I’m swimming in the rain, just swimming in the rain…

It is my intention to try to post more frequently this year, instead of subjecting you to lengthy dissertations on what I’ve been up to. I tried to get out and about over Christmas and got my running year off to a good start by parkrunning. Stuart and I had originally intended to ‘do the double’ on New Year’s Day by completing Netley or Eastleigh parkrun, followed by Southampton parkrun. We were both quite tired and the torrential rain was off-putting, so we decided just to do Southampton parkrun. My training schedule told me that I had to do 7 miles. I decided to run to parkrun, do parkrun and run home (whilst finding somewhere to add in an extra mile).

Watch problems on the way to parkrun

Unfortunately, my run didn’t get off to a great start. I’d run for over 6 minutes before I realised that my new Garmin 910XT had only recorded 50m. I wondered whether it had picked up satellites and then realised that it must be in swim mode. I decided to just continue with my run, as I know that the entrance to the Common is exactly 2.5km from my house. On arrival at the Common, I changed the settings on my watch. With the volume of rain, it really felt like I was swimming.

I ran to the start, where I met Liz who had brought along a friend to do her first parkrun. I understand that the later start may have been appealing to some runners, but to turn out in such torrential rain for a first parkrun was heroic, in my opinion. Then I saw my friend Kathy. We agreed to do the 5k together and then run back. We live in the same direction and it’s always easier to run with a friend.

Running with friends

Neither of us were feeling particularly speedy after some festive overindulgence. I was quite pleased to finish in 29:08. We didn’t stop for long before we waded back towards Freemantle. Overall, I ran 11.5km (7.15 miles), so although it wasn’t as fast as it should have been, I met my distance goal.

This morning, Run Gang met at 6:30am. Liz, Katherine, Stuart and I have decided to run every Thursday morning. We intended to do some speed work, but as it was the first day back at work for the two of us, we decided to do a more leisurely 5km instead. Hopefully, next week, we’ll all be more into the swing of things and I’ll start getting back on track. If you’d like to read an alternative view of this morning’s training, check out Liz’s blog post: http://operationfitandhealthy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/2014-lets-hope-its-good-one-with-plenty.html

According to my training schedule, I should be swimming at 8pm tomorrow. I’ve not been to the Tri Club session on a Friday night, so I’ll let you know how I get on 🙂

Nutrition choices

Finally, I was interested to see that Mo Farah has been chosen to be Quorn’s new brand ambassador. Instead of being promoted as a meat-free alternative, the product seems to be being repositioned as a healthy protein source for active people. It will be interesting to see whether this has any impact on people’s perception of the product, given that Mo Farah is a hero to many English people. It also links with one of my latest lifestyle changes.

Instead of having different porridge every day, I’m trying to have porridge made with blueberry protein powder for a month. I want to see whether it helps with weight loss and toning up. (It certainly seemed to have an impact when I tried to for 3 days in a row in November, but that may have been a consequence of other factors). Here’s the Quorn advert if you haven’t seen it: