A few random thoughts out of the blue

So, it turns out that when I don't run much, I don't blog much either. Or maybe it's that when I don't blog, I don't run. Either way, very little of either has occured in the last 2 months - no blog posts and only one short run. Oops.

There's been a little bit of tennis though. A few lovely league matches out in the evening sun, for instance. Evening matches at the end of long summer days are basically what tennis was invented for, as far as I'm concerned. There's just nothing more lovely in the world.

Admittedly, it becomes slightly less fun when the matches are unfriendly - we've encountered some blatant cheating this season, including playing against a doubles pair who kept putting the same player in to serve, game after game. The weaker player of the two had only served once by halfway through the second set, but sadly when we confronted them, they just told us we were wrong. In un-umpired, un-refereed matches there's not much you can do about that. We still won, anyway. As usual, we've also come across our fair share of dodgy line calls, which usually make me laugh, to be honest. I mean, it's hardly Wimbledon - is there really any need to cheat?

Speaking of Wimbledon, this is the fortnight of the year when I pretty much never get anything done. Why would I want to do anything productive or useful when I could be sitting on my sofa watching white-clad warriors giving absolutely everything of themselves on the beautiful green lawn of Centre Court? As it happens, I've been too busy this week to see any tennis at all, but I'm making up for it today and I'm writing this while letting Serena Williams and Alize Cornet inspire me with an amazing 3-setter in the third round. I keep shouting at the TV - I'm not sure Lovely Husband is too impressed.

In other news, I'm really, really trying to eat more like an adult and a keen tennis player/runner and less like a student. After a long day at work it is just so easy to order a pizza or pour a huge pile of pasta into a pan, but it's become abundantly clear lately that, although I still eat like I'm in my early twenties, I don't have the metabolism I had then! I played doubles with a 13-year-old this week, who thought it was hilarious that I kept calling myself "old and slow" but next to her, I really felt it!

So I'm trying to introduce more fruit and veg and dismiss some of the junk from my diet. I've also noticed how little protein I eat so I'm working on that too - maybe, just maybe, living on carbs is why I'm always so tired…? I'm finding Pinterest and health and fitness blogs incredibly useful in finding new ideas for quick and easy recipes  - I've recently developed something of an obsession with sweet potato wedges, and this afternoon when I was suddenly really tired, I made a smoothie instead of a coffee. Well, the smoothie did have a shot of espresso in it…I guess it's all about baby steps.

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Good things that have happened this week

1) We won our first tennis match of the season! In fact, we pretty much demolished the second team 10 sets to 2. We were obviously terribly sporting about it afterwards, but we're all pretty chuffed about it, to be honest. One of my worst tennis memories ever is being decisively beaten by the second team three years ago. It hasn't happened again since, but they're a very good team so the possibility is always there, and it's great to have avoided disaster for another year. It was a great match actually. My partner and I had sooo much fun - we laughed pretty much right the way through it, which is the way I like to play doubles! I also fell over and accidentally did the splits.

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I did not look like Kim Clijsters. I wasn't even as elegant as Jelena Jankovic. I got laughed at quite a lot.

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2. I ran 9 miles this morning! 9 miles! And it wasn't even that hard! Only one more long run to go before the race, and I'm finally beginning to believe that I'm going to do this. I might even manage a respectable time. Whoop! Also, it was a beautiful day for a run, which makes me believe that summer's finally coming. Weeks and weeks of long days and light evenings, just made for tennis matches, barbecues and long walks and runs…am I getting too excited?

3. I've booked our hotel for the Great Edinburgh Run. We're staying near the castle, which means there'll only be a short walk to the start, and we'll be perfectly situated to do some exploring before and after the race. I can't wait!

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4. I've entered another race. My friend and I will be doing the Liverpool Spring 10k in Sefton Park on 4th May a week after the GER. I'm really excited about running with my friend, and Sefton Park is a lovely place to run so it'll be a fantastic day!

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Bling!

It's not just the race that's hilly

Training for a race entails some serious emotional highs and lows that I really wasn't expecting. In the weeks leading up to my last post I was getting increasingly depressed about how little running I was fitting in. On the day of my last run I was seriously down about how difficult and tiring it was to run 4.7 miles. Today, I ran my furthest distance ever  - and loved it!

I don't know what made such a difference. I was practising fuelling, so maybe it was the Shot Blok and water I was taking every 30 minutes or so. Maybe it was the fact that I stopped to walk every time I fuelled. Maybe it was the fact that, after a spa day and a lovely catch up with the girls yesterday, I was just less stressed about everything. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above. All I know is that I covered 7.7 miles and, even though I stopped to eat and drink twice (and for a loo stop!), my average pace was still the same as my last few runs because my actual running pace was about 15-20 seconds per kilometre faster than usual. Amazing. I'm so happy and I'm finally feeling positive about not only getting round the Great Edinburgh Run, but finishing with a smile on my face!

In other news, the summer tennis season starts this week. Trying to captain a tennis team made up of a mix of super-experienced club players and super-talented juniors (plus me) has been one of the biggest challenges of the last few years for me, and the team hasn't really done better than medium-well for the last few seasons. However, this year we've got a fantastic team and an enthusiastic new coach so I'm optimistic about our chances! This week's match is the "local derby" against the club's other ladies team, so we start the season with the Big One…the honour of our team is at stake!

Think training's hard? Try losing.

I am such a sore loser. Not outwardly anymore, fortunately. Outwardly I smile and congratulate my opponent and say all the right things. Inwardly, I seethe. I played a pretty important tennis match last weekend (important in my world, that is, not important in relation to Wimbledon or anything) and I lost in two pretty closely-fought sets. I was actually ahead in the first set but it all fell apart fairly quickly and by the end, even though I was putting up a good fight, I just wasn't match-tight or fit enough to pose much of a threat.

I was really grumpy for a while. Really grumpy. Over the last few days, though, I've started to appreciate the match for what it was - a good marker of my current level of play and fitness. I know where I'm at now, so I can make a plan for how to get to where I want to be. And the plan basically involves working harder.

The fact is that if you don't play matches, you won't be match-ready. If you don't get in the gym, you won't be fit enough. If you don't do the baseline drills, you won't make that forehand-down-the-line when you really need it. If it matters enough, you put in the work and the sweat and the time - and if you don't put that time in then it doesn't make any sense to be disappointed at the outcome. I've ditched disappointment and replaced it with determination to do better next time - which means training better now.