Week 2 of 16 on this crazy journey-January 10th 2012

Hi everyone, evidence that I survived Saturday's long run is right here in front of you in the form of my blog-what do you mean someone else could be posting it...no it's me in the flesh-well me, on the keyboard. Saturday's 12 miler done and dusted....hang on not so quick, I want, no I need, more than one line to recap that ardourous trek-time escaped me during the week,  and so I didn't find a different route than the last Saturday's ten miler-so off I went last Saturday up the Kilclean road-again-and all the hard bits from previous week were once again difficult (that first three miles is not for me...what to do on that one??? Answers on a postcard to 'SheWhoHatesFirstThreeMiles', Lough Derg, Pettigo, Ireland) -anyway reaching the six mile turnaround point was not awful-unfortunately Roads Services must have tilted the road to about a 30 degree angle for the return 6-7mile-tough, tough, tough-huge thank you to, I think, Pilgrim and Local Gerl, Jo Lynch, who beeped her horn like a mad woman while I was on my 6-7 mile return journey-really spurred me on (momentarily) but was sure she'd have turned the car around and cheered me on the whole way home-but I guess she was going shopping to McElhinneys on a Saturday morning. The rest of the return wasn't too bad-stupidly brought a little hand-held water carrier with me on this run filled wtht diluting orange juice in it-no no no-not to be recommended. Got home 110 minutes after I left-glad to be done-that's a massive understatement but there's so many superlatives and there's 14 weeks to go-no doubt tougher weeks so we'll save them! Home and stretched I then hit a massive low...energy sources were depleted-two little bananas for breakfast just didn't cut it-was now 2pm and couldn't eat anything-not feeling too hot at all:(  Have in meantime read up a little on nutrition and as a Veggie Runner (no wisecracks please) I'll need to watch this one carefully-get in the right balance of carbs etc-there's a minefield of opinions out there-but will try and at least get some kind of sports drink for this week's long run of 13 miles and see how I hold up. One massive mercy in it all-ankle holding up okay. Last week's 3 miler on Thursday  was not pleasant -left me feeling quite disheartened but few friends have since advised me not to worry too much on this one. Hit the gym last night for spot of cross training-how enjoyable-seriously just be doing my normal routines of cross trainer and bit of weights-I can see Mondays being my new favourite day of the week. Today, Tuesday is sprint day-thankfully no hailstones-but the laps today demand 1200 metres-4 times...yikes! Bring it on.....Thursday's 'tempo' run -still not really grasping that principle, is 5 miles so will be running out the Lough Derg road from office at lunch time-and thankfully have found a new route for the long weekend run which takes me up to 13 miles (half way there). Might not happen until Sunday however as we have our 'Christmas' staff dinner on Friday night-enough said! Another few-yes only a few, donations this week but up to a fantastic €1600 approx-only need to average €1200 or so a week to make my target of €20,000. Words of support or advice.....or indeed any words, funny words, silly words, kind words really are making a difference. Until next week...