Run, Walk, Party.

 Oooooooh, what a week it's been since my last post! I honestly thought it had been a few days, so I was quite surprised to see it had been an entire seven. Let's have a quick recap of all the things I did in that time, mostly in picture form.

Last Saturday I ran a half marathon! It was at Dorney Lake, near Eton: home of the Olympic Rowing venue for London 2012. It was a relentless 4 laps in an equally relentless wind. Here I am in my ninja gear, ready to run!

My goal was to cross the line in under two hours, to beat my previous best (at my first half-marathon back in September last year) of two hours, two minutes... And I did! Final chip time was actually 1:56:14 (the silly Garmin auto-stopped a couple of times as I paused to gulp a drink). Pleased as punch, I was!

Later that night, following lots of stretching and refuelling with pasta, was the Vintage Mafia's Ric Rac Club. It was, as mentioned in my last post, a launch party for Style Me Vintage: Clothes, by my dear friend Naomi. It was an absolute triumph, and despite feeling my self-inflicted weariness, I performed my usual duties as the Ric Rac Raffle Mistress of Ceremonies and sent many guests home clutching prizes.

Viv the Spiv lent me a helping hand with the ticket jar (and in this shot I'm holding our infamous Pork Pie). You may also be able to see that I was, in fact, wearing my medal. I kept it on for most of the night! What you can't see are my leg-healing compression tights, which I wore underneath my gown. I wore the long gown on purpose, obv.

Find a lot of photos of the night on Hanson Leatherby's site, and look out for the official portraits which will be coming soon!

Accessorising is everything!

On Sunday, I had to give my mum her car back. I crashed mine last week, you see. My fault (even though it wasn't, a silly woman stopped in front of me). So I drove to the sticks and treated my aching gams to a scenic, countryside walk. They didn't thank me during it, but they loosened up a lot after. I highly endorse a recovery stroll.

Isn't England beautiful sometimes?

On Monday and Wednesday, various members of the Vintage Mafia were taking part in a slightly secretive project... one which we hushed up mainly because we didn't believe it would actually happen... but it did. The VM will be featuring in a forthcoming edition of Marie Claire Taiwan, in both a fashion editorial and an interview! We shot a mixture of our own clothes and some of the very, very latest designer gear, including the above Prada outfit, as seen on the front cover of this month's Vogue! I loved it, with its cut out lace and shirred, pleated, full skirt. I posted this composition on Twitter asking who wore it the best, and everyone was kind enough to say me (although several people said they hated the outfit). I'm just hoping someone designs a high street version that I can actually afford to buy.

On Tuesday, as every Tuesday now, I ran with Run Dem Crew. While last week, I thought I might be ready to step up into the Baby Cheetah pace group, this week I actually went down again to Fast Hares, to give my battered legs a slight rest. We ran to the 'secret' graffiti tunnels under Waterloo Station, and got a real buzz from tearing up the tunnel to cheers from the other groups, plus a buzz from the solvent fumes as well.

Photo stolen from cedric_sneer - I'm sure you can spot me, in my pink and throwing my horns. There is some really fun stuff happening in my life at the moment, and much of it is down to joining the crew. Nothing but immense amounts of love for RDC right here. If you're a runner, a Londoner, and a wannabe-RDCer, then please come and join us all on the special Leap Year run next Wednesday the 29th. It'll be super fun and only 3 miles, so perfect for beginners. Get involved!

 Last but not least, I went with my brother to a book-signing given by the legendary Chrissie Wellington - reigning Ironman World Champion and unbeaten in any race she has ever done. She is an absolute machine (and my fingers can vouch for that after her handshake), but is so tiny, friendly and smiley. She told me she loved my Jitterbuggin dress and I told her I loved her (not really, but I thought it). I did declare my desire to do a 'vintage' triathlon in a swimsuit and flowery cap, Pashley and so forth. She told me to let me know when I did... now I had better do it!

So that was my week. How was yours?

Fleur xx
DiaryofaVintageGirl.com