My First Marathon

Wow.

I am sorry I did say I was going to write a decent amount of blog posts about my marathon training but in the end I did it all via www.runnersworld.co.uk  I created a post on their beginners forums and put all my posts and updates in there.

Here is the thread

So if you want please read through that thread and you will basically get my training experience.

So how did I do. Well I finished in 5h 30m 22s.  Now some will say this is slowww, but you know what I'm darn well proud that I managed to get around.

So how did I start, well I started my diet on 21st March at 15st 8lbs.  Then at the end of April I was in the office in Milton Keynes, and just said sod it i'm signing up for the Leicester Marathon on 14th of October.  I then celebrated my birthday and got that week or so out of the way.  Then came home, and said that's it.  I hunted around and found the running plan that was most appropriate for me at asics.co.uk So I signed up and i've ran with that plan.  I had days when i was knackered from work, but apart from two weeks when I was injured I did every single run on the plan, and as time went on added a few extra runs in.  I was very nervous, but I just put all of my faith in the plan and it worked!! I did it.  I was looking at my plan now and amazingly I have now had 99 runs and have ran a total of 666km every single run I do, I add to my.asics.co.uk one of the reasons that I decided on the asics website was because I used asics 2170 trainers :)  Pot luck really but hey I got the right pair at the beginning and loved them :)  Only 1 blister in all my training and that was the one time i was silly and changed my socks as an experiment.. well i won't make that mistake again.

So what was the marathon itself like.

It was amazing.  I set off to quick. I thought that I was going slow but I wasn't I was going quicker than normal, oops!! i slowed down after the first 5km or so, but managed to get to the halfway point in 2h 30m so i was on for a 5h marathon.  But that was to quick compared to my training plans, so I really found it a bit of a struggle in the second half.  I had a 6km stretch from around 32km that was really difficult but i kept plodding along and got a bit of a second wind for the last few km, which was awesome running through the centre of Leicester with the Sunday afternoon shoppers watching on.  It's really hard as the final 1 km is pretty much all uphill, great fun :)

It's funny but the worse thing in the last few km was going downhill. I was starting to get slightly wobbly legs, and found downhill was a heck of a strain on my calves.  But, hey I kept going and got there.  The three photo's above were great.  2 minutes after the line, the others show me literally going phewwwww after crossing the line, and the look on my face when I was being given my medal. It was such an awesome feeling.

Sorry this doesn't make much sense it's like an excited utterance of YESSSS I DID IT :)

Training update.

Hi.

Just a quick update. Another week and fantastically another 3 lbs off so I've lost 30 lbs in 10 weeks.

Training is going well on Sunday I did my first ever 5k and I managed it without stopping once. I think that it helped that it was raining a lot as it kept me cooler.

Today I followed the 5k up with a 2.5k jog and 2.5k walk, followed by another 6k walking the dog in the evening.

For some reason the dieting is harder this week. I only seem to be loosing 1 lb at most but saying that two days to go ;) and after 2 weeks with 3 lb losses both weeks it's not surprising that I've slowed down, I might not actually be eating enough considering I am burning a few calories off. It's a weird balancing act of eating the right amount.

Anyway weigh in is on Wednesday so I will find out then.

Have fun everyone.

