6 is the new 5 - and other goals.

Yes I have been a bad - silent - blogger recently. And a bad - silent - commenter as well. It's my life people - I'm trying to enjoy the downtime (ie not-training-for-a-marathon-time) to pick up the stitches I've dropped in my life while I was training. I've dealt with admin, with domestic issues, with some personal issues (though sadly, to no avail) and tried to take the time to not rush into my next training cycle. I've tried to focus on the opposite of me - fight the impulsive decisions, reassess past situations before planning new ones.

The problem is that I'm going through a sort of mid-life crisis. I won't bore you with the details of it - for now - suffice it to say that coupled with my crisis are feelings of guilt for even having it and feelings of boredom over having it at all. While part of me is in mental freefall, the rest of me is just sitting there, yawning, thinking "haven't we been here before sweetie?". Or something a bit harsher than that. Like I said, I'm not going to bore you with it apart from the fact that I thought, initially, that I should perhaps not train for a marathon at the moment, to free myself up to resolve my "issues". But that is just too boring a prospect. And what I'm going through I'm just going to have to go through and resolve, one way or the other. And that will take time. And while I'm taking that time (have I mentioned before how impatient I am? This is a challenge, indeed) I might as well do something. And for lack of another good plan, I shall train for a marathon. So here we go again.

The marathon I am training for - and this is the opposite of me - is the Experian Robin Hood marathon. You were of varied opinions about it when I polled your thoughts about it - but the overwhelming reason for me to do this is because it is close and, after the debacle of Boston, I can pretty much guarantee I can get to the starting line. I would say to you that I am going against my instinct and not turning this into a foreign jolly like I usually do, but that would be a very narrow truth - IronJen is going to be in Paris the week before the marathon and I am determined to make it out to see her (I know - that is so good of me). I am sure that we will be able to add to my iron stores by drinking some lovely champagne..

Now onto the cryptic (catchy?) title for this post - I have made some decisions about my training:
- I'm using the Pfitzinger 12 week program, fitting in 2 weeks extra for summer holidays. 18 weeks - well 20 - was just too long for me to keep my focus for. Don't know who I was kidding - true type A (and superfast) runners Aron and Jen warned me about this but hey - only one way to really, truly, find out.
- I'm really going to cross train this time. No really! I have started doing yoga once a week, my bike is being services as I speak, and I have found about new, less daunting, swimming lessons on Sundays. Stay tuned for another update on social group behavior. The 100 pushup program has been on my iPhone for oh, a year now? Now I want to have guns like Michelle's. Keep me to it!
- In the warm-up to it all - I have 3 weeks to go - I am trying to keep my mileage between 30 and 40 miles per week but also trying to move my general knocking-about-not-really-training-just-chillin-and-listening-to-my-tunes runs to 6 miles instead of 5.

And I have got to - GOT TO - move 5 pounds. Off. My butt.

So there we have it. I've boldly put it all out there, now all I need to do is go out there and do it.

I will leave you with some shots of my latest run, in Derbyshire (3 miles uphill followed by 3 miles downhill), and the local wildlife.

sheep in the car park where I left my car..

more sheep on the way uphill - don't you love their trough?

me. yes they are crow's feet. From smiling, people.

green and pleasant, if not sunny, land..

off-roading it a bit - this was a particularly LONG uphill so I was happy to take a photographer's break.

Hope all your running is going well - about to go and check you all out. TTFN!