Monday 28 January 2013

"Run Like You're Dancing"

My first attempt at Blogging.

A bit of a brain dump about how my marathon training and fundraising is coming along and the exciting things you can get involved with over the coming months to support me in raising loadsa moolah for Aberlour! I'm also going to list my personal top tips on how to keep moving when your legs feel like dropping off, and I'm keen to share some helpful running tunes too.

So...the post-Christmas crawl back into some semblance of regime surrounding exercise. It was tricky after eating my own body weight in mince pies and having developed a keen old taste for mulled wine (it should be an all-year-round thing), but I'm getting into the swing of things again and it's entirely worth it. I'm feeling fitter and more confident already, aside from when I though I was going to be attacked by a parking meter at 6.30am on Friday morning. It certainly speeds you up.

I'm going to use my recovery days to get the blogging underway. My JustGiving page is up and running (no pun intended) and at present I'm up to day three of yet another sneeze and snot-fest, though it's not stopped me from pounding the pavements.

Then I get home and attack the Spanish deli meats in case I start wasting away. 

Aside from multi-vitamins and a heck of a lot of fruit, if any fellow runners have tips for keeping these niggling colds at bay while spending so much time running in Edinburgh's fair climate, I'm all ears (and one red nose).

So, let's start the party...


Today's top tip: Run Like You're Dancing. 

That's right, folks. If you're dancing your socks off, be that in a club, your kitchen or someone else's kitchen, and a killer tune comes (say, Easy Lover by Phil Collins) on there's no way you sit down half way through that song. So, when running up a hill, envisage a group of your friends at their sweatiest, raising the roof to the blinding beats, and pretend you're dancing. If you struggle with this imagery, just treat your run like a ceilidh dance...if you sit down half way through, you don't just let yourself down, you let EVERYONE down. That's the tough love angle. If you're still struggling, invite me round for cake and we'll do some mentoring in the kitchen.


Top tune I didn't know I loved running to: Hold On by Hot Chip 

If the song doesn't do it for you, just pretend you're being chased by Jools Holland.


This week's reading: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. 

Watch this space for some great quotes. 

I promise I'll take some pretty photos of Edinburgh soon. But in the meantime, please be sure to visit my JustGiving page and support my fundraising with a small (or large!) donation. 

Lots of love,
TN. xx