Friday, November 28, 2008

Not Alone!

As of 11.12 this morning, two people are officially registered for the Prague Half Marathon and running for the sake of IBTS!
Two, you ask? Yep! Anna Cheprasova (Russia), an IBTS Master of Theology student, has joined the ranks of those (me) running the Jubilee Jog through Prague! She's not only a co-runner, but an inspiration as she's a keen sportsperson and could probably run a full marathon tomorrow, on one leg! (Perhaps not)
Nonetheless, it's a great encouragement for me to keep training and it's one more who really loves this seminary and wants to help out!
If you haven't already, would the addition of my dear Russian running partner help you decide to sponsor us as we jog through Prague?
(I do apologise for committing the worst Blogging crime of going weeks without posting - It won't happen again!)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The World Wide Web and Neighbours in Nebušice

The guy at the fitness centre (well, fitness room) who has one set of workout clothes, must have gone shopping. This last visit instead of his brown jogging pants and matching sleeveless t-shirt, he sported red, white and blue striped MC Hammer pants and a non-descript faded blue shirt.

It made me think - just because his name may be Jiří, doesn't mean he can't speak English, that he doesn't spend his evenings in his flat in Nebušice searching the internet and doesn't mean that he hasn't located my blog and realised that it was him of whom I was slightly disgusted that wears the same clothes to workout each time I see him. Oh dear... Oh well.

Hello, Jiří or Tomáš or František!

Monday, November 10, 2008

A Pan of Brownies & a Steady Pace

Agh, the depression has hit. Perhaps it's not typical of those attempting to run a long distance race for the first time, but it has proven true of me. Partly this is due to the short days and partly due to my feeling that I'm not progressing much in my running regime.

Today I hoped to wake early and run, but this ended up being waking early, hitting 'snooze', waking again, hitting 'snooze' and so on. Option two was to run after five - looking at the sky around four I thought it may be possible, but as seventeen hundred hours approached and darkness blanketed this second option was smothered.

I arrived home, ate a small piece from a half pan of leftover brownies, turned on the last bit of 'EastEnders' and debated what my next move was. Chewing on a bit bigger piece of brownie I began contemplating a visit to the small gym up the road. Getting comfortable and not able to turn off 'EastEnders' before the episode ended with Jack Branning being arrested (falsely?!?), I grabbed a much larger piece of brownie to think through the timing of buses up to the gym and back. Completing the pan of brownies I realised the combination of a full stomach of brownies and running 10K on a treadmill wasn't the best, I packed my bag for the gym.

The brownie indulgence ended up not being too much of an interference to my somewhat boring run on the treadmill. However, a few words from a more experience runner - "it's not so much the distance and speed, but find your pace and run" (or something like that) - had me moving my speed up and down until I found what fit perfect and was it not for the closing hours of the gym, I could have run for quite more than I normally would! So my last few days of depression about running is looking up a bit.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Boss of the Year Award

From 15.30 - 16.30 yesterday our telephone and internet service was unaivalable at the seminary due to some necessary and planned work.

Realising my frustration of finding times to run when it's not dark in the evenings, raining or so early in the morning the moon is wondering why I'm up, my dear boss pushed me out the door to run at that time!

I like to think of this eagerness to get me out of my office was more because he's supports my ambition to run for the cause of raising money for IBTS, rather than to get rid of his PA for an hour or so!

Nonetheless, I would happily nominate him as the BlueRibbon winner of all Bosses!