Marathon Aftermath

Thanks to all people who commented with kind and encouraging remarks on my last post! When you can barely move becuase of the pain in your legs, it's quite a lift to see such nice remarks.

So, what have I been up to since the marathon? Not a lot. Firstly, I had to face up to going to work, as I was teaching on the 3 mornings after the race. On Monday I was exhausted, on Tuesday I had the worst DOMS in my legs, and by Wednesday I had caught a cold. Still, none of this was unexpected of course, and I was still basking in the joy of my acheivement, so it was fine!

I was planning to try a run at my local Parkrun on the Saturday morning, but I ended up being left in charge of the children, so I had to take them along with me and we volunteered instead. It was a sunny day for a run, but I don't think I would have been up to much and it might have been a good thing to have a few more days off.

Marshals

I finally ran again the following Monday, so the 8th day after the marathon. It was an early morning pre-breakfast run, but I quite enjoyed it - no pressure, just plodding along at whatever speed I felt like (which turned out to be 9.09 min/miles).

I had a similar plod out on Wednesday evening, which I really enjoyed as the weather was comfortably warm with a nice cool breeze. It was so enjoyable to not think about my pace and just run for pleasure.

The other activity I did this week was very exciting. A group of women have got together (through Facebook), and started a netball club! We had the first meeting on Monday evening and 30 women turned up! I knew 2 of them, and even then not very well.

It was a cool windy evening on an outdoor court. We all wore stickers with our names on, and started with a few warm-up exercises. It was a great mixture of all kinds of women - mostly Mums, aged from 20s to 50s, some obviously fit and sporty, others wanting to get fit and lose weight. The ethos of the group is to have fun and enjoy doing an activity together, with no emphasis on competition.

I was never sporty at school. I was good at trampolining and gymnastics, and I played a bit of tennis, but team sports were always something I hated. I couldn't stand feeling that I'd let other people down and I always felt like the weak link on a team. However, I thought that now I'm an adult, I might not worry about such things, and I should give it a try.

I'm so glad I did. It was great fun. We had enough players for 4 teams, so we played 2 matches at once. I ended up playing 'centre' as no-one else on my team chose that position! I was a bit concerned that this is a key role, but it was great for me - I had to be fast and keep sprinting up and down the whole time, and I wasn't allowed to shoot - perfect! We didn't keep score of the goals, but my team did ok, and so did I. Considering I had recently run a marathon, I was surprised by how quickly I got out of breath and tired. I also found I was aching the next few days - different muscles I suppose.

'Netball Nutters'

 So this is a new activity to add to my cross-training - netball once a week. I'm planning to get round to learning the rules soon, as I was quite clueless. Can't wait for next Monday!