Run soul girl, run.

On the 22 August 2011 I ran 3.27k in 22mins 18sec at a pace of 6’48” per kilometre.  How do I remember this momentous day?  Not from some dog eared notebook but from my shiny Nike+ gadget that sits on my iPhone and the 22 August was the first time I used it.  I am unashamed to say I love my Nike+ it has been a solid motivating tool that has helped me to keep focused on my running. For example today as I sit here writing I know that I have only another 28k to run to reach the goal of completing 249k and thereby conquering the second level on the programme, level orange.  I can track my runs, see my times and trace when in a session I speed up and conversely slow down.  I also love the way I get shout-outs from either Lance Armstrong or Paula Radcliffe congratulating me on running faster, longer, stronger.  If I keep this up I may turn into the Bionic Woman!

The Nike+ is not all perfect though.  Like all love affairs what started out in a giddy appreciation of the miracles it could perform is at the moment leaving me feeling somewhat deflated at its lack of accuracy.  I have a horrible and growing suspicion that it may be a good 1km out in its tracking.  I am making very different distances when I train in the park to when I run on various treadmills.  I am investigating.  I don’t expect the application to be perfect, but a 1k error is kind of a big thing.*

Barefoot in the park but not a Redford in sight

The blogging and running took a serious hit over the Christmas and New Year break.  However, I am back with a committed mind-set and posting and running much more regularly.  This radical promise has mainly come about because  in less than three weeks I will be waking up at an unearthly hour to get to the start line for my first 10k road race at the Standard and Charter Bangkok Marathon (the catalyst for this blog in the first place).

While I might have been tardy with writing and running that is not to say I have not been thinking about all things running!  I have been building up the running twitter posse. Some of whom I am stalking (ahem following) and have also been kind enough to follow me.  My tweeting has mostly been focused on trying to get @johnprescott  to retweet my bad film titles along with the odd pithy reply to a couple of tweets .  I will endeavour to be more “running focused” in daily tweets.

Burma on my mind

I have been horribly remiss with my blogging (and running) over the Christmas and New Year period, but today marks the return to the web of my musings.  As I said in my last post before Christmas, I was going to be spending it in Burma with my mother and her partner (my husband, due to work and last minute injury stayed at home).  I had planned an ambitious nine day trip for us, visiting Rangoon, Inle Lake and Bagan.

How can I best describe the experience?  It was at once beautiful and sad, energising and exhausting.  Burma held so many contradictions that it at times blew me away.  Rangoon is a dusty, sleepy town of crumbling grandeur, sandy streets and people who are probably the nicest I have met in a long, long time.

My travelling companions