How did I end up running the London Marathon?

 

Quite painful this training session and my running gear took some time to warm up (no, I do not mean the cloths, I mean my muscles!). My brain was asleep all the way…no signs of intelligence whatsoever. Towards the end of the session I realised that I had listened to the same song for over thirty minutes…my ipod was on repeat.

Meanwhile I was wondering how I ended up running the London Marathon. Well, it was one of those great collective ideas from Goodenough. Over the summer, I was writing like crazy for my PhD (back then I still hoped to finish everything by September). My friend Alma was her usual amazing self, supporting me in every possible way, while doing the PhD herself. One evening, on the rooftop, over a glass of wine, she told me about her brother who used to live in Goodenough. Her brother was training for a triathlon. Following his example, Alma had decided to run a marathon in order to keep herself busy and healthy. I immediately jumped in and decided to do it too. Of course I had no clue about what it involved, but sometimes ignorance is a bliss. The London marathon was the easiest option (as it did not involve any travelling) and Goodenough was my only choice in terms of charities. However, we did not know if we would get places. In the meantime, Alma’s father died, she had to go back to Mexico to support her family. I stayed here and kept running, training and hoping that on the 22^nd of April Alma would be there to watch me running and be proud of the way her idea materialised.

Final countdown

With all the work and the demonstrations in Romania, I did not have a lot of time to update the blog. However, that does not mean I did not train! I went out last night for a one hour run. Really proud to say that I did more than 8k. This is quite a lot for a lazy one like me!

Oh, and just to show where I come from, check out the pics above! The first one is my old self - Javier, a very close friend who used to live in Goodenough, made this poster for me (Javier had, of course, a very particular idea about who I was at the time. Javier, I miss you around here!!!). The second one is me right now with Roberta's mom (Gilda, you are amazing and I am so glad I met you!!). Have I changed my lifestyle or what? Obviously, this dramatic change is as confusing, conflicting, exciting, fun for everyone involved!

Soooo cold

Today was so cold that I could not convince myself to get out and run. It would have been nice, but it was impossible! Well, tomorrow I will have to go out and do a 40 minutes session at least. It will probably be evening, as I have to do some teaching in the morning. Oh, this temperature should be against the law!!!!

Addiction

 

This morning, during my daily run, I realised that I have become dependent on the garden. It seems that in the process of getting fitter and healthier I have created a new addiction. Well, it’s not so bad, after all the sum of vices must remain a constant, right? Despite the fact that I have never been the gym type, my typical laziness makes me prefer the Goodenough garden to any other place. Like a good friend put it…the garden has become my gym.

So, this Sunday, I will go out of my comfort zone for the long run. It should be nice to see new areas and get to know London in a different way. Gosh, I hope I do not end up shopping on Oxford Street! I also hope that my watch will record the distance properly and my personal satellite will follow me everywhere I run.

Need for adrenaline

I thoroughly enjoyed my rest day today, doing teaching and a few small things. Tomorrow it's back to black at 6 in the morning. Phew, that's what I call life!!

State of grace

After running for three days in a row, I started to have a whole new relationship with my body. On Saturday I felt pain in parts of the body I did not even know I had. So, instead of running I went swimming. It was nice and relaxing, especially because my swimming rhythm was quite slow (and anyway the distance was less than 1k).

To make it a perfect day, I finished with dinner in Jamie’s Italian restaurant in Covent Garden. Nice food and excellent company. We were four ladies from two generations: me and my best friend, her mom and one of her best friends. It felt so good, that I almost forgot to eat. No offence to Jamie Oliver, but the conversation and the company were far better than the food!

This dinner made me think about my life in Goodenough for the past few years. It seems to me that I have lived in a peculiar state of grace, creating lifelong bondages with amazing people from all over the world. This sheltered environment pushed me to try new things (some of them rather remote from my previous leisure pursuits), test my limits, grow up and become a bit more myself. No wonder I had no desire to finish my PhD earlier! So, for the past three years I lived on borrowed time, borrowed money and borrowed dreams. Later tonight I will write about how I decided to run the London Marathon.

Heavy fuel (Dire Straits)

This is how it felt this morning:

Happy New Run!

After such a long break I am back to running. I started yesterday with an unexpected 4k race and continued this morning with more or less the same thing. It is a slow, painful and exciting getting back into my training mood. My masochistic self enjoys this challenge more than anything in the world. Even more than writing up my PhD…

In order to reward myself in advance for future excellent runs, I went out to do some shopping for my training. Nothing fancy – just shoes, pants, t-shirts and so on. To my surprise I discovered a whole new world out there. The shoes are fantastic: grey with orange. The rest of the gear is way too black for my taste, but it makes me feel like Cat Woman, which is not a bad feeling after eating so much over Xmas. However, la piece de resistance is my new watch/pedometer/whatever it might be called. It is a small orange (just to match my new shoes!) device that measures the time, distance, calories burned, heart rate etc. How do you think it does that? Well, it is connected to a small device in my left shoe and to…a satellite. This is no joke apparently. Under the circumstances, how can I not be self-conscious when I run????