Originally published at ceriselle.org. Please leave any comments there.

As you probably have guessed by now, I managed not to die from doing the Race for Life recently.
I woke early, to make sure I was on the Downs for 10am, but managed to get there even earlier. Getting up at 8am on a Saturday to go running seems wrong.
Before I left the house, there was a very important thing still to do:

Decorate my back sign! The back sign is quite an important thing for Race for Life, where you say why you are running/walking/hopping/doing the worm.
Here I am with my back sign, dedicated of course, to my Mum.

I didn’t manage to take many pictures while actually running, so here are two pics I TwitPic‘ed to my Twitter

The Nivea boys doing a bit of a cheer routine to S Club 7 - “Reach”. With pom poms. Their mums must be so proud. (It was actually really funny though!)

One of my favourite fancy dress outfits! There was a lot of neon outfits worn, as well as a surprising amount of people wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I was dressed in joggers and a (Howies, of course) t-shirt.
Here’s a basic summation of each KM:
0 - 1 KM: Hey, this is pretty easy. I’m glad this is on the roady part of the Downs.
1 - 2 KM: Still going ok, my back is holding up pretty well considering…
2 - 3 KM: Ooh, starting to get a bit more difficult, but still running.
3 - 4 KM: ARGH PAIN PAIN PAIN - my back decided to give out, so had to walk
4 - 5 KM: Still in a lot of pain, trying to take Ibuprofen while walking, but managed to run the last half kilometre because there was no way I was walking over the finish line!
So I managed to complete it in just under 40 minutes. (Not sure of exact times, since I didn’t even get through the start point until about 6 minutes on the clock!)

Holding my medal for finishing the race!

I’m really pleased I did it, and happy that I managed to run most of it. If you would like to sponsor me still, the webpage is open until August, and that can be found at http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/hayley_c. Thank you so so much to everyone who has sponsored me so far as well!

Originally published at ceriselle.org. Please leave any comments there.

I wrote this message to my Facebook friends last night who I am trying to persuade to sponsor me as well, and thought I would share it with you as well Don’t worry, I’m not drinking wine at half 12!

Hello lovely people who have sponsored me, ones who haven’t yet done so, and those who can’t (don’t worry, I’m not going to guilt trip you!)

The run is next weekend, and I am of course training hard. Which is to say I am drinking wine right now. Shut up. Thats training.

During my training for this run, I have rediscovered that
a) my back really hates physical exercise.
b) sports bras were invented by sadists and
c) why I was never picked for the running things at school.

But, theres only one week of this hell, and then I will be back on the sofa, seeing what crap is on the Virgin box (ok, I still do that anyway) and feeling pretty damn smug.

If you haven’t sponsored me yet, and you would like to do so, please go to www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/hayley_c

xxx

Originally published at ceriselle.org. Please leave any comments there.

I’m a terrible person.
I promised the amazing people that have sponsored me (which you can do by going to raceforlifesponsorme.org/hayley_c (yes, I’m shameless)) that I would blog my endeavors in training, because it was sure to be hilarious, bearing in mind that I am very lazy, and I really hate running.
I’ve been describing my running style to people as being like Phoebe from Friends. Observe:

OK, so I don’t run that fast (I’d be dead by the end of the road) but the flailing, yep, I do that.

So I’ve been training now reasonably regularly (probably not as much as I should, but apparently I have a social life. And also I’m lazy) and yet I still don’t seem to be able to run for more than 10 minutes before dying because my back is going into spasms. (My original spelling was “spazums”, which makes much more sense)

Its not too long until the race, and I’m half looking forward to it, and half not. I mean, yay, I get to take part and help raise money for one of my favourite charities, but boo, RUNNING HURTS.

You still have time to sponsor me, I know I keep saying it, but please please do! I’m half way to my target of £250, and I’d love to reach that target by the race day. Head over to raceforlifesponsorme.org/hayley_c if you have a few pennies to spare.

