Week 10 – A week of milestones. And Ofsted!
If you thought the week in which Lissi had to prep for a half-marathon was stressful, strap in and lock down for week 10, it’s a doozy!
Week 9 finished on a massive high with all three runners clocking half-marathon distances in their final runs of the week, giving us our highest weekly total yet of a whopping 121.33 kms. The start of week 10 promised so much, with spirits high and a mini-taper for Daz and Wee before they attempted their longest runs yet at the MK 20milers (that’s 32kms), confidence was high. That was until Lissi received a call from school. At 10.30am. On a Monday…. That can only mean one thing – OFSTED. F*@#!
The stress needle instantly bounced off the red-line limiter of Mach 9 as Lissi went in to work her first 5 day week since Albie was born nearly 9 years ago. Anyone who has lived with a teacher during an Ofsted inspection knows there isn’t much time for them to shower or sleep, let alone squeeze in marathon training, the usual parenting rodeo or maintaining a running blog site! Daz kissed Lissi goodbye at Lunch time on Monday, and barely bumped into each other until Saturday afternoon for the weekly Gladiators family ritual. Sticking to the training plans for both Lissi and Daz was impossible for the usual weekday runs - both had registered 0kms by Friday! The bike came out of the shed and strength workouts completed, so Lissi was at least able to tick something off her training list and maintain some sense of sanity.
Thankfully, the ever-steady Weeman was still pounding the roads, getting it done and clocking up more than half of the 114 total weekly kms, amassing a huge 63km this week alone! He started what actually turned out to be a week of milestones among the chaos, with a Local Legend on Strava! I’m not revealing the where or the when in case there are any Strava snipers are out there reading this!
Lissi finally managed to lace up her trainers on Saturday. It was the fancy “race day” ones as she completed the Draycote 10km, having decided to do an 8km “warm up” first. Even this was an eventful Saturday, as Daz continued the single parenting week from hell and managed to squeeze taxi service in for swimmers, street dancers and footballers, before arriving to cheer Lissi home as she crossed the finish line. Timings were perfect, despite Lissi’s lack of belief in Daz’s mantra “everything will turn out alright in the end”!
Lissi at Draycote - overtaking the half-marathoners on the way to the start line as part of her 8km “warm up”!
As the weekend progressed it was Weeman’s turn to council Daz on a journey to a race event - this time in Milton Keynes as they tackled the MK 20miler. Despite the distance this was a timely reminder of one of the main reasons we started this – the social runs and the enjoyment of doing events together really helped to break up some of the tedium of wracking up the miles. On the way down, there was some loose talk of pace and what we were aiming to do. That all went up in smoke as the starting gun blasted off, and we got swept along crowds. Our first couple of k’s were basically us telling each other “we’re going too fast, we should really slow down”. We did manage to stick together through some of the professional photo shoots though, and it’s great to get some official “Team London 2025” action shots! Not sure if it was Daz’s heavy breathing, slow pace or just terrible chat, but Weeman then pulled the roadrunner “meeep meeep” and disappeared into the distance. Completing his 32kms in an incredible time of 3hrs 3mins, with Daz a very respectable 10 mins later at 3hrs 13mins. The milkshakes well a truly earned that day!
Daz and Daz at MK 20miler - shortly before Daz “meep meep’d” away from Daz!
This leads us to the final two milestones. Despite the lack of weekday runs (which would undoubtedly have led to our highest ever weekly total), we still amassed 114km, taking the three amigos over the combined distance of 1000kilometes! We might need to start paying road tax for the wear!
And now time for the big finale, le grand fromage! The huge news that I’ve made you read this far for, is that
we hit our target!!
Huge thank you to everyone who has donated so much to such a worthy cause. Asking people to part with their hard-earned cash has definitely been the least fun part of this whole escapade and something that doesn’t come easily to the three of us. People have been super generous, smashing our 2,000 target for the Teenage Cancer Trust with weeks to spare. Special mention to Kimbo – timing his incredible donation to perfection and tipping us over the target. The front row union remains as tight as ever. Legend!
KM Counter:
Weeman: 63.47
Lissi: 18.51
Daz: 32.35
Weekly Total: 114.33 (thanks to Wee!)
Total: 1013.96