Mid-Summer Mulligatawny

The perfect way to spend a summer's evening...




(the smiles are due to the fact we were hoping Martyn would be further down the huge hill)



(and this is what happened as soon as we got past Martyn)

26 weeks gone, 14 to go...how's my running getting on?

So, here I am 26 weeks pregnant and still trying to run...how's it going then?
At the moment Cuthbert (as mini-Cook is currently known) is apparently "on the large side" and has noteworthily long legs. For those who know Mr C this will come as no surprise! Sadly those extra long legs are no use for anything at all...I do feel Cuthbert should pull it's weight a bit more when it comes to excercise!
As you can see from my posts about races, I am definitely slowing down. I gave myself the aim of doing all the Midweek League races as they are all around 10K (a sensible distance) and all in the evening so not too hot. I'm pretty sure I'll achieve this aim (fingers crossed).
There are a few things making it tough going though:

I've not trained as much so I am not as fit as I was late last year (I ran the New York marathon at the beginning of November)

Added to that I am lugging around extra weight which makes life harder (by the end, I will be, on average, 24lb heavier than at the beginning)

I am also getting out of breath a lot more quickly than I was before

The increasing bump puts extra strain on abdominal and pelvic muscles which means they ache after running so running 2 days in a row is not possible

I'll gloss over this, but I do need to go to the loo a lot and I often feel I need to go to the loo which makes running an uncomfortable experience at times!
On the plus side for the last few months I've managed to:

Do a 10 mile, half marathon and numerous 10k races

Train once or twice a week on average

Continue my circuit training class (minus ab exercises) on average once a week

Continue cycling to work (in total about 4 miles a day) (that will stop when i can't life my folding bike on to the train!)

Been more or less my usual active self the rest of the time

And even better, running keeps Cuthbert quiet as it is very wriggly and squirmy the rest of the time!

In summary, it's tough but I am enjoying it...let's see how long I can continue for!

MWL Race 3@Chingford

For a North Hertfordshire resident, the Midweek League race at Chingford is a nightmare, a complete pain to get to, especially during the week. However, given our position in the league, we still needed as many people as possible to be out there and running...and I am pleased to say that NHRR really turned out in force with over 50 runners, wow!
I went straight from work on the most frustrating train ever which barely got going before stopping at another station...after half an hour of this we made it to Chingford and luckily the race HQ wasn't far from the station.
I have been a member of NHRR since 1999 and I've never run this course before (amazing after all these years) so I wasn't really sure what to expect. It turned out to be a very pleasant run indeed through Epping Forest (Formed in approximately 8000 BC after the last ice age, it covers nearly 6,000 acres (24 km²)and contains areas of grassland, heath, rivers, bogs and ponds.). There were some large hills which I had to walk up but otherwise it was very pleasant.
Now, I've started to realise there is a chance I may come in last in one of these races and if I ever do, I will retire from running for a few months. Whilst pottering happily along, I heard the girl behind me tell someone she was last. Well that was it, I was like a hunted fox, or the thing greyhounds chase after in greyhound racing (apparently it is called a lure) and I ran/waddled as fast I could to make sure she didn't catch me...and I was successful finishing in 1:13:24 (6.69 miles) and one place in front of the last placed runner, phew!

MWL Race 2@Welwyn Garden City

A week's holiday on a canal boat where you are banned from any sort of physical activity is not great preparation for a race. Neither is a day at work and I always find the Midweek League races hard for this reason. If you are like me, you rush into work in the morning, rush off again later on, rush onto a train, rush into a taxi and take a breather once you are reunited with your kit and ready to set off (still, this is still less stressful than last year's equivalent fixture!).
For the second race in a row, I adopted a fellow MWL runner on the train (last race it was a St Albans strider adopted by our faithful lift giver (Karen) while waiting for us to get off the train, this year it was a FVS runner who was wearing trainers with her suit and looked vaguely familiar. She thought I looked familiar too and we ended up sharing a tax, it's like international co-operation but on much smaller scale...
The WGC course is now a measured 10K, but still involves 2 irritating laps of WGC which I now feel I have done a 100 times before (I wonder just how many times I have run these laps, must be 10-15 times...).
The race itself was uneventful, I trotted round in my usual slow and getting slower style, it was a nice evening though and we had some great support en route so I enjoyed my run. Despite someone outsprinting me (I am not really worth sprinting against these days as I don't try) I finished in 1:04:45, quicker than the Hatfield Broad Oak 10K but I have really started to slow now and in 380th place, I was only 5 runners from being last.

The major downside to being slow (or being a devoted NHRR supporter waiting for people like me to crawl in) this was the complete lack of food at the end. It was a tad frustrating as I could see food in the kitchen but it was for the helpers and I ended up having a nutritious dinner of a jam tart and a mini roll.