What a difference a week makes (and some sports drink and gel...etc)

Wow! I went for a gorgeous 12(ish) mile run this morning. I was a bit concerned about this after last week's 10 mile disaster. I was feeling tired when I awoke because I knew that I had to get up at 8 to go fit the run in, as there were two very important football matches on this afternoon. If I know that I have to wake up, my body tends to go into emergency mode which means that I keep waking up and panicking that the alarm didn't go off and that I've overslept by 2 hours. 

I was over in Staffordshire this weekend, visiting the Mother-in-law, so had to choose my route carefully as I was in a little village- I would have to circle the village around 5 times to cover the distance on pavement! Luckily I remembered that the old railway line has been sorted and the ground evened out, so it's lovely down there to walk the dog or go for a run or cycle. So I laced up my trainers and off I went.

I must say it was really lovely to be able to run surrounded by trees and fields and nature, and not having to worry about being run over. Nutrition-wise, I had some toast with marmalade before I went, and lots of water. I'd had gorgeous veggie lasagne with salad, potato wedges and olives followed by apple pie and ice cream the night before. But no wine! I took some SIS Go Electrolyte with me, which I sipped around every half hour and a SIS Blackcurrant Gel, which I had at around the halfway point and was just plain weird. SIS products aren't the most delicious things, but the gel certainly did the job and kept my energy up for the rest of the run; in fact I finished feeling really strong. When I got back to the house I took on some SIS banana rego recovery drink, which is by far the best tasting thing of theirs that I've tried. It's supposed to speed up the recovery process and I don't feel as achey as usual this evening, so perhaps it's working!

This has all left me feeling rather positive and given me a real mental boost, every now and then I fall back in love with running, and I'm deeply enamoured right now!