Half Marathon Training Update and the return to Cheshire

Last week Ant and I moved out of Leeds and back to Cheshire. We were living in Leeds on a short term summer let whilst I worked for BTRS and Ant finished his Maths Masters. Now, we are 3 weeks away from our adventure off around the world (not the entire world, just some of it). We have lots planned before we go, visiting friends, family and puppies, climbing and running. We have been trying to keep up with our running training as we are now 10 days away from The Great Scottish Run aka the Glasgow Half Marathon.

The training is going reasonably well at the moment. We are definitely on track with our pacing and providing that we eat the right things and get enough sleep in the few days before Glasgow we should be okay. Ant has managed to injure himself just yesterday, banging his knee whilst we were climbing so today he has been hobbling around. We were planning on doing our long pre-race run tomorrow but it looks like I might be doing that on my own now. It’s always best to rest these things but it's frustrating when you’re 10 days away from a race!

One of the great benefits of moving back to Cheshire is that you can do distance running without having to run alongside cars the entire time or wait at pedestrian crossings. You’re able to run for kilometres through fields, forests and trails. It is very beautiful! We are incredibly lucky to be able to run here and I haven’t even talked about all the cute dogs that you see being walked.

On Monday I ran up to Old Pale Heights which is a viewpoint that overlooks much of the surrounding countryside. If you watch my Instagram stories you will probably have seen images of Old Pale a few times, it's my favourite quick run when I go home to visit my Dad and the family. It was a bit of a struggle. It’s a very hilly route which makes running on the flat heavenly. I think I struggled because I hadn’t quite eaten enough, hadn’t warmed up quite well enough and maybe hadn’t slept enough? It sounds like I don’t know what I’m doing... I do! But it just goes to show that the tinniest factors an make a difference to your performance. I had better just get it right now! If you live in Cheshire and fancy giving running a go there are some great routes around. I haven’t heard of any Couch to 5k groups in the local area but you can get the app for free and maybe give it a go with a friend or a few?  Just pick a less hilly route than I did on Monday!

Now that I am back from Leeds I will be forced to talk less about Leeds Girls Can happenings (only because I’m not there!) but there are Couch to 5k groups starting up again all over the Leeds area very soon! Check out Leeds Girls Can social media and their snazzy new website if you are interested in trying out running. Because I am reduced in what I can write about Leeds, I would love to hear from you if you have any blog post requests. You can contact me via any of my social media links shwn below or you can email me at emilyankers@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you! 

Wish us luck for the Half Marathon and speak soon! 

Em x 

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