Steph

Marathon training and stuff

Hi. Ok, so I started the diet on 21st March, it's now the 28th of may, I'm officially 27 lbs lighter, my next weigh in is not until Wednesday, but I've already lost 2lbs this week. So the first 10 weeks of my diet will lead to a 29 or 30 lbs loss. I'm over the moon with that and it's twice the rate I wanted to loose at and was told that was a lot. So around another 40lbs to go. Training. I did it on the first of May I started jogging. I'm 40 fat, and not athletic, well the first time out it killed me. Set my asthma off and I felt awful :-) this was jogging 50 yards walking 200 etc.. To complete a mere 1k. My legs have been aching most of the time since but in a good way. Last Friday the 25th of May I jogged 3km. On Saturday I hiked 10k through some Derbyshire Hills, Sunday morning I went out for a Jog 4k, and warmed down with a 1k walk. Then in the evening I took the dog out for a 5k walk. So 23k in total over the weekend. I could not have imagined that just a month ago. To give you some idea of the training plan I'm on in the next five weeks the minimum I need to do beginning with this week is 11, 13, 17, 19, 22. The last of these 1st of July is a 10k jog. This is the end of my Pre-conditioning phase, then I'm spending until the 5th of August getting faster, allegedly ;). August is spent increasing my distances, for example the week beginning the 20th of August is 41k including a 24k run on a day I'm working so cannot do it until the evening. September is about going at the speed I want to complete the marathon in. Am I nervous, yes of course it's bloody hard work, my legs feel like jelly at times, but I am loving it. I have bags more energy then before I started, and I feel bloody wonderful. Just imagine if I load a rucksake with about 14 bags of sugar and carried it on my back I would not be happy, that's how much I've lost. How have I done this, well it's simple the weightwatchers app and forum, they help me stay on the straight and narrow. But, in truth it's down to me knowing I've let myself down over the last 10-15 years and the least I can do is spend this year looking after myself and changing my life. It's called willpower :-)

Dieting

 Surprise... I'm overweight.  OK, not exactly a surprise, as there are lots of overweight people in the UK. But, I started to diet six weeks ago.  Well in those six weeks i've lost 21 lbs.  I'm doing it via WeightWatchers online, and just for the heck of it i've copied below a copy of a blog post I put on the WW website.

6 Weeks in - 21 lbs down. Another 50 or so to go. Oh i'm also training for a marathon.

Well, this was a hard week.


I was 41, in the middle of the week, and I spent 3 days in Scotland celebrating it.


I've not had any alcohol in the first 5 weeks of my diet, and in this my 6th week I somehow only had 1 pint of bitter, and 3 whiskys whilst celebrating my birthday.


I did use all of my weeklies on treats and 1 Activity point. I was in all honesty expecting to gain wait but somehow lost another 2 lbs.


So I have lost 21 lbs in 6 weeks now.


Today I earned 7 Activity points. I jogged / staggered around just under 2km for my first ever attempt at Jogging for 25 or so years. I also walked my dog for an hour.


So today was day 1 of marathon training. I just signed up for one last week as I know that if I don't have a target I just will not be bothered to train. Training just for the sake of it I cannot do. So finding a marathon and signing up meant I have no choice I have to get fitter to do it.


I started at 218 lbs. I am now 197 lbs. Under my bust has shrunk by 10cm, my waist has shrunk by 7.5 cm. The rest has hardly changed I still have huge fat thighs and big flabby upper arms. It's typical i'm fat and flat chested and that's stayed the same, getting flatter by the day, oh well!! Being healthy is better :)


I am still a size 20, but now i'm Size 20 all over at the beginning of this I was 22 in most skirts, 20 in some, and a 22/24 top. But now i'm a 20 all over, and close to being down to an 18 in skirts, which will be a big psychological thing for me.


Regarding my stupidity at signing up to do a marathon. I am running it on the 14th of October for Myasthenia Gravis. I have no idea how I will get round the 26.2 miles, as they seem to stop tracking after 6 hours. So I know that's my maximum time, but I will do it. The fact I have an end target is so encouraging. I have created a training program on asics.co.uk and hope that I can stick to it. It's 3 runs a week of various lengths, i'll try to do some extra training in-between and will just have to go for it. I've even created a just giving website. http://www.justgiving.com/Stephanie-Gelder Closer to the time i'll start hassling everyone in the world to donate :) 


So that's this week. Getting skinnier and starting to try and get fit. If from week 1 I lost 1.5 lbs a week I would reach my target in march next year. If I stay where I am which is 12 lbs (8 weeks of 1.5 lbs per week ahead) then I will get to my target on 26th of December. So If I get 3 lbs more ahead then i'll be at target 12th of December. Now of course this doesn't take into account any bad weeks etc.... but hey I am just being optimistic and thinking good.


So i'm feeling good, and starting to get fit. What more can one ask for :)

Happy Chickens

Well it really feels as if Spring has arrived. My hens are very happy with the sun coming out. They have shared a lettuce and are chilling out wandering around the garden.

