Last post of the year !! Las vegas & Christmas

Well I thought I best writing my next blog as Ive been quiet for a few weeks with the busy time of Christmas & running.
So hear it goes since my last post I have been busy with running, more running & a holiday thrown in too.
Race wise I have competed in the Rock n roll Las vegas half marathon & had a holiday at the same time, This race is amazing & I recommend it to anyone, its a great well organised event & where else can you run with show girls, elvis, & even get married on the course!!!
The whole of the strip is shut down to traffic & you run the race at night which is a amazing sight.
I love this event & we were really lucky to have got the chance to meet u with two of our american running friends too :) & we had a lovely meal with them the next day so a big thank you to Robin & Hope & we look forward to seeing you both soon.
Race wise I was pleased with my time, I was hoping for a P.B but the very windy conditions put pay to this as it literally lifted me of the ground at one point on the course, I was still pleased to finish in 1:42 in 499 position out of 22,000.
My dad also ran in the half & he finished in 2:22, well done dad.
If any of my friends fancying doing this race in the future just send me a message & I will let you know the best places to stay & gamble at ;)

Since vegas I have been busy sorting more gear out for the Ocean floor race & sorting out my ECG as we have to send this to the organisers before they let you run.
This was becoming a problem for me as for some reason my doctors were not the most helpful & in the end luckily i have some good ultra running friends & one just happened to be a doctor & arranged one for me ( thank you so Much ) you know who you are.

Christmas time is also the perfect time to get some miles in & this year has been great especially as I got to run in the Sunrise to Sunset race organised by one of my running Denzil Martin.
The idea of this race is to just keep going from 8:30 in the morning to Sunset 4 ish.
The course is off road round a nature reserve in Lightmoor Telford & each lap is less than a mile & its hilly, muddy & wet!!!
I have been told since that this year was the wettest but the friendliest & the most fun.
I was lucky to have my brilliant hubby as my support & he had brought his camera with him (its great been married to a sports photographer) & soon enough he became the official photographer for the day & he stood for 8 hours + with all the other partners & helpers in the rain!!! u were all a great support & I'm sure we kept you all entertained.
I was using this race as a good training run for the Ocean floor race & set off at a nice steady pace & just kept going.
In the end I completed in 49 laps which worked out to 41.6 miles & yes looking back maybe I should of done 1 more lap to of evened it out to 50claps (thanks Ben & Dad for calling me a wimp lol) but I was happy with how I felt & I had no injuries to finish in 7 hours 21 mins in 3rd place overall (2nd female) a massive well done to Nivette Mullan who did 46.2 miles in her first ultra!! & I look forward to seeing you at the tr24.
The race was won by Justin Montague who had a amazing run to do 53.76 miles & a new course record.
Well done to my dad for doing the marathon in a time of 5:35 & helping Kate around.
A great event once again & me & my dad look forward to competing in some more of your races Denzil.

So as the end of 2012 gets nearer I must firstly say a massive thank you to Buff for all your support you have given me in 2012 & I'm sure all your help pushed me on to having one of my best running years to date & I'm hoping to have a even better 2013.

As for 2013 a massive thank you goes out to Amanda Boldy for giving me the chance to compete in the Ocean Floor Race with her , its going to be a epic adventure !!!

Aka Ninja 1 & Ninja 2

A busy few weeks !! Running & meeting friends.

Well what can I say, What a brilliant few weeks we have had !! Since I have been asked to compete in the Ocean floor race with Amanda I have been none stop with running, racing & planning
& literally driving everbody mad regarding this race & not had a moment to think or even get any Christmas shopping done! ( dont worry I will sort this ).

So where do I start well firstly I ran the Valencia Marathon on the weekend of the 18th November. Without a doubt this marathon has become one of my favourites, With a amazing friendly atmosphere brilliant location & the best finish to a race I have ever had the pleasure to run.
I completed it in 3:33 & I loved every minute of it especially running with the 3:30 pacers for the first half ( rather good looking spanish chaps too). What made it good for me as well was that my hubby was working at the event taking photos for marathon photos & my mom & dad were at the finish line to support me.
My dad ran in the 10k & he had a good run too but he wasnt to amused to only get a bag of oranges at the end lol !! no medal.  But he did get a dri fit tshirt beforehand & as it was only 10 euros to enter you cant really moan.
I highly recommend this race if anyone ever fancies doing this race let me know & I can point you in the right direction for a great hotel.

