It’s over!!!

Yay! well I am home from the race and comfortably on the couch with a nice tea. As per yesterday’s post I participated in the Adidas 5k womens race through Hyde Park. As you would expect for London the day started off rainy, and not just drizzle put a proper down pour when I woke up. We planned for the worst and brought a change of clothes and umbrellas. Luckily however as soon as we headed out to the race it stopped raining and didn’t rain again all day. It was a bit mucky though as we walked through the park but I think my runners enjoyed a little mud mask prior to being smashed into the pavement.

Anyway the atmoshphere was pretty spectacular with over 15,000 enthusiastic women with varying athletic abilities all there supportig different causes. I positioned myself in the starting area for those wanting to run the 5K in 25-30 minutes which was my goal (to run it under 30 mins)…. So did I do it under 30 mins??? I actually did!! l my final time was 27 minutes 39 seconds which I was super excited about (however as we speak the race highlights are on BBC 2 and they are showing the women who did it in 15 mins!! WTF…thats a bit of a buzz kill).

All in all the past few months have given me a HUGE respect for running and I really admire those who give it a go as for some I know it isn’t easy! Today I also have realised how important the spectators are in encouraging the runners. I was starting to slow down a bit somewhere around 3k and a group of people started cheering and clapping and it really did give me that boost that I needed…I highly reccomend that if you aren’t goig to take up running after this, take up professional spectating, cheer loudly and tell them they don’t have far to go (no matter how far it is to go

On a final final note I want to give a shout out to my amazing (and marginally insane) friend Jenn who is doing a half ironman triathlon this time next week. She is an absolute inspiration and was so supportive of my 5k even though she is about to do a 21k run, 94k bike ride and 2k swim, I am sore and tired just typing all that, sending all my love from here, if there wasn’t an ocean between us I would be there cheering you on!!

Alright, that is about enough athletic talk…from now on we are back to random London experiences, gadgets and other crap you don’t really care about but read anyway

Off and running

It’s almost been 5 months now since I got this silly idea to ‘train’ to run a 5K in September. Now I know most people don’t have to train for a 5k and can probably run it no problem but as I have mentioned I am the most nonathletic person. I normally refrain from the act of running unless being chased by person with a gun ( I got that from my mom…both the quote and my lack of athletic skills).

Needless to say this whole attempt at being athletic was a stretch for me. I am happy to say that after 29 runs and 115km’s I am ready to rock this 5K run through Hyde Park tomorrow (thanks to my Nike plus for providing all the useless stats, I couldn’t have done it without you). I also got a great new outfit from lulu lemon when I was home in Canada as looking good is half the battle. I also have my ipod loaded with some amazingly cheesy songs so if nothing else I will sing to myself for 30 minutes.

I received my bib number and race pack that included some amazing tips like reminding me to bring things like toilet paper and a change of knickers for after the race (god I love the English) which sounds a bit over the top – I am not going to Glastonbury – its a 5k in Hyde Park for god sake – I should be okay with a bottle of water and a snack after the run (and a camera, yes mom there will be pictures, I promise).

All in all I am ready – my goal is to run it in 30 minutes which should be do-able pending I don’t fall…again.

I probably shouldn’t admit to this but…

I am struggling to type a bit due to the little ‘accident’ I had last night.  This little ‘accident’, further enforces my belief that I was never meant to engage in physical exercise.  We went for another run last night – although for most, the distance we are running would be considered a warm up, but its a start.  While running along the slightly uneven London sidewalks (incidentally they call sidewalks pavement here…), I caught my running shoe on one of the cement blocks that had a corner sticking up….after stumbling for a good 10 feet, arms flailing in an attempt to regain my composure, I lost my battle with gravity and went smashing down to the ground.  I hit the ground right palm first then right hip, left palm and left knee (graceful, I know).

Not surprisingly, it was the first day I had worn my cute WHITE long sleeved lulu lemon running top on – it now has a nice ‘London pavement’ grey hue around the sleeve cuffs and arms.  I did get up really quickly mainly out of embarrassment but mostly cause I was afraid that this would impact my Nike + running gadget results as I am pretty sure it doesn’t track down time for falls and the longer I was down the worse my pace would average out to be.

The only thing that did make me laugh out loud once I regained my composure was that I have been recently made aware of two things, first, the average Londoner is caught on CCTV 300 times per day – considering that we are usually only out of our house for 10 hours a day that means that means that we could be on tv 30 times an hour or every 2 minutes.  Chances are that with my luck some CCTV camera somewhere was pointed on me at the exact time of the fall providing for some great entertainment for one CCTV footage viewer 

The second thing I found out was that under the UK Freedom of Information Act, any individual who has been recorded has the right to ascertain such footage, all they have to do is write to the CCTV camera owner. Too bad I am already married as that would have made for stellar wedding slide show material.  Having said that if you happen to see a blond girl in a cute white top running then flailing about before crashing to the ground on You tube, let me know.

A runaway favourite

This has to be on the top of my ‘gadgets I own and not just lust after list’. Its the Nike+ gadget which tracks your running statistics via a sensor in your running shoes that communicates to a thingie you attach to your ipod – they sync and keep track of your distance, time, pace and calories burned during a run. You can also set goals in terms of time and distance and a voice comes on to tell you your progress and encourages you on. So, with said gadget in tow, I went for a run last night and decided it is sooo my new thing (and by thing I mean I have run once with it but that is one more time than I have ran in the past 10 years so I think that constitutes ‘a thing’).

To say I don’t run is an understatement and previously I could really only picture myself doing so in the event of a fire or if someone had stolen my blackberry….but this gadget has gotten me off the couch by combining two things I love, gadgetty goodness and pure old competition.

I am the first to admit that I do love a good competition (usually only when I am winning mind you) but this thing allows you to compete against yourself by having an online portal where your data gets downloaded then it tracks your runs against each other and the goals you set for yourself. You can also then compare your results against others all over the world however I might leave that for now as my 11 minute run might not compare to the 35,000-odd people who just finished the London Marathon this past weekend.

Anyhoo I tip my gadget hat to both Nike and Apple for creating such a great little tool as last night, for the first time in my life I actually enjoyed running mainly cause I loved having my fancy Nike + strapped to my arm and my fab playlists from 2001 blaring in my ear – come on, who wouldn’t love running to Shaggy’s “It wasn’t me” or Nelly Furtado’s “I’m like a bird”…..run on gadget friends, run on.