Day One of Juneathon

It's been a great week for my training, culminating in today, the first day of Juneathon which, if you've not heard, is where the running community (well, some of us) group together, get over the excuses, and commit to run (or do at least some sort of exercise) every single day during June, and to blog about it!  The idea is that everyone reads each other's blogs and we support each other in our running efforts, and it motivates us to work just that little bit harder than usual.  It's certainly a challenge, especially for those of us (i.e me!) who are pretty rubbish at frequent blogging, but I'm hoping that the exercise side of things shouldn't be too difficult.  I am determined to make it through Juneathon in both ways but we shall see...

So far this week, I have stuck to my training schedule well, and in the last eight days, I've run 24 miles, and cycled a massive (for me!) 61 miles.  The running has, for the majority, gone really well, even including three miles at 8:27min pace which was a great step forward on the speed side.  Having a fortnight's rest seems to have given me nearly new legs!

The cycling is a pretty new thing for me, but I'm absolutely loving it.  Francis and I completed a 50 mile ride on Monday, from Billericay where we live to the seaside at Burnham on Crouch, and although towards the end I really started to feel tired, I coped much better than I had expected, ending up with just a bit of hamstring pain to deal with once we'd finished..  It helps that Essex is relatively flat (although there were times when it felt mountainous), I was on a geared road bike, and that I wasn't on my own...oh, and that we stopped at a pub half way through...and had some ice-cream later on...it does make a difference!

Just to make the commitment about a daily blog about my daily exercise, this morning I headed out for an easy 5 mile run.  It was my hardest run of the week to be honest, and I got up later than planned, but the weather was lovely, I got out and did it, and the hamstring and calf pain that the cycling had caused disappeared after the run.  All good! And so...onto tomorrow.  The schedule says another 5 miles, but this time with some speedwork.  Is it really possible I can run two miles at 7min50s pace?? We shall see....