Holidays and other stuff

I've had a busy few weeks despite it being the summer holidays from university for a month; I have spent most of it being "happy to help" on the checkout at my local supermarket. However, I did manage to squeeze in a week away to Lake Garda with my mum, for my first holiday in two years. Aware that I was very unlikely to be able to resist the temptation of ice cream, cocktails and pizza, some damage limitation was in order. 

So the morning of my outbound flight, I was up at 7am to go for an early run with my Dad. Since I was little, I have watched my Dad run; pushing an old hospital bed around the Chew Valley bed race, and various fun runs, as well as several London marathons. I never thought that I would be able to join him, but I felt very lucky to do so, and also keep up with him most of the time. Here we are about to set out from home:

 We managed 8.3 miles, and had a nice chat as well on the way round. I found running a longer distance with someone else helped the time pass by much more quickly, as it can get a tiny bit tedious when out for over an hour alone.

I'm also quite proud of myself for managing two runs on holiday - one of three miles, and then four miles on the last day, which was hard work due to the increase in temperature. Unfortunately for me, the Italians are as glamourous when taking part in sporting activity as they are the rest of the time, while I remained a red, puffing lump as usual, and attracted some rather disgusted looks from the locals. But since none of those people are ever likely to see me again, it doesn't really matter. It was actually very pleasant, despite the heat, running alongside the banks of the lake in the early morning, watching the local people starting their day.

Here I am setting out from out hotel, wearing my Lliswerry vest:

Sadly, I'm back in the UK now, but the training is going well. I knocked just over a minute of my parkrun pb to take it down to 31.03 - I am absolutely determined to get under 30 minutes this year. I also joined in with the club's "long, slow run" on Sunday, which for me was actually very long and very fast - the little warm up was at a faster pace than I had run at parkrun the day before and I kept everyone else waiting for me the entire 9 miles. However, I found it useful to be running at a faster pace; being forced to push myself harder than I would have done had I been alone. 

I have the Cardiff 10k coming up in a couple of weeks, and then the Cardiff Half in just over 6 weeks, so will be trying my best to get in as much mileage as possible in over the coming days. I've noticed that although I am not losing weight everything is toning up now and my thighs wobble a little less then they did before, which is definitely motivation to keep going for now. 

Thank you for reading. Here is my little motivational quote for today: