A stressful couple of Weeks - Part 1

Over the past couple of weeks I have been awake at the 'blogging hour' on very many occasions but as luck would have it my laptop hasn't been!. We suffered a serious melt down of the technical kind so I have been unable to blog so there is a little catching up to do.

As far as the running is concerned I have continued my endeavours to increase my speed going more for quality than quantity but as appears to be the norm, it gets no easier!. Yesterday I managed intervals of two and a half minutes at 8.5 km with a one minute walk in between, I kept that up for 15 minutes - really not very long at all. I'm trying to do some 'muscle strengthening' exercises too but rather than helping it simply seems to have increased the size of various parts of my body so that my already sparse wardrobe has become a simple choice of a pair of black jeans or some jogging bottoms. I appear to have burst out of everything else with about as much finesse as the incredible hulk!. The problem when you continuously see no improvement is that there is little to encourage you back into the 'running tights' day after day and it just gets harder and harder. Anyway, there is a date, a finite number of days to reach my goal, I know that I can and have at the very least 'loped' for 13 and a bit miles so I will continue in my efforts and somehow get round on September 15th.

Now, a couple of weeks ago at work, a job came up that I have wanted to do for quite a while now. Without really thinking and because time was quite tight, I applied. I spent hours and hours on the application form determined to give it my best shot. I managed to get an interview which due to the Bank Holiday was at quite short notice and allowed me no time at all to pick the brains of anyone who might have a clue about what they might ask.  I was styled and coached by Jan who gave me invaluable advice on the more general questions as well as a large portion of her wardrobe and I spent the majority of a very lovely Bank Holiday weekend indoors, trying to digest the rules and regulations related to the subject in question. I shall spare you the suspense ... I didn't get the job, but I did ok - didn't come away feeling like a complete prat or wishing I had never put myself forward in the first place. Despite not getting it the experience was quite a positive one. It was though a really scary one, it wasn't until I had got the interview that I thought about how long it had been since my last interview and it was many, many years ago. It wasn't until the days and long nights preceding the day itself that I realised the true value of the 'slightly mad' challenges that we set ourselves and achieve throughout our lives. The times I said to myself 'Of course you can do this Viv, you've completed a marathon for heaven's sake' and it really does make anything (with the exception of possibly of a triathlon) possible. Got me thinking just how important it is for our young people to see themselves achieve in something, anything. How many of our kids leave school feeling that they have never actually succeeded in anything at all. I have spent all my life trying to be good at something, trying to get someones attention because when you're not good at very much you don't tend to get noticed by anyone but actually, it's not about 'being good' at something, it's about setting yourself personal goals and achieving them, so that when you do need to be good at something you have positive experiences to draw on to give you belief in yourself. I wonder if teachers are taught that in their training, I don't believe any of mine were and sadly I don't believe any of the ones I have come into contact with my own children were. I hope in time that changes, so that it's not just the brainy, the loud, the ones with 'teacher worshiping' parents or the 'teacher worshiping' children that get noticed. I hope that in the future teachers are taught to make a point of noticing the quiet kids in their class so that they don't get to 55 before they realise that they are valuable too.