Day 27 (x2)

The Derwent dam, overspilling. It's the dam used by 617 Squadron to practise for their Dambuster raids in the Ruhr valley in Germany during WW2.

Tip's memorial. Her master, Joseph Tagg, was from my village, Bamford and my local pub is on Tagg's Knoll so I've always felt a little proprietorial towards them!

Slippery Stones - we swim in the river up here in the summer but the water looked a tad chilly yesterday!

I'm stiff as a board today....I went for a long run yesterday then had personal training this morning which was v v v sore! Usually I would have a rest day on Monday but this weekend it all went wrong so I ended up using my rest day for my big run - not going to make that mistake again!

The run was fantastic though. I drove up to a visitor centre in the middle of a sequence of reservoirs and then ran round 2 of the 3 reservoirs. It's a total of 11 miles, partly on the road and partly on cycle tracks and it's beautiful. Not mega hilly which is a plus for round here; there are hills but nothing too massive, just steady ups and downs. A perfect training run. I think it'll be good to do it a few times to see if I'm improving.

I did it in 1 hour 50 minutes so there's hope that with some serious application I might be able to beat 2 hours for the half marathon. But more realistically, I'm looking at 2 hours 10 minutes!

There was one poignant moment when I found myself doing my warm up stretches next to the memorial to Tip, the sheepdog who stayed out on the moors beside the body of her master for 15 weeks one winter back in the '50's. It struck me as aptly karmic that I was training to do a run for the stray doggies of Sheffield and was starting off next to a memorial to one of the most loyal, mans' best friend creatures ever! Soppy but true I'm afraid. I think the pups have made me a tad sentimental...hopefully I'll outgrow it eventually.

Foodwise, not too bad. I'm still eating too much but not massively bad and don't appear to be gaining. I'm going to use the 4 weeks without a husband to good effect and have a big push to shrink then just concentrate on maintaining while he's home. It's just nicer to be able to eat together and have the odd drink with the old man and not have to be so boringly sensible all the time.

It's weird too - I've started to think about what I'm going to do after I finish the half marathon..... I don't have any great desire to do a full marathon (just don't think my physique is suited to that distance to be honest - don't want to knacker knees or hips) and I think I'll get stale if I just keep on running (a la Forrest Gump) with no aim in mind. Think it's going to be cycling or canoeing/kayaking. The former is easier but I've always fancied trying the latter....hmmmm