Crossing the line......

CHECK ME OUT!

I'm a marathon runner! I'm a marathon runner! (and repeat in playground chant stylee)

What a phonemonal experience. And a painful one.

Firstly, if anyone is ever thinking about doing something as silly as running a marathon, then New York is the place to do it. If the crowds cheering, bands playing and 38,000 others running alongside you don't spur you on, then the spectacular sights of Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Harlem, The Bronx and Central Park most certainly will. What an amazing city and getting to see it all over a 26.2mile course made a huge difference to the day. It certainly carried me for the 1st 3 hours.

The last hour was considerably more painful - and involved lots of swearing at myself and 'tough love'. I was damned if I was going to stop, and most definitely in denial that I was anyway near hitting THE WALL. So the last few miles uphill to Central Park were truly horrible.

Finally, at 25 1/2 miles, I saw a familiar face. Steve Baker shouting like a madman who had bet his life's savings on a wooden horse. I was that wooden horse, and I was going to cross that finish line.

And I did. After 4 hours and 5 minutes. WELL DONE ME!

That's 13,661st out of 37,840 finishers.
I was the 2653th female.
I was the 683rd 29-year old.

Go to www.nycmarathon.org and look up runner F6853 for proof!

Once the elation has subsided a little, I realised that my physical wellbeing was not what it was. Not a single blister (Vaseline I tell thee, wonderful stuff). However I was unable to walk down stair or use the loo without a handrail for 2 days.

A small price to pay.

Especially since it was all for a bloody good cause and I have raised loads for money for get Kids Going. If I hadn't been running for charity, I really don't think I'd have made it. Some of the other runners were in considerably worse states of wear than myself and I even cried en route (not good for regular breathing) when i saw just what an ordeal some people were going through for their cause. So thanks to all those who sponsored me - it really does help.

So now I'm off to the pub.

Anna xxx

It's the final countdown!

How did that happen?

All of a sudden it's the final week of my mammoth 4 months of training and a mere 4 days til I take to the streets of NY. 26.2 miles worth of street.

I'm giddily aware that THE END is approaching and it's hard to believe that THE END would ever show itself. I had started to feel that my training for the marathon was like Prince Charles' training for the throne. What was I doing this all for again? It's been such a bloody long time since I agreed to it that I appear to have forgotten.

Fortunately, Get Kids Going and the NYC Marathon have been sending me scarily large quantities of information about what it going to happen on Sunday and how to prepare for it (how to eat, sleep, walk, talk in the final couple of days). I have paid a large amount of attention to 2 things: tapering and loading.

Tapering means run less. This is fine. I like this.

Especially with these winter days having closed in. The cold and the rain I can deal with because when you run you get warm and you can wear a cap. Problem solved. But you can't do much about the dark and it's not much fun running in the dark. You can't see anything and probably more important is that no one can see you. You can buy these god awful fluorescent yellow vests but at the behest of my cutting edge fashion sense I turned that option down in favour of some awesome bright neon orange leg warmers and wrist bands that I bought for an 80s party a couple of years ago. They look wicked. If I had a photo I would gladly upload it for all to see. As it is, I don't. Shame.

Loading means eat more. This is also fine. I like this even more.

It's meant to be carb-loading, which is stocking up carbohydrate in your body so that it can take running for 4 hours+plus and then it all gets a big technical for me. So I just remember that it means eating lots.

I am taking this opportunity for 3 weeks to eat like Lard-Ass in the blueberry pie eating contest in Stand by Me. It's great. Just me and a fridge full of food. Cakes-a-go-go, piles of pasta, oodles of noodles, bread by the loaf. I'm actually a little bit worried about where all this food is going. Surely it's not all loading onto MY body. Where? Coz I sure as hell can't see it. My body is pure muscle. Oh well, I'll just eat this pack of biscuits while I think about it some more.

This may well be the last entry before I head to NY. I will be far too busy tapering and loading for the next 2 days to do this blog thing.

Hopefully I'll see you all on the other side. With a salad in one hand and a glass of vino in t'other.

Thanks to everyone who's sponsored me, ran with me, fed me, put up with me. Fingers crossed it's all been worth it.

Anna the running banana

xx

Life on the wagon

Anyone who I have been socialising with for the past 2 months will know that as part of the countdown to 'M' day, I have been abstaining from the booze. That's right, Mawhinney is spending more than 1 week on the wagon. Can it be done? Surely this will render my social life null and void? A life without wine and beer is a sad life indeed.

