Hello world!

I started running in 2018 from a combination of my husband Stephen being a keen runner and reading a few books from people who successfully put across the idea that you don’t need to be super fit, super fast, or super organised to have fun running, most notably Vassos Alexander.

I did the ‘couch to 5K’ programme and successfully completed my first parkrun, and stuck with doing more parkruns for a few months. Then I thought it might be fun to have a running medal as Stephen has so many, so I entered a 5k race and the medal was duly achieved.

Following this I have become a keen parkrun tourist, and achieved my goals of doing my first 50 parkruns at 50 different venues, making me a member of the Hoffman club, and followed this up by doing with same thing with my first 100 parkrun which made me a member of the Bailey club.

It’s good fun to visit other parkruns, and luckily we do have a good few within a reasonable journey, plus picking out interesting parkruns while on holiday is fun. I remained unwilling to push the distance any further than the 5k as I am very slow and tend to use run/walk intervals also known as Jeffing after Jeff Galloway who made the idea popular among runners.

I’ve often watched the London marathon, and of course supported Stephen when he ran it, and have enjoyed seeing the slower runners and the fancy dress costumes people have, and just the whole ‘feel good’ feeling that the more casual runners seem to enjoy, but I never had any serious intention of trying that sort of distance in spite of one brief blip when I ran a quarter marathon to see how it felt – the answer was very tiring, with a lot of aching afterwards.

However for some reason I felt inspired to enter the public ballot this year, which is over subscribed by a ratio of about 40 people to each available place, so you can imagine the look of horror when the email arriving saying I had been successful.

Of course I could have just not paid to confirm my spot, but I felt it could be something I regretted if I didn’t attempt it.

With Stephen’s enthusiastic assistance we have started to put together a long training plan, starting with just increasing the number of times I run each week, and then gradually increasing the distance, with various races planned later into the programme to give me some goals to aim for along the way, and a focus on increasing endurance for what is going to be a very slow effort taking much of the day.

I feel I am more suited to just training to get around the route and run the distance without worrying about increasing my current running speed. Last weekend I braved the rain and high wind to complete a slow and steady 10k, where I was pleased to stay at a fairly steady pace and even speed up a little near the end, with only a few twinges in the days afterwards that are no worse than after my shorter runs, and my first 10k race will be coming up shortly!