On the cards for the first day of my training plan (today) was 30mins easy and some core-work.
I wasn’t really sure what to do yesterday run-wise, but knew I wanted to get one in before my plan began to have a little freedom and also to test out my new Garmin, so decided on an hour and a half trail run with some mates from club, as I’m not too sure how many sessions I’ll be able to run with club over the coming weeks.
(Ignore the tip of a room behind me!)
We headed to Delapre park in Northampton which was really lovely to run round. We began by running around the lake but it was so hot we quickly moved into the trees to continue our run. It was an incredibly hot day. I wore my new Garmin Fenix out for the first time and it recorded the temperature as 29C!
Despite it being sweltering everywhere we went, we still managed to find a mud puddle…and I still managed to fall off the log into it!!!
As it was such a lovely day, when I got back from my run Dan and I decided to go out for lunch, and this massive plate of roast is what I ate (although I couldn’t finish the turkey…I was pretty full towards the end and I’m not a massive turkey fan anyway!)
I wanted to start my Operation Ultra plan with 100% commitment from the very beginning and planned on getting up at 5:30am to complete my core exercises for about 30mins. I had agreed to run my 30min easy run with Hayley tonight although she cancelled on me earlier so I convinced Dan to run instead!
5:30am came this morning and I dragged myself down the stairs. I’m normally such a morning person but I stupidly stayed up late last night and really wasn’t feeling it!
I powered through and completed 30mins of core work though, feeling great for having done so afterwards.
The lack of sleep got to me throughout the day. We were on a training day at school today and they served us a massive vegetarian cottage pie for lunch. It made me feel all drowsy in the afternoon and I struggled to concentrate. I was very ready to leap into my running gear by the time we got home and Dan was eager to try out my old Garmin 405 on the run as well.
It was still lovely and sunny. Dan has had issues with his knee in the past, so I decided to take us off-road across some footpaths over fields I found a few weeks back to make up the 30minutes. I was quite disappointed when we got back to be honest, although it was lovely to be home by 6:30pm having gotten two workouts in to the day!
I’m now off to bed (it’s 9:30pm here) with another 5:30am wake up call for four sets of five min threshold running before work. I just keep reminding myself that there are only eleven days left of school now and I can lay in an extra hour before workouts when I hit the Summer!
That is very dedicated getting up that early.

I would be interested to see the sorts of exercises you are doing for your core work.
And that Garmin must be so fancy if it records the temperature!
Maria @ runningcupcake recently posted…Hot or iced tea?
Haha! It was a struggle this morning! At least there’s only 9 days left of school now and then I can have some more relaxed get-up times!
On the Run Lounge website there are a bunch of core exercises we are using. I have been making up a routine of about 20-30mins made up of these exercises…
* The Finger Crusher
* The Side Plank
* The Bridge
* The Press-up
And yep, a very fancy Garmin now lives round my wrist while I attempt to learn everything that it does! It’s the new Garmin Fenix.
Woo woo!! First step for Operation Ultra!! So exciting!! I ran Delapre yesterday and couldn’t work out how there are still gooey patches! Hasn’t it been over 20 degrees for at least the last week?! Hope you enjoy your lie ins and find some more fab trails!! Good luck!
sarah F recently posted…My Sub-20 5k Attempt or Try Not to Crap Yourself)
I know! There are still loads of gooey bits! How does that work?! This was the first time I ran round Delapre and I really liked it. There’s so much variety. I’m close to Stanwick Lakes and run there a lot but it’s just flat and straight, whereas I felt like we could really mix it up a bit at Delapre!
Love for the trails!
What a full and great day!! I swear if there is mud around, I will always run through it even when I try not to! HAH!
Brittany recently posted…Blissful Blueberries
It’s WORST when you try not to! Then you normally end up falling in…or is that just me?!…
I always like the feeling of starting a new training program! I can’t wait to hear more about how it goes!

olivetorun recently posted…Happiness is NOT Something Ready Made.
Definitely! It gives me a new sense of purpose and something fresh to work towards. Can’t wait to really get stuck into it!
Blimey you are committed to be getting up that early, well done! That roast looks well lush 😉
Haha! This is only week one…I’m sure by week fifteen my get up and workout time will end up closer to lunch!
The roast was loooovely! very filling though! It’s been a long while since I had a roast.