The following weekend we were away again, this time me & Ben travelled down to Amanda's & Karl's house for a weekend of raising funds for Macmillan/Ocean floor race, running & a little job of me doing a V02 test.
So where do I start on the Friday night we both finished work early to get down to the Macmillan fund raising pamper evening that Amanda had organised to help out.  As she had done all the planning arranging etc etc herself and I thought it was only fair to help out after all the hard work Amanda had put into organising this event. I was really impressed to see some lovely stalls there & lots of therapists offering treatments at great prices!!. I also got to meet some of Amanda's family which was nice & Im sure they all think im completey mad too!!
The evening went well & we raised £180 for Macmillan it wasnt as busy as we expected & I could see Amanda was a bit stressed about it been quiet, but hey we all had a good night & thats the main thing.
Saturday was a really nice day & I'm sure my hubby & Amanda enjoyed my V02 testing more than I did lol.  The V02 testing had been offered to me & Amanda free of charge by Advanced Performance
Cambridge & us been down for the weekend had given me a perfect opportunity to get mine done.
So a massive thank you to Advanced Performance for offering us this, even if I did look a sight in the mask in the middle of the store with people shopping lol.  Thanks to Ben & Amanda for taking photos of me doing this & videoing me too, I will get my own back on you both in the near future.
I was pleased with my end result & I was classed as exceptional which I was chuffed to bits with.  It will be interesting to see how Amanda gets on with hers in a few weeks time.
The rest of the day was made up of us visiting Cambridge which is a lovely place & somewhere that me & Ben had never visited before.
While wondering around we got a phone call informing us the Hereward way ultra relay that we had planned on running on Sunday had been cancelled due to flooding.  Which was a shame as we were both looking forward to it !! But hey you cant control the weather. 
When we got back to Amanda's I was asked if I wanted to have a go at INSANITY now if you dont know what this is check out youtube !! 
Amanda has been doing this for a while & I have been driving her mad about having a go at it and my god its hard work !! Give me long distance hard hilly muddy courses anyday compared to this!! But its really good & you can feel the benifits & hopefully in a few months I will see the benefits. I was so impressed with how good Amanda was at it & she put me to shame & I'm sure by doing this it will help us both with our core fitness & this must be good for carrying our backpacks for the ocean floor race in Feb.
After all the insanity madness we all went out for a lovely meal & a good old chat.  It was nice not to have to worry about getting up early the following morning now the race was cancelled.
Sunday now was going to be just a training run & we headed out early (not as early as I'm used too but early enough) one thing I have found out is Amanda is not a morning person & I am soo glad to have found this out now & not in the desert as she can be quite stroppy as we call it in the Midlands lol.  She snaps quite easily (she wont mind me putting this hopefully) where as im quite lively in the morning & chatty.  I reckon I need not worry about the snakes & foxes in the desert but I need to worry about Amanda strangling me instead to shut me up!!
So I have learned a early warning keep quiet first thing in the morning while in the desert!! lol
We ran a nice 13 mile run & had a good old chat.  I think this may have put both our minds at rest about some aspects of the desert race, it was a very enjoyable morning's run.
The rest of the day was then made up of more planning & making lists.
A really good weekend was had by us & once again me & Ben can't thank Amanda & Karl for the hospitality & welcoming us into there home again.  We look forward to seeing them both at our house for a weekend in January.

We have also picked up some more sponsors/supporters this week & I thank you all for helping us.

Firstly Chris Crabtree from Hope has arranged for us both to use there Hope head torches in the desert & Im sure Chris doesn't realise how brilliant this is for the both of us , but even more so for Amanda with her fear of the dark. ( I will do a full review on these amazing head torches a.s.a.p)

Another new sponsor it that of Bloc Sunglasses. Amanda wrote to them a few weeks ago in the hope that they may be able to help us with a pair of sunglasses each for the run to help protect our eyes from the sand & the sun.  Luckily for us Colin Pickering from the head office kindly sent us 3 pairs each which is amazing & really wasn't expected we are both extremely thankful.

New sponsor News Feetures socks

A couple of months ago I Contacted Feetures socks regarding maybe helping Amanda & I with some socks for the Ocean floor race as I had been lucky enough to have been given a pair to try at the Buff Lightning run this year.
To my surprise they were very interested & I had to forward some information to them & quickly they came back to me saying how interested they were.
So how did I manage to sweet talk a American company into helping us ??
My English cheekiness & charm obviously won them over & they loved the fact that I was running in the Rock n Roll Las Vegas Half marathon in December which fitted in perfect to meet up with them & collect the socks.
So this is how it started & yesterday I met up with Joe Gaither from Feetures at the race expo & he couldn't have been nicer & loved the fact we were 2 girls mad enough to take on the a ocean floor race challenge.
Check out www.feeturesbrand.com to look at the amazing socks & you can purchase them in the uk from Sweatshop.
Look out for my reviews on these socks soon .