I AM A FULLY CERTIFIED RUNNING COACH!!!

I am now a certified running coach/trainer!!

I am very happy right now!! :-)

I already have found a once a week job teaching a beginners running course for an evening school called AOF and have another company called FOF interested in me starting up a course with them in the Spring next year!! Both courses will be in English as there really aren't any running courses in English in Copenhagen.

Woohoo!! Now to celebrate :-)

I haven't forgotten you!

I've been very  busy lately with running :-)

I'm training pretty hard for Valencia marathon right now!

I've been running a night tour on Thursday and a special tour for expats in Copenhagen on Saturday this week!

I've been to a meeting to set up a running training course especially for English speakers!

I've set up my own running group at http://meetup.com/copenhagenrunners!

I have been preparing for a blog running interview which is happening on Monday!

And I am in the process of arranging another running training course which will begin in the Springtime!

As you can read I have had a VERY busy week :-)

All this and I still don't know if I've passed the written exam and become a certified running coach. I 'should' find out tomorrow as it's the 14 days cut off point from when I sent it in..........

Ouch My Knee!!

I haven't been out for any long runs this week as my knee started hurting after I ran the Venindeløbet last Sunday!

For once it wasn't running that injured my knee. It had more to do with me slamming a door onto my knee cap on the Sunday afternoon!!

It really hurt :-(

I was supposed to run a corporation sightseeing tour on Thursday but felt my knee wouldn't quite be up for it so I missed out on a fantastic tour!

My knee seems better today so I'd better get back to my maraton training. I'm planning a half marathon sometime this week. Probably on Tuesday :-)

Venindeløbet 2011! (Friendship Run)

Today I ran 10k in the Venindeløbet 2011 down on Amagerstrand.

It's a womens run which I normally don't like doing as so many women that run these races only run once or twice a year so they don't have a clue about 'running races rules'.

The main rule being:-

If you need to stop and do up your shoelace, walk a bit, catch your breath, have a drink, scratch your bum, please run over to the right hand side of the course and make sure no one is behind you before you stop or start walking.

If everyone followed this simple rule races would be much more pleasant! As a woman myself I am allowed to say that very rarely does a man stop or start walking in the middle of the track.

Anyway I decided to run this womens race because it was at Amagerstrand and, as you may know by now, I LOVE running along Amagerstrand :-)

I did a bit of running coaching for my friend Alison all the way round. I had already decided not to try for my best time and to just take it easy and enjoy the run!

Alison (and many other women) were finding it hard going as the race was in the middle of the day and the weather decided for the first time in a long time to be hot and sunny just before the race started.
There was one water stop at 5k but I don't think this was enough.
I think the organisers should have taken note of the changed weather conditions and quickly set up a water stop at the 3k/8k point. This would have made the race a much nicer experience for many of the women.

As I was running slow for me I once again had another fantastic Amagerstrand run :-)

Alison and I sprinted the last 40 metres over the finish line together and finished in 1 hour and 4 minutes!

Running Coach Education!

This weekend I have been at 'school' learning to be a running coach!

It has been a very interesting weekend where I have learnt about all the different aspects of being a running coach. I have also meet some interesting people there.

Because I'm not Danish and the course was taught in Danish it has been very hard on my old brain :-o
Try concentrating in a foreign language for 8 hours straight and you will see what I mean!

I now have to write a written paper about my imaginary client called Erik who used to ski but hurt his knee. He wants to get back into skiing so has decided to run to build up the strength in his knees :-)

I have to write all about him and make up a training programme for him. I have one week to do it in.

I also have to do an online test mostly about physiology and anatomy by 25th September and then if I pass I will be a Certified Running Coach :-)

DHL Stafet!

I haven't written for awhile but am still running :-) I've just been busy with my new job and running coach studies!

On Thursday the Running Copenhagen team ran the Dhl Stafet. This is a very big event which is run over 5 days in Copenhagen and is also run in different towns in Denmark before the Copenhagen week. You run in a team of 5 runners from your work. This is the biggest team relay event of its kind in the world!!

Anyway we were missing a runner so I was going to run first and then fourth or fifth. I got to where I thought the start was but then realised it was still another 5 minutes away and I had only 2 minutes to get there. After a little pushing past people (well there are around 26000 people there each day, and the zeros are correct!) I made it to my start position just as the gun was fired. I think I went with the wrong people though and should have started 30 seconds later....opps!

So there I am running 5k with a baton in my hand and trying to get past all the walkers while the faster runners are trying to get past me :-)

I was having a great run! At 4k we had to run on a green carpet thing on the grass and this made the going very spongy which in turn was making my ankles twist around.

At 5k I run up to where the next person in my team was waiting and passed the baton over while cheering them on.

I then went back to the Running Copenhagen tent and managed to talk one of the other guides, Flemming, into running twice so I didn't have to. I was a little worried about hurting my ankles when I got to the 4k mark again.

All of us from the team then cheered Flemming on very much as he made his way round the course twice :-)

And so we all ate and drunk wine and champagne untl it got too dark!

Our joint team time for the full 25k relay race was 1hour and 59 seconds which is a pretty great time I think!