If anyone has been following my actual schedule that I am following you will note that I am  completely on track and loving it.  This week is a bit mixed up so I can get all my runs in before the much anticipated wedding! (cant WAIT) And pretty much my last party...best part is that just about everyone I love will be there to party with ( except you,  Dan...sniff...Man I miss you).So today was a 5km and Friday morning is a 8km. I had such fun running today because as I set off, it wasn't very long until I saw just how dark and heavy the clouds were.  Needless to say I set off to try my best to beat the rain and avoid looking like an absolute arse running in the rain,  there was no one else running.... and plenty traffic.  At the robots I felt like I could already see people smiling to themselves, thinking,  ha ha ha you better run girl because you about to get drenched. I made it home in time... but more importantly thoroughly enjoyed my run tonight.Here's to my first 8k on Friday morning. 

one word...awful

A full 5km'sToday marks the day of my first 5km run.  Once again,  3rd time this week I have had to go it alone.  Poor Gareth has had such a bad back.  It has forced me to run on my own and enjoy it.Today I really really enjoyed my run.   The fun thing about running on my own is that  because of my insane imagination,  and thanks to CSI and the movie Taken I was convinced someone was trying to abduct me...I of course ran faster!!! Do still have my suspicions though!   Not quite sure what they would do with me.  Don't really want to know.   They were probably just estate agents putting their for sale boards up and their houses on the same running route ha ha ha ha!But I am safe and sound and had a        great run.July is pretty much the last month for any partying or fooling around.  From this week the k's power week increase but still ok...oh I need to update my schedule for you! Comrades Novice programme July 2013week ending 7/7: Tues 3km, Thurs 3km, Sun 5kmweek ending 14/7: Tues 3km, Thurs 5km, Sat 3km AND Sun 5km(ps this is kitchen tea week. doubt I am going to make the sun run)week ending 21/7: Tues 3km, Thurs 5km, Sun 8km(pps this is wedding week.  So will have to try do my 8km on Fri morning before I hand myself over to the bride as her slave for the weekend... Will be an honour!  week ending 28/7: Tues 5km, Thurs 3km, Sun 5kmTotal k's for the month: 58k's

Morning all! I don't have much to say this morning other than....  What a k.a.k run!!
Last week we missed 2 runs. Its a busy time and we are trying to wrap stuff up for Shell and Dougs wedding so had some 'stuff' to do and BOY did I feel it today!!!

First of all.  I get to the beach to meet a dear friend who skates while I run and my mistake I didn't have my data turned on, got to the beach and only received her message when I got into the parking lot.

I was going to just get in my car and go home but realised that at some point in my training I will have to run on my own. I am SUCH a woes! So I leave my car to start running and feel a bit nervous and run back to my car.  About to give in again by convincing myself that its too dangerous to run on my own... next minute I see a rather large lady running and decide to tag her (haaahhhaaaaahaaaa)! I was sooo pleased with myself that I had mustered up the courage to go it alone.

End of story.... my run sucked and I am never going to miss another run again!  Here's to a successful Thursday run...hopefully :-)

Completed the 15 minute run today as per our training schedule!  Definitely feeling stronger!  What an amazing feeling.  Looking so forward to getting stronger and stronger! From tomorrow and for the rest of June and then July we are going to be doing mainly 3 and 5k's, think I am going to savour these runs because it's just going to start getting harder and harder!

Before I begin the next blog, I just want to make an apology in advance to all the grammar police out there.
Grammar is not one of my strongest points but hopefully you all get the gist of what I am trying to say and don't need to make use of google translate from giberish to english! :-)

Okay, so today is our LAST MINUTES day!  ie the last day we get to run with minutes and not kilometres! Which means we are slowly (very slowly still), moving forward!

Actually, I lie.  We wont be able to do our run today because we (my sister and flower girls) have our final dress fitting tonight for Shelley's wedding (my gorgeous little sister I spoke about in my first blog.  She is 31 but will always be my "little" sister!). 

Soooo, we'll do our 15 minute run tomorrow, that's Wednesday 19 June 2013!

I'll be back to blog at the end of the week!

AND..... so we are well into week 4 now of training! 

I have been delaying starting this blog until I knew that we (Gareth, my wonderful man) and I committed to this whole heartedly (well mainly me). 

I am super proud of myself so far I must say!  (and Gareth ofcourse).

My objective with this blog is to document my achievements, create awareness for the wonderful organisation taht I will ALSO b running for and ofcourse all of the other juicy stuff like when I am not doing so well!!

