I’m writing a blog today because my muscles – specifically my gluteus maximus muscles – are super DOMS-y from Becky’s new weights routine, and consequently I’m no good for much else but sitting down.  Tuesdays are now more varieties of squat than I even knew existed – including some olympic lifting that involves me *stamping* my feet into the floor while trying not to chin myself with a heavy barbell; and Fridays are hamstring curls and lunges.  Yep, my butt is sore in places it didn’t know it had places, already, and it hasn’t done the weekend long run, yet.

I’ve depressed myself by looking at my Training Peaks data.  Training Peaks doesn’t think I’m working *nearly* hard enough and I’ll be lucky to survive a marathon.  But then, I’m not following one of their training plans and they don’t know what our plan *is*.  So yah, boo sucks to them! Actually comparing my year on year data looks like this:  this week last year, I’d spent 2 hours 30 minutes running 13.3 miles; this week this year, I’ve spent 2 hours 40 minutes running 13.6 miles.  Pretty similar, so far.  This week last year, my fitness was rated at 28.6, calculated by training load.  This week this year, my fitness is 27.8 (actually that’s last week’s number because I haven’t finished this week yet).  So all in all, I’d say my chances of surviving a marathon seem pretty good, based on the fact that it was OK last year, and this year I’m not going to injure myself by running two half marathons in a single week, like a big tw*t!

So having conquered Training Peaks, my mind skitters to fundraising. I’m planning a fundraising karaoke quiz night on 17th March.  I’m off to see Dash this week to get some bits and bobs, and a letter establishing my bona fides, and then I plan to approach local businesses to see if they will donate prizes.  So here’s where you come in (twice, actually…).  If you are one of my many wonderfully creative or entrepreneurial friends, would you be able to donate something I could offer as a raffle/quiz prize?  It would be so lovely to be able to use this opportunity not only as a fundraiser for me, but as publicity for people I love… If you can, please get in touch either via here or Facebook…  And if you can’t offer prizes, or come to my fundraiser evening, then please consider sponsoring me, here.

Thank you all! I love you from the slightly sore bottom of my heart!!