Wednesday, April 29: Success at last.

I finally managed to get out of bed to get in a run before work. In fairness the beautiful, bright morning did a lot to motivate me, but I am applauding myself nonetheless.

So have I launched a new AM routine for myself? I don’t think so. Charged as I was by my ability to exert myself in the early hours, it was twice as hard as normal and I only did half my normal run. I was tempted to go for a little nap when I was finished, but deadlines loomed so I had to get to work.

The Catch 22 of not eating too soon before exercising yet lacking any ‘fuel’ in the early morning, leaves me with a bit of a conundrum. As I have already shared, I am now dedicated to a more varied, healthy diet that involves cooking meals.

On Wednesday, I was utterly starving when I got home from work and so decided to put the wok to work immediately. One large stir-fry later and I was suitably stuffed. But as I succumbed to a state of post-ingestion comatose, it suddenly occurred to me that it was getting dark and if I was to get my run in I had better do it quickly. All was fine until 1km in when I started to feel a gravitational pull, as if I was trying to run with a sack of potatoes in hand. Clearly, I need to find a balance between eating nothing before training and eating more than I should and running on an overflowing tummy.

They say pigs sweat, men perspire and ladies glow, and I was glowing like a beacon on Tuesday at my cardio-kick class. We all were. At first we thought it was just the fine weather, but when we were all ‘glowing’ like farm animals before we had finished the warm-up we knew something was amiss. It turns out some comedian had switched the heat on instead of boosting the much-needed air-con.

Little Sammy is due home for a visit from Chicago next week and I am so excited to see her. She is my little reason for doing the mini-marathon and while one might think it will encourage a very productive week’s training, I’ve a feeling I’ll find it hard to spend time away from her - I may just end up taking her with me.

Next week: With Sammy in Dublin on a visit will Elaine push herself harder or will the family gatherings make it even more difficult to hit the track?

As mentioned above, Elaine is running for her niece Sam. If you'd like to donate to Elaine's charity, email runningforsammy@gmail.com. You can find out more about Children's Interstitial Lung Disease here.

- Elaine Roddy