Pictures!

Here are a few of the pictures from the half marathon we ran on Sunday in Nice.

 

In the beginning it was smiles all round.

The run!

WE DID IT! This morning we woke up bright and early at 7 o'clock and put on our bright orange tops and our running shoes for the half-marathon. We went down to breakfast and ate as much as possible to energise us (and to make the most of the free food...) and I drank a silly amount of coffee to try and keep me going. With 10 minutes to go till the time we were told to be at the start we left and headed in the general direction we thought we had to go in. We were an hour early so we passed the time by people watching and dancing to Duke Dumont to warm up, before joining in with the proper warm up routine led by an overly enthusiastic man who was thrusting rather ferociously.

Pre-run chic in orange.

WE'RE HERE (Nice day 1)

 Heaven. (picture taken on our tour of the city)

Yesterday, at 2pm, Ellie and I hopped on the train and 5 hours of coastal scenery later we arrived at our destination... Nice! After walking round what seemed like half the city, we finally found our hostel and were directed to our dorm, which is a mixed dorm of 16 people. Quite the experience, needless to say. We (obviously) went straight to the bar where we bought a cocktail each for 4 euros to help us unwind after our long and arduous journey and were offered free pasta for dinner with it. Absolute bargain! As we both have a fair share of course work to do we wolfed down our pasta and rushed upstairs to do some work before going out to experience the night life. While working hard we got chatting to some American boys in our dorm who were absolutely charming and invited us out with them, so after doing a little more work we went on our way to a bar called "Wayne's bar". It is brilliant! There was an extremely good live band performing covers of popular songs and everyone was dancing like mad on the tables. British health and safety would have gone mad! One of our new friends got a group photo taken, so once I have the opportunity to steal it I will do so and upload it on here.

Hurdle #10000

When my brother, Franck, decided to run two half marathons at the beginning of the year, all he had to do was sign up, train, turn up on the day and have fun. So you would think the same would apply in France. But no. This is France, where even the simple is not, in fact, simple.

How I imagine most French people react when naïve foreigners think things will be simple in France.

Let's start at the very beginning, A very good place to start...

Yesterday I was feeling very lethargic after waking up from a very long nap so at 7:15pm I decided to go on a relatively short run. I loved being able to run so late and it still be light and warm outside!

My original intentions were to start from the very beginning of our training plan, and run approximately 2 or 2.5 miles, just to get me moving and wake me up, but for the first time ever, once I had started I just could not stop! I ended up running 4.5 miles without stopping or walking once (which is a big deal for me, trust me) and I only stopped because I ended up feeling revolting because it was a little too warm, and definitely more than a little too humid.

After a month long break I was really pleased that A) I managed to run without my running buddy, B) I managed to run that far and C) that I didn't stop! A few months ago that definitely would not have been possible.

Today I didn't run due to feeling a little peaky, but tomorrow I will put my trainers back on and run like the wind, I might even not set a distance goal and just go as far as I feel able to (mad, I know) to see how far I am capable of without being egged on by Ellie. And Friday, despite being my birthday, I will attempt to do the same again. We're running out of time now so there is no time to waste!!

Marie x

We're back!

My oh my it has been a while! Ellie and I have really been slacking! I can't believe how quickly the last few weeks have gone. We now only have 21 days till the half marathon. That's THREE WEEKS TODAY! Excuse me while I go and hyperventilate in panic...

Ellie and I have booked our train tickets and our (surprisingly nice looking) hostel for the trip, now all we need to do is get our bums into gear and start training again! We (quite obviously) took some time off for various reasons I shan't go into, but now we need to hoik it up a gear so that we don't suffer too much when it comes to the actual event.

Sadly this is how I have started to feel...

7 miles is no small feat

If you couldn't guess by the imaginative title, we've hit the 7 mile mark! Yes, week 5 of the training programme and we’re halfway through a half marathon!

The run itself was nothing short of dramatic, we started slow, my legs felt stiff, Marie had a stitch and we had 4 miles of river to run before we could even contemplate turning back. So, we expected a slow and steady 7 miler and when we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere aka Gières, a suburb of Grenoble, with a unappealing view of a motorway we were overjoyed to turn around and run the 3 miles back home. Neither of us could really handle stopping, the pain and the loss of rhythm is all too much to bear these days, so we just kept running.

Incredibly, our pace increased from 11 minutes per mile to around 9 minutes a mile and as it turns out, it was our fastest run, completing 7 miles in 1 hour 9 minutes and 58 seconds!

But such grand achievements don’t come without sacrifice, I had to submerge myself in a cold bath afterwards which was truly truly horrible. In the words of Kate Bush « If I only could, be running up that hill, with no problems ».

Ellie x