A steady week on the training front – about the same as last week, although I’ve started doing 2 x 40-minute lunch time runs with my colleague, James, to keep me on my toes. It’s still very hard on a day-to-day basis to see my improvements and how far I’ve come with my training and fundraising. However, two things happened this week to lift my spirits.
First, thanks to the cake-baking efforts of my old friend Clare, her daughter Teagan and their friends based in Ireland, a further £160 was added to my fundraising total, and a couple of other friends also contributed to my fundraising efforts, so I am nudging closer to my target.
Second, I had my six-weekly training session with Rory Coleman, based in Derby, on Saturday to gauge my progress. The results were good – overall, despite the weight loss, I’ve gained about 1lb of muscle (without taking any supplements) and dropped my body fat from a starting point of around 24% to around 18.4%, which means that body-fat wise I’m now in the body fat range for an elite female athlete (someone better tell the rest of my body to catch up fast). Celebrated in time-honoured fashion with a good old-fashioned pig-out when I got home. I wasn’t called “Gannet Goldthorp” for nothing as a child. Just hope that I haven’t undone all that hard work in the space of a few mouthfuls!
On the Sunday made up for my sins by going out for a 2-hour run to burn it all off.
Next week is a new week and new targets. Now I’m focusing on the Nottingham Ultra in a couple of weeks’ time.