Guerilla Knitting and Chocolate Carrots

The last couple of weeks have been a frenzy of preparation for the eagerly anticipated quiz-which-turned-into-two quizzes that Iain posted about last week! Because we never manage to learn that everything we do takes much, much more time that we think it will, the organising venues, questions, prizes and raffles has meant that I haven't managed to squeeze in a blog post for a while, but I must as I've got loads of pictures and news to share!
Big news to start with: my lovely friend Claire, who I've known since we both studied Biology at The University of Bath, was victorious in her conquest of the Bath Half Marathon on the 3rd March! Claire not only achieved a superb time of 1:55:52, but in support of TEAM!, she raised a fantastic £260 for Diabetes UK. I am so touched by Claire's huge effort and proud of her magnificent performance: Thank you so much Claire!! x x

At the last TEAM! meet we discussed some ideas to help make us visible to our (we hope) numerous marathon-day supporters and whilst elephant costumes would certainly tick that box, we settled on the idea of 'branded' running caps. 
After an exhaustive, several-hour search, I finally came across the perfect hat - but it was from last season's collection and no longer on general sale! 
Brooks, however, were very helpful and made a special effort to help me get hold of some and even let me sample one free of charge to make sure they'd fit the bill (see me road-testing it below). It's uncanny how Iain's TEAM! logo of white border and purple background is reflected in the Brooks hat - almost like it was made specially for us! 
As with the laces, Mum and Dad are donating the hats to TEAM! and I hope everyone will wear theirs with pride - I shall get them out to everyone in good time for dress-rehearsals when I've sorted out how to get 'TEAM!' in big letters on the front, which is easier said than done... answers on a postcard please.

A week last Sunday saw Iain and I battle the 20-miler for the third time and it doesn't seem to get any easier. There's still the niggling thoughts of 'How the hell am I going to add another 6 miles to this?' as I shuffle up to our front door at the end, and I'm not relishing the prospect of the last two 20-mile instalments. 

Iain used Cadbury's Mini Eggs as running 
carrots to coax me the last 400m :-)

I was also using this run as a decision point for the rest of my training: If my knee became swollen again after the run, then I would drop down to the FIRST Novice Plan for the rest of the training. 'Thankfully' there wasn't a great deal of swelling so I couldn't give myself that get-out and I shall hope that continuing the 'Sellotape and Clams' regimen will see me through. Incidentally on my most recent Physio visit I was told that not only are my butt and deep abdominals doing little to nothing to help my legs run, but now it has been discovered that my calf muscles are too long and not helping matters either. Quite how I can even get out the front door using only thighs and quads is beyond me but goes a long way to explain why I hate cycling up hills and why I quickly get lactic build-up when I climb stairs. I'm wondering if I'll get an extra-special marathon medal for finishing it in the most inefficient way possible?

To finish, here are some pictures from the latest 20-miler that added a new-to-me section of the Thames Path. An exciting highlight was the Guerilla Knitting cheering up the otherwise fairly Derelicte landscape of East Greenwich and Charlton, and I saw The O2 and Thames Cable Car from a new perspective:

Back to the quiz...