It seems that early autumn is when I think about my blog. Though this year it's a little earlier than it has been in previous years. Running wise it's been a funny year. I got a VLM place in 2015 but unfortunately had to differ until this year. In the early part of the year I rediscovered my absolute love affair with running. I just couldn't get enough, and I loved it. It took a while time to relise that I couldn't knock out faster runs but the distance came back fairly quickly. Then I discovered blisters and later worked out that not all size 7s are actually equal. Some are euro 40.5 some are 41's and in my case, the former seemed to be a tiny bit small and were the source of my blisters. So there's a anal runners lesson in there, always read the label! Which is tricky when you're buying online!
That was one of dark points.
Training was made much easier by the fact that I was running with other people. People discovering that they could do remarkable things by putting one foot in front of the other.. Pretty cool really. And then there was the Couch to 5k crowd. One of them has made the transition to a regular runner and on Sunday will finish his second half. I love that. I love running with others.
Marathon day was a great occasion as it always is. Having done it before it was less intimidating than the first time and I decided that I'd run with Rachel who I'd trained with a lot of the winter and by luck we managed to get in the same start. It's fair to say she didn't have the best day and the injury she'd been struggling with for a few weeks came back and hurt. By about 8 miles in she was in quite a bit of pain, so obviously the only thing I could do was run off after my own time, sorry Rach. I knew that I wouldn't be in PB territory as I'd missed too many long runs but I was pretty confident I'd get round and so my mission was to enjoy it and high five as many kids as possible. As I trudged along embankment towards Westminster, I realised that I'd be pretty close to my 2008 time and hopefully a bit under. Maths is not my strongest subject and maths after 20 miles is certainly HARD. But as I turned that famous last corner on to the Mall I finally worked that I was very close to being slower. I've never ran so hard as I did in those last few hundred meters. But I did beat my previous London time by 3 whole seconds. Ha ha
Then came the post London apathy where I couldn't really face pulling on my trainers. But about May I decided that I was not going to waste all the work. I got out with a few friends and did some trails in the local woods, then increased the distance a bit to do a few runs in the half region.
I've managed a new PB on a 5k and I've got a half marathon coming up on Sunday.
So running wise it's not been a bad year really. Looking at my Strava stats I seem to have run nearly 500 miles so far this year. Not too shabby really... And I think this winters going to be good for running.
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