@booktrunk. Party time

Stephanie (@booktrunk) 2/10/12 5:14 PM Let the books, alcohol, subtitled crime series, and the odd Holmes n Poirot weekend commence ;) #IKnowHowToRocknRoll

Steph

Sent from my iPhone

Satchel Heaven

Hello.

For years I have carried my laptop in a dull rucksack.  I've recently been looking online for something better.  I'm 40 now I didn't want a stupid plasticy bag that looks great and then falls apart, or something tacky. I wanted something that oozed quality, and would last the test of time. 

Oh WOW.  I now find myself in bag heaven.  Thanks to the.leathersatchel.co  they are also on twitter as @leathersatchel ead about their leather satchels handmade in England, and it just sounded perfect.

I wanted a custom bag, so I had a carry handle as well as the long strap.  My initials embossed in silver on the bag, an extra wide shoulder strap.  I actually asked for the invoice a week ago.  Paid via paypal, and received it today.  I am so happy with it.

I went for a rather wild colour, as I try to be sensible at times, but that only lasts for a few minutes, so I had to have a cute bag, yes they come in black and brown, in fact lots of colours, you can even have a multi colour one made if you really want :) 

Anyway here is my bag in all it's glory, and believe me it is glorious.  Oh in case you ask.  No this is not an advert with all the custom bits I paid £119.50 for my bag, and the reason I am doing this post is the fact that I am so proud of this British company I wanted to give them a shout out.

The package that arrived was in an anonymous couriers bag, once I opened this I was in for a real surprise.

That got me very excited.  So I opened the package, and here is my bag! Stunning.

It arrived whilst I was at lunch, so after work I came home and put my laptop in it, so this is the bag in all it's glory, with my laptop. 

I am so proud of my bag.  I cannot wait to walk into work with it tomorrow.


 

Daft Dog

I love the snow!

London Calling by James Craig

Already loosing count. My 10th book Of the year,

This is the first Inspector Carlyle novel by James Craig (@byJamesCraig on twitter. It's always fun actually being able to chat to the author), not the Clash song in case you are somehow confused.

The blurb on the cover says: 

Can you win an election and cover up a murder at the same time.

In the middle of a General Election, someone is targeting former members of the ultra-exclusive Merrion Club - youthful hedonists addicted to excess metamorphosed into pillars of the political establishment.

Next in the murderer's sights is charismatic, ruthless Edgar Carlton, the man poised to be the next Prime Minister. But, with power almost in his grasp, Edgar will not stand idly by while his birthright is threatened.

When Inspector John Carlyle finds a body in a luxury London hotel room he begins a journey through the murky world of the British ruling classes which leads all the way to the top. Operating in a world where right and wrong don't exist and the pursuit of power is everything, Carlyle has to find the killer before Carlton's people take the matter into their own hands.

It's a quite short novel coming in at 312 pages or 4310 Kindle segments. In a series of flashbacks we get to know more about our hero's character, he is a honest copper. 

Oh, a warning. If you don't like to know how the people die in quite graphic detail this might not be the novel for you. 

The case itself is quite brutal and entertaining, it does feel slightly weird in that when it all comes down to it, inspector Carlyle it appears isn't a genius which makes quite a refreshing change.

It's a good solid crime novel. You do feel a by sorry for Carlyle as he does spend a lot of the case just one step behind and on the back foot.  

The ending, it's one of those that you cannot really talk about as it gives the whole thing away, I did feel slightly frustrated by Carlyle, and was expecting maybe a better result in his first case, but I enjoyed what did happen. If I was ranking it I think it would be around 7.5 to 8 out of 10. Also thinking about it I am happy to say the Kindle edition was nice with no glaring errors which you seem to get in so many books lately. 

It has made me want to know more about Carlyle so I have also purchased his second novel Never Apologise, Never Explain and I'm looking forward to settling down to read this in the near future.

Also at £1.59 each on amazon whilst I am writing this they appear to be a pretty good bargain.

Steph

Sent from my iPhone

Books that I have read so far this year.

I am off to a good start with book reading this year, partially because I’ve been feeling ill I have just been doing as little as possible, so curling up reading books has been it for me this year so far.

