port sunlight 5k 2014

Port sunlight 5k.

Well to be honest, I wasn’t feeling this race from the minute I woke up, those who know me we know I had a bit of a rough week so at that moment in time all I wanted to do was turn over and sleep! However I eventually got out of bed and cross a thing of my bucket list… to drive through the tunnel.. Random I know… but Yay all the same…. I might post the full bucket list at some point…

Anyway, the weather was downright awful  with heavy rain and strong winds. The surface was slippery in places with puddles and fallen petals/leaves.  The rain stopped briefly as we set off but ended up soaked despite my lovely ‘waterproof’ running coat.  Which was a mistake to wear as I ended up very very hot… will have to rethink before my next rainy run!

I also didn’t carry any water with me on this one and half way through regretted this decision. According to my nike app I did the first 2k at 5.3min /km pace… which probably knackered me and the rest of the run was at 6.3 – 7.3 pace.. admittently walking in places.. I really need some help with my pacing.. Running club here I come! overall i did this in 34:16, 16 seconds slower than PB but sometime its not all about the time!

Port sunlight it self seems a lovely place, and if it wasn’t for the weather I would have loved to have stayed and explore a little bit, but unfortunately it was a dash home for some dry clothes…  pre event there was lots of publicity about how bad the parking was.. I got their earily by the fact the car park was empty! Although walking back I bumped into every 10k’s who were running to the start as they had had difficulty!

Also bumped into a very nice lady (sorry I didn’t get your name, blue hoodie with pink top) and her mum who were lovely and took pre and post piccys with me and who I ran with for the first 1k or so.. until I found out I was a lot slower than her pace!  Anyway I was nice to meet you guys!

As usual it was all for Childflight so please continue to donate if you can,  every penny goes a long way in supporting this charity and making children’s dreams come true J http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/myscrambledlegs

oh and on a side note, isnt this yarn bombing cool!?, its like my to worlds combined!!

mum's running journey!

hello everyone, bit of a quite week for me this week as seem to have injured top of foot.. better as time has passed so hopefully going to get to a training run tomorrow! so i asked my mum to write this weeks blog post... and this is what she has wrote.... 

We'll six weeks to go 

Have earned my first medal for a 2 k walk

I've now stopped counting lampposts and up to timing three minutes with a two min walk between

Looking forward to doing my first 5k after 30 years

Will see you in Llandudno in my duck onsie

short bu sweet... was meant to be about how shes found joining the jogging pals, a local couch to 5 k training programme to introduce people to jogging and how she feels she has progressed.. also to explain why she has decided to take up running.. maybe shell do another post sometimes?? 

anyway, she has decided to share my fundraising page over on the virgin site, to help me raise vital funds for the amazing charity that is child-flight! she has set a target at £200 pounds [please leave in the comments its for ali/duck] and please help her as it will mean masses if she reaches it! [i'll chuck a £10 in to start off]  

8 days till my next 10k! things cross my toe fixes its-self! 

Sefton park

Hello everyone.

 Today marks the day of it being 2 weeks until my first 10k, and am I ready! Defiantly not! Hoping the crowd will pull me along! The problem? Well in the last run I did as part of this challenge I hurt my ankle, during the race I thought it was down to new trainers,  but then couldn't run on it probably for a week and has taken time to get back into training again..  still not back up to doing the 5k in 30mins but I’m still going to go for it, an hope that I will be able to do the next runs faster and better. 

Target for this 10k, less than 1hour 20mins, hoping the crowd will pull me along, but why this time? Will my app Nike plus, estimates it’ll take me 1 hour 30mins so probably going to be happy beating that!   

so today i went on a bit of an adventure / new route finder around Sefton park, seen as it was a rare nice day with sun! unfortunately the whole of Liverpool also seemed to be there so spent half the time dodging dogs and kids on bikes..  and perhaps i would have been a tad faster if i hadnt stopped to take pics! :) 

 spot the palm house

 doesnt this place just look magical? sisnt know it was hidden away back there. 

 lovely band stand, would have loved a closer look. 

spring has sprung! the park was littered all over with lovely iris's in purples and yellow! bliss!

muddy trainers at the end of the run! few blisters from this due to running in puddles! lesson learnt! 

Childflight

Hello everyone, I’ve had a slight poorly little week over here but now I’m back and off training again.

As most of you may know, [and if you don’t I’m about to tell you, ] I’m a children’s nurse who works on a local intensive care unit, i.e. I look after some very sick children and try and help make them better again.  However there are sad and hard times but I also get to see some amazing things and the most powerful thing in the world, a child smile again! And this is why I got involved with the chosen charity. 

Child fight provides once in a life time holiday’s for children with life limiting or life threatening conditions. [In other words these children are all poorly or disabled in some way.] Every other year they run a structured trip to Florida, visiting all the major theme parks and providing a little magic to these children’s lives, what make them special is that they also take the whole close family.  Making a perfect family holiday making amazing memories for everyone. Something which may not be possible for them to achieve without the support of this charity. Whilst there, the holiday is organised for them from the minute we arrive at the airport to the second we get back to the uk, no one has to worry about anything and there is medical support by the doctors and nurses who all volunteer and are constantly on call.   And the most important bit of the holiday? Well to see the children smile knowing everything they’ve been though, after all nothing matters in Florida!

Childflight also provides Santa flights every year for children to experience there first time flight and meet Santa as well as proving medical flights for children where treatment cannot be found in the uk.

So why run? Well I started doing a sponsored run in 2013 to raise funds and the running bug kicked in big style. So thought I would keep it up and get fit at the same time. So far since May 2013 when I started it’s been hard work but slowly managing to pick up pace etc. Looking at ways that are a bit novel to go with my running but we will see. 

So far I have raised around £600 pounds for child flight from august to Dec in 2013, and I am already at 10% of my target for this challenge. Every penny means the world to both me and this charity but especially the children so if you can, please donate or support in any way you can. 

Thankyou

helen xx

p.s... just something to make you smile as well!

The Beginning

The beginning of the addiction.

So how did I get into running? Well I wanted to do a sky dive for charity and couldn't find one that you could pick your own charity for or one that you didn't have to pledge thousands of pounds for, [will blog about sponsorships some other time] so I started looking around what else I could do. To fund-raise and discovered a local fun run which was 5k, so throughout I would give it a go… and low and behold, started running and fell in love with it!

That was April time last year on my 24^th birthday, decided on that day that before I reached 25 I would make a difference to someone.  Something I hoe I've achieved.  

Before this I was a complete couch potato, occasionally getting off my bottom to play on the Wii. But even then found you could play that whilst on the couch so It was a major undertaking for me.  So how did I train? I began with a programme called couch to 5k app on my phone, however that began to get on my nerves a bit too much..[thick it was the dog randomly barking] so just began to run for a long as I could then walk for 10-mins then run as far as I could then walk etc. till I was home [on the same route in a massive circle, and slowly began to cut down on the walking time in between and increased the running time.    i have to say though i'm still quite a slow runner/jogger, hoping to improve over the year. 

I have recently broken my toe [ouch!] so been out of running for a while so beginning over, My first run is on the 26th of January, a little 5k to kick off the new year anyone interested in joining me can sign up over here being organised for Royal Linda McCartney center!  played a vital part in my family so all for a good cause.  will let you know how i get on

And as you can see by now i have managed to put a button on the right hand side of your screen to my donation page! every penny counts and all support very much needed and every penny counts! [by the end of the year i may come up with a little slogan to go with all the running]