In fact much to my pleasant surprise it really is not a problem most of the time. At the start, I did annoy myself by talking about it more than is necessary, the way that someone who was married for a long time may talk about being no longer with their partner of 10 years to people... yeah I've come out tonight but it's just me. I'm not with Peter/Caroline/Merlot/Grolsch anymore.

Most people do ask me why - and it's fair enough. I couldn't be out and NOT drinking without a proper valid reason. Pregnant? No. Antibiotics? No Marathon runner? Yes!
In fact I always refer to it as a temporary status i.e. I'm not drinking (at the moment) so they know that I am normal. Woe betide I be one of those really weird teetotallers who does it all the time.

Being teetotal doesn't change me in any way, but it does have side effects on what a night might hold. Firstly, I remember everything. What a eye-opener that is. Then, a big night out is all about variety. Lots of different conversations with lots of different people, rather than intimate ramblings with a close-knit few regular faces. This is how to cope with drunk people who tend to ramble and repeat themselves. Half-hour chats are brilliant, and then it's time to find someone new.
It's not fickle - it's what sober people have to do to cope with pissheads.

Far and away the best bit is being able to drive home at the end of the night and have a good night's sleep. Not having spent £50 on an evening I would not normally remember but for the headache and furry mouth the next day.

But if you see me after 5th November, mine's a glass of red, Or bottle of red if that's easier.....

The pre-very big run big run

3 weeks before RACE DAY a.k.a. THE END you do your longest run, an endurance run, to test your body (and mind) and make sure that it can take being pushed a bit more than say a paltry 16 miles. So on 15th October I got the support team (Mr and Mrs Jaffa) ready: Hollie on the bike, and Andy in the car for course marshalling and energy drink pit-stops. What a team we were. I ran. Hollie pedalled. Jaff read the papers.

I have to say right now that Hollie being by my side was a bloody lifesaver. Not in that I passed out and needed resussitating but she threw a lifeline to my sanity. Yes, it was a gorgeous autumn day, yes I was running through some of Berkshire's finest countryside (and past some of the country's priciest houses) but running can and does get deathly boring when there isn't anything else to do. Whereas gossip is an unending fountain of trivia and entertainment. So we gossiped. Pretty much non-stop for 3 hours and I know it was this and this alone which helped the miles to pass much more quickly. And maybe seeing Jaff's giant bald head shimmer in the distance as we approached each drink pit-stop. I liked that too.

And so yes, 3 hours later it was done. I had reached my training goal of 20 miles and felt phenomenal....every muscle in my lower body ached to the point of exhaustion. The moment I stopped moving my legs seized up. I appeared to have morphed into part jelly part steel. A weird-ass sensation but in a good way nonetheless. Especially compared to blisters and jogger's nipple.

Then all I had to do was drive for 3 hours back to Leeds and then make soup for 30 people. Yes it's coming back to me now....on the seventh day, The Lord ran, drove and made soup.

Well done me. And so the tapering begins.....

Anna xx

A Soupçon of Fundraising

Alongside all the training comes another challenge... the fundraising side of things. The donations are dripfeeding in, but they need a helping hand from something other than the benevolence of my friends and family.

Baking cakes isn't really my forté. But when it comes to cooking, soups most definitely are. As everyone from Bloom knows, they were the highlight of my lunch hours last winter and and rightly so. They're cheap, easy-to-make, contribute significantly to the 5-a-day quota and have no boundaries to the possible flavours. They are ace. Anyway I digress into soup-appreciation.

So what's the deal?

Everyone's Monday lunchtimes are now considerably brighter at Poulters with the arrival of Anna's Monday Soup Kitchen.

3 flavours are on offer and over 25 people have the pleasure of soup n roll for the bargain price of £2. And a new flavour is voted in by current soupees every week. Pea with crispy bacon has been a surprise hit in the latest round.

It's been a resounding success with all 3 sessions so far selling out (and colleagues pleading and begging me to make more). I've also been told that the sandwich man looks ever so forlorn on a Monday now with half his day's sales siphoned off into my fundraising pouch. He'd better get used to it! This will be running through til Christmas and will hopefully I'll get a few hundred quid raised for Get Kids Going and an office full and happy bellies to boot!

