2 miles.
And arranging a fundraising quiz night.
And sorting out a bake sale at school.
And trying to persuade people to give me prizes for a raffle.
And organising printed t-shirts for Marathon Day.
And doing a Body Shop/Phoenix Cards party.

This week has been hard. K, my husband, has been working away, and he’s not home until tonight. Then he’s working again tomorrow.

I had to tell no3′s teacher that it was my fault he hadn’t done his homework.
I had to tell no4′s teacher that he was wearing wellies to preschool because his shoes had disappeared in the chaos of our house.
I had to tell no2′s teacher that the printer wasn’t working and I couldn’t fix it, so his homework would have to wait till Daddy got home.
I had to tell no1 that the letter she absolutely must have back to school, Mummy, fell off the top of the microwave and caught fire on the hob.

The dog hasn’t been walked.
I impulse bought a new chicken (don’t ask) and the other two are being Mean Girls to her.
There is an ironing pile in the garage with clothes in it I dont even remember buying.
The allotment police are going to arrest us for neglect.
I owe about seven hundred emails.
I have done so little work that I’m probably going to get the elbow.

But you know what?
It’s Friday.
Saying all my troubles out loud doesn’t make them go away, but it makes them a little bit less scary.
It’s okay to have a bad week, isn’t it?

Tomorrow I’m going to put on my trainers, and go for a 15 mile run.
That’ll cheer me up.

(I’ve added a new comment system to the blog, so if you want to tell me how you plan to cheer yourself up this weekend, or if you want to make me smile, just click on the little ‘comments’ tag at the side there. Oh, and the comment seems to take a moment to appear, so don’t worry if it doesn’t turn up at first. Technology, eh? One of these days I’ll just leave a post it note on the blog and you can scribble on it instead.)

How lovely, on a horrible rainy day, to receive a Sunshine Award for my blog. It’s from my friend Paula and it’s just what I needed on a day like today. Bring Me Sunshine is a song that Dad used to sing to us when we were little, so it’s brought back some lovely memories after a difficult day yesterday.

In other news, well, there isn’t much really. It’s half term, the treadmill is my only option, and on Tuesday night I did a horrible interval training session, which was one of those runs. I ended up thinking I’d be better off taking up knitting instead (and anyone who has seen the only jumper I ever made knows that’s a bad idea).

Talking of music, I’ve been creating the ultimate running playlist, which is only really suitable for the plodders of this world. I think proper runners like music at about 160bpm. Mine is, er, not.

Zoe and I had a theory that lots of songs with meaning to us would get us round the marathon. Some people might think training would be more helpful, but we’ll gloss over that little detail.

Rod Stewart – Baby Jane and Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? (my dad used to sing these with the windows down in the car, usually in the middle of town, and we would die of embarrassment)
Placebo – Every You, Every Me (reminds me of being pregnant, hence reminds me of birth, which will make running seem like a walk in the park. That’s a bad metaphor. My running speed already IS a walk in the park.)
Pretenders – Back on the Chain Gang
Dirty Pretty Things – Bang Bang You’re Dead
Toni Basil – Mickey (I have no shame)
Come Dancing – Ray Davies (you’ve got it in your head now, haven’t you?)
Killers – Mr Brightside
Kings of Leon – Sex on Fire (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, my legs are on fire)
Scissor Sisters – Take Your Mama Out
Supergrass – Richard III
Monkey Wrench – Foo Fighters
Idlewild – American English
The Automatic – Monster (what’s that coming over the hill? is it a monster…oh no, it’s Rachael, running)
Snow Patrol – Run (haha!)
Foo Fighters – This is a Call
Marilyn Manson – Rock is Dead (and so will I be after 26.2 miles)
Longpigs – She Said
My Chemical Romance – Welcome to the Black Parade
Radiohead – Street Spirit
The Stranglers – No More Heroes
The Go-Gos – We Got the Beat
Marilyn Manson – The Beautiful People (not me after running, I look like a beetroot)
The Knack – My Sharona (RIP Doug Fieger)
The House of Love – Shine On (reminds me of school)
The Fray – How to Save a Life (will make me cry, but that’s okay)

Any suggestions, anyone? I’ve already had a few: how I could I forget Don’t Stop Me Now and Keep On Running, as well as the Glee soundtrack? Thanks C and G!

I started this post this afternoon in a half term grump, but I’m finishing it on an endorphin high after 50 minutes on the treadmill. It was just a plod, but every mile counts. Every boring mile on the treadmill, and every boring mile on my own on featureless country roads will be worth it.

2 months, 6 days, 14 hours, 8 minutes, and counting. London, here I come.

Got on the treadmill this evening, where I only had a short time to run by the time I got the children into bed, after they insisted on watching our wedding video and asked me to try on my dress. My children are bonkers.

I managed to stick to the treadmill interval programme for the first time ever today. Usually I die after about ten minutes and have to slow it down or risk shooting off the end and squashing the dog to death. So a 3mph warmup, 4mph walk, 5 mph running and I managed to do intervals of run 5 minutes, walk 2 minutes without dying. Having watched the marathon videos on YouTube has really helped – not the elite runners pounding round in less than 3 hours, but the people jog-walking with pain etched on their faces. Virtually all of them are doing it for charity, most of them for personal reasons, and knowing that I’m doing it for a good cause makes the pain in my legs seem less important.

Milestone no2 – this is a big one. So there I was in the post-run shower, musing on how I was going to fit in a run this weekend whilst fitting in ballet lessons, meetings, swimming lessons, and the general weekend chaos of life with four children. Then it came to me – instead of sitting in the car reading a book for 45 minutes whilst my daughter does ballet, I could run! So I’ll be driving there in my running gear, and doing a quick run along the country lanes. And if that’s not thinking like a runner, I don’t know what is.