Mud and posh porridge

A lovely, bright sunny morning today so really nice for the park run. It had rained almost non stop for the previous 24 hours though so I knew the course was going to be muddy with huge puddles in places. 

I thought I'd give the porridge another go, but thought I might upgrade a bit, hoping that the flavour might be a might more palatable. An ex with far more disposable income than I've ever  had introduced me to the expensive, but rather pleasant Dorset Cereals and I'd noticed that Asda has recently started selling a range of porridges, so thought that they may do the trick. And I have to say that I was quite impressed - apart from the burnt bit at the bottom, but that was down to me not reading the instructions properly rather than the product being flawed. I must be the only person on earth who can regularly wreck foods in the microwave (apart from my mum who managed to produce flames and destroy a microwave when warming a hot cross bun, but that's another story!). Managed to eat the whole portion this time. This was the variety that I tried, and I would highly recommend it:

The run itself went well. It was very muddy and wet in places, but I quite like that as it adds more variety, although I suppose does slow things down a bit. And the best part is that I now don't have gleaming white trainers making me stand out as a complete beginner:

I was overtaken by the faster walker about 1km from the end, which did make me a little bit disheartened at the time, however I found out at the end that he actually holds the course record with a PB of 16.44, so I suppose he should be able to bunnyhop it faster than I can run it.

I was amazed to read in my results email that I had smashed last week's PB, by 68 seconds, having run the course in 35.01. I'm very happy with that time, as it proves that the interval training and extra session in Roath Park are actually doing some good.

So far I have avoided naming the running club, in case they didn't want to be associated with my slightly pitiful attempts at athletic excellence. However, since they have now linked my blog to their website, I'm guessing that they won't mind. This should link to the Lliswerry Runners
site; please take a look. I would highly recommend the club to anyone around here that is thinking of taking up running - I have found the support and encouragement from the coach and members to be so helpful, and I would have given up within about 10 minutes had I not gone along to the training sessions.