Originally published at ceriselle.org. Please leave any comments there.

Ah, meme time. Not at all a way for me to procrastinate from doing something useful.

The very lovely Zoe gave me five words she wants me to explain more. The words she gave me were ceriselle, crafty, tea, Bristol, race-for-life (“hey, if I use hyphenation it’s one word :-P”)

So!

ceriselle
ceriselle is the name of my website (well, its a nameless site, thats the domain name. I get confused on that sometimes.) I’ve had this domain name for a few years now, and it replaced halcyonic.org. ceriselle is a made up word, from the French words cerise which means cherry and elle which is normally a female thing (its been a while since my French classes) I like it because its a very curvy word! And why is it in lower case? Because it just looks a bit odd to me when its capitalised!

Crafty
I’ve always been a bit of a crazy crafty lady. The earliest thing I can remember doing is some jewellery making when I was about 7. I don’t just mean threading plastic beads onto a bit of elastic, but making earrings with fish wires and head pins. I picked up jewellery making again when I was looking after my mum in 2005 (it was something to do in the day, not working is surprisingly dull!)

Tea
Tea is a massive part of my life. Honestly. I couldn’t make it through the day without at least 3 cups. I think the true addiction started in our final year at university, when I lived with Zoe’s husband James. We would take it in turns, along with another housemate Ed to make tea - we got through many many cups, especially around essay and exam times!

Bristol
I’ve written about why I chose to move to Bristol a few times, there are just so many reasons why I am here! My dad and his wife live about a mile away, quite a lot of my friends from uni live around here and its just so different to Chester (my home city) in so many ways!

Race for Life
Of course, Race for Life is an important thing to me at the moment. Cancer Research is something I support because my mum and both my grandfathers died from various smoking related cancers. (Its also why I hate smokers, obviously). Doing the Race for Life is my way of supporting a charity I like. The other charities I support are Macmillian and Help for Heroes.

If you would like to take part, comment on this entry and I shall try to think of five things I want to know more about from you!

Originally published at ceriselle.org. Please leave any comments there.

So my second week of training for the Race for Life has been non existant - I managed to catch Louise’s lurgy last weekend and have been feeling very sorry for myself! Hopefully with the clocks changing today, I will be more likely to go running after work, because it will be lighter longer.

My running pack arrived this week though, which is pretty quick. My number thing is lower than I thought - I would have expected more people to have signed up by now! The pink sheet is the back sign, which you need to decorate with the reason why you are doing the Race for Life. I want to make mine look awesome this year, but I can’t think what to do!

Sponsorship wise, I’m really pleased because I’m almost half way to my target! If you’ve not sponsored me yet, you can by going to raceforlifesponsorme.org/hayley_c

Originally published at ceriselle.org. Please leave any comments there.

Me in 2007, after the run in Chester

So after a year off (which was down to my move - when I was in Chester, the event was in Bristol, and when I was in Bristol, it was in Chester!), I have signed up for the Race for Life again.  I’m hoping to raise even more money this year, and if you would like to donate, you can do it through my page at raceforlifesponsorme.org/hayley_c.

I decided this year that instead of walking the course, as I did in Chester, I would try to run the entire 5k. Which scares me, since I’m not a running sort of girl. I was never the girl who was on the running teams at school. Instead, I was the girl they put into the swimming gala as a laugh (since I couldn’t actually swim properly) I thought I should probably start to train, and last night was the first time I had put my trainers on since last year (when I used to wear them to walk to work in)

I tied my hair up, clipped my iPod Shuffle on, and set off at an easy jog. I got to the bottom of the road, and thought “Hooooooooly CRAP, I’m gonna do this for 5km?!” I managed to jog/run for about 1km and a bit, before having to slow down, because my back was hurting so much. In total I did 2.5km, which was much more than I intended to do!

Today, my thighs and legs are aching like crazy. I ache so much! But hopefully the more training I do, the less I ache, and the more likely that I’ll do the full 5k!