Any ideas for winning soup flavours are very welcome - though nothing too fancy please. I'm feeding the masses on a budget!

Love Anna's Soup Kitchen

x

Mawhinney in motion.....


Yes - I ALWAYS look this cheerful when I'm training.

My new found respect for Vaseline.

I must say first that I love holidays. I love the sun, the food, the fun, the foreign culture, the late nights, the not-being-at-work and the drinking everyday. Tis the last one that took its toll and a fortnight of beer, wine and vodka.

What I don't love is what holidays do to your body. They make it lazy and serious knocks its running prowess.

So with all this in mind, I kickstarted my return to TRAINING SCHEDULE with my first half marathon, which as you all know by now, is 13.1 miles (why the Greeks had to make a marathon 26.2 miles instead of just 26 remains lost in the mists of Olympus).

The Major Stone Half Marathon is out in the lovely countryside of East Riding, near Hull. And for those of you who don't know the area I am blissfully happy to tell you that there are no hills in East Yorkshire. It's like the Netherlands, without the clogs.

Now this being my longest run to date I came prepared with Vaseline. I had been told that it is a necessary part of all runners' kit. Indeed it appeared to be true: I saw several male runners greasing up their inner thighs assiduously with economy pots of petroleum jelly beside them. It's kind of like watching a cat clean its bum: you don't really want to watch but it's intriguing nonetheless. At any rate, I ensure my toes were vazzed up and then laced up my trainers.

Pre-race I did the usual things: warmed up, pinned my number on my shirt, checked out all the keen-o serious runners with go faster shorts/vest/socks, marvelled at the number of over 65s. And then we were off. I set my pace and got past the 3-mile mark uneventfully.

And then it started. The pain. Where? A place which had not been given due attention by my Vaseline application. I had just experienced my first ever 'Jogger's Nipple'. And it hurts. A lot.

If anyone was ever in any doubt that I was not suffering for my cause, then rest assured that this was the case no more. It's a similar pain to chilblains but with the added bonus of being on one of the most sensitive pasts of the body. Joy. And there's absolutely nothing that you can do except carry on running with slight adjustment to the sports bra in the vain hope that one part of the material is less abrasive than the other.

I soldiered on, and eventually the other aches and pains distracted me from the Jogger's Nipple. Mainly the stitches. That'll be the 2 weeks of boozing then.

11 miles in and with 2.1 miles left I started to feel less like dying: truly proof that half the battle is with the mind. I also was joined by 2 oldies who sidled up behind me chatting away and joined my pace. Chatting! The main noise coming from me was heaving breathing that would put most dirty phone callers to shame. So they got me through to the end - thanks Derrick and Jeanette.

And the result...... 13.1 miles in 1hour51 minutes.

Amazing.

And now with teetotalism til NY (special occasions excepted) I might even be able to do this marathon malarkey without dying.

But I am definitely getting an economy pot of vaseline.

anna xx

Bigger better faster more


The weeks go by and training continues. And the climax of the week? All runners will tell you that it is Sunday which is the best/worst day of the week. It's the one where you have to do a proper gnarly run, instead of these piddly little 6-mile ones.

Having said that, it didn't seem so piddly when I ran the Pudsey 10k a couple of Sundays ago. 10km = 6.3 miles. In fact I would go so far as to say that the 10k in Pudsey is very gnarly: off road and hilly. The kind of hills that make you feel like you're running up a downhill escalator. There were (foolish) people who refused to stop running and so just seemed to be treading water - while more sensible participants walked up and overtook them because it was far and away the more productive method up getting to the top.

There were lots of helpful/sadistic staff dotted along the course giving words of encouragement along the lines of 'it's all downhill from now on'. Gits. Although one of them at around the 8km mark did have Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now' blasting from his car to rally the runners as their wended their weary way back towards the finishing line. Quality. Gotta love a bit of Queen.

My time: 56 minutes

My position: 28th of 104 women (and 235th out of a total 393)

My winnings: 1 T-shirt and 1 banana.

Also, one of the onlookers was none other than Nell McAndrew, supporting her fellow local runners from the sidelines: women who are 7 months pregnant aren't really capable of walking competitively, let alone running. It occurred to me at this point that Leeds is full of famous marathon runners: our Nell, Jane Tomlinson, Sir Jimmy Saville..... and now me. Yes indeed, full to the rafters. There must be something in the water.

Bring on the gnarl.

A xx