Let me begin with how I made this wild, preposterous and typically impulsive decision....most of my off the wall ideas start with a glass of wine...and so the comrades idea was born!

I had had a few glasses of wine (this was about  1 week before my 38th birthday infact it was the 11 May 2013, feeling rather sorry for myself and had been for sometime, not going to bore you with the negativity, I'm not wild about feeling like that!  I felt like I had hit a roadblock with my job, had injured my calf when playing my 2nd EVER game of outdoor hockey since school and just feeling like I needed something BIG!  I felt like I had absolutely NO GOALS!!!

Now normal people will probably choose a smaller, more doable goal, like if you are going to like run, maybe start with a 21km! Nooooo, not Mandy! Comrades it is!!  ESPECIALLY when I have never un further than 10km's!

If I rewind just a little bit, prior to the night I made this decision.  For some reason, I cannot recall, I must have subscribed to the bonitas novice running programme, I think it was when I was attempting to run 10k's at that stage.  Anyway, I have been receiving thier newsletters ever since.  So that was the first thing that got me thinking, specifically their one edition that was about "how to get through the comrades" and certain tips and tricks about getting through this gruelling day!  ONE of them was to run for something or someone!  I read a few stories about all this and it really did get me thinking!  But that was that and I closed my laptop and went home.

Until this fateful night, I called up a friend who has done the comrades before and is a seasoned long distance runner!  Sadly, she didn't make the cut off time BUT as far as I am concerned she still ran the race because she got as far as she did! HATS' OFF JUST FOR GETTING TO THE START, let alone all the way to 45th cutting!! (It was a down run)!  I called her and posed the crazy question to her and we laughed about it and we both committed then and there!  It was also at this point that I decided that I am going to run for BOBBI BEAR!  An organisation that is committed to children who are abused and raped by the very people who are supposed to look after them! The "BIG" people!  Now it seems like this is something that I am going to be 'using' as my motivation to get through to the end, well let me tell you, it may be, but I couldn't think of anything better to "use" than the opportunity of creating awareness about this organisation and the incredible work they do!  Sadly, they exist, but thank God for people like Jacqui and Eureka and all the people who work with them! www.bobbibear.org.za - please go and look at what they do!

I came running downstairs to Gareth who was watching TV in the lounge, and told him my news!! Typical Gareth style, should I say, typical, wonderful Gareth style - he just said, okay my love, go for it!! I'll support you all the way! NO questions, NO negative questions like, shew babe, do you think you can do it!! He just simply believes in me and supports me in all I do or attempt to do!

The second person I told that night, was my little sister Shelley, who is my inspiration!  She did the comrades in 2012 and I was there with all our friends ready to make a big noise for her when she got to the same 45th cutting "welcome to Durban" sign!  She sounded concerned (he he he), but also never said anything to make me feel like I was just being my normal irrational self!  Shell, simply started with advice and tips and spoke about what programme to follow and suggested I follow the same programme as her and Doug (fiance) did when they ran the comrades, but obviously not the one for regular runners, the one for NOVICE runners!

Along the way, I managed to coax Gareth into running the comrades with me and this is where we are at now!
17 June 2013 and we are well onto our 4th week of the programme!  At this point of the programme, I have to tell you that it is a WALK INTHE PARK!  I giggle to myself everytime someone says, hows your training going and how far are you running now!?

Here is the first 5 weeks of the programme :-)

June 2013
Week 1:  10 mins, 10 mins, 10 mins (Tues, Thurs & Sun)
Week 2:  10 mins, 15 mins, 15 mins (Tues, Thurs & Sun)
Week 3:   15 mins, 15 mins, 20 mins (Tues, Thurs & Sun)
Week 4:   15 mins, 3km's, 3km's (Tues, Thurs & Sun)
Week 5:   3km's, 3km's, 5km's (Tues, Thurs & Sun)

So as at today 17 June 2013, we have just completed week 3! And yesterday (Sunday 16th), we did the 20 minute one!  I have A LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG way to go, when I got to 10 minutes yesterday, I looked at my watch and thought OMG, I still have another 10mins to go!!! NEVER MIND 12+ HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the BEGINNING of my blog and I am going to blog as often as I can!  So PLEASE read, and if you do read it once, please KEEP reading! This is the place I am going to probably turn to when I think I absolutely CANNOT do this!! I know there are friends and family who probably have their reservations about me finishing this, don't blame them, I'm not the greatest at sticking to a project or seeing something through to the end!

Friends, family and Bobbi Bear....watch me do this!!!