I’ve been watching a lot of people on twitter saying they are trying to read 50 or 100 books or however many.  I don’t set myself a target; sometimes I can go a few weeks without reading a book if I’m tired.  But, I have already read 9 books so far this year, not bad in 11 days.

So what have I read this year, 2 Fantasy, 5 Crime, and 2 Sci-Fi novels. At least these are the categories according to Amazon. 5 of these I read as paperbacks and the other 4 on my kindle.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

Birdman by Mo Hayder

The Treatment by Mo Hayder

Ritual by Mo Hayder

Skin by Mo Hayder

Gone by Mo Hayder

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World by Haruki Murakami

Leviathan Wakes by James S A Corey

I somehow think that I will not keep up reading at this rate for the rest of the year.  The good news is that I liked all of 9 books that I’ve read. 

My favourite of the 9 has to be Leviathan Wakes.  It’s a fun space opera, yes things are looking grim for our group of heroes and maybe for humanity, but it’s fast and entertaining.  It’s Space Opera at its best.  It’s a while since I’ve read a full blown space opera like this.  It had sensible science, but it didn’t try to overwhelm you with it.  The action kept coming thick and fast.  It could have been a perfectly good stand alone novel, but like most books these days it’s a series, but the book did finish on a sensible ending, and yes I did want to know what happened next, but I wasn’t left on a cliff hanger, which was nice. I’ve written a slightly longer review for fantastybookreview as I don’t think they have one on their website.  I’ll put a link to it when the review is live.

Followed in order by Elantris, Warbreaker, Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of the World by Haruki Murakami, followed by the Mo Hayder books.  I really enjoyed all of them though. 

Elantris and Warbreaker are two stand-alone novels by Brandon Sanderson, and I think it’s a nice change, because everything in fantasy just seems to be one long series these days.  You seem to have to wait 4 years to find out what’s going on in a series; I enjoy stand-alone stories set in the same realm as well.  But these are nice, just two easy to read fantasy novels, almost grown up David Eddings, they are just good fun.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of the World is an interesting novel.  It’s slightly dry which I think, and I found the middle of the book slightly to clinical, it just felt to neat, but then I guess that’s what the hero’s life was.  I really got into it by the end and end ending had a real emotional impact, which shows how I got into it by then.  Great Start, Great ending, but it just wandered a bit in the middle for my taste.

The Mo Hayder books I enjoyed because the characters had a bit more bite to them then the average characters in Crime series, although I do have to admit some of the trouble they got into was a bit ridiculous and I’m not really sure how they did not get stuck in front of a disciplinary board, or put behind bars… but, hey they were entertaining.

Chickens

Well, we have doubled the amount of ex battery hens that we look after over Xmas from 4 to 8.

So we now have:-
Elliott
Errol
Idris
Norbert
Puff
Smaug
Strabo
Tiamat

See if you can spot the theme, and if you want try to identify where they are all from :)

Christmas 2011/12

Hello world, it’s now the middle of January 2012.  I am finally starting to smile a bit, for about the last 3 months I seem to have had a horrible cough/cold that has been really draining, but finally I believe I’ve cracked it.  By basically spending three days curled up in bed, doing nothing but reading and sleeping, not TV, no internet etc.. It’s been great, and I feel so much better for it.

Christmas was a quiet one this (actually last) year.  Partially I think due to me being very grumpy and feeling ill a lot of the time.  Sorry to anyone who had to put up with me over Christmas.

I made myself two near year resolutions this year.

1:   Stop Gambling for the year. I spend far to much money gambling, I’m getting a bit to close to being addicted for my own liking.  So I’ve decided that this year I should not gamble at all.  So far I’ve stuck to that.  Mind you I have no money so that helps. 

2: Loose weight.  Not a lot a minimum of around 5 Kg, I’m not trying to go from rather fat to skinny overnight, but I lost some weight last year, and trying to make sure I loose a bit more and keep it off seems reasonable to me.

I also want to read more this year and try to start writing again this year properly.  But we will see how the year pans out.  Who knows what I’ll be doing 12 months from now.

Hope you all have a great 2012