2019 - it’s a wrap!

QUICK STATS: run 1,565miles, bike 477miles, swim 59,230 yards. Races 7 

parkruns 30, parkrun volunteering 25, different parkruns 8 and fastest parkrun 23:57

January-  Ran the New Year's day parkrun double at Hanley and the Wammy; joined Derwent Running Club as a Social member, to help with my Marathon Training when it starts. We had the annual Family New Year's day meal and realising how much my nephews are growing up and a lovely birthday surprise weekend in Manchester for a cheeky parkrun and a visit to the Manchester Beer Festival….oh and how could I forget a haircolour change!! 

February - My marathon training began, my long runs were getting long!! WE had a girls night out to Bingo again, unfortunately, our luck had run out but we had a great evening catching up and it was the month of my best clean joke for a long time!  "I had a hen who could count her own eggs…..she was a mathemachicken"

March - The long runs keep coming and the aim is to run 18 miles before our week long holiday in Mexico, which I manage not once but twice so I could go away safe in the knowledge that 1 week of lower mileage would not hurt the training too much. Had a lovely week away in Mexico, we were testing out a few theories this holiday..was Mexico too far for a week's holiday, how was Cancun compared to Playa de Carmen and could I pack for a weeks holiday with just hand luggage! The holiday was both informative and successful in terms of our theories, the responses were; yes, no Playa is nicer and yes!! So no more waiting at the carousel of doom!

April - Early in the month means that I was getting into the tough weeks and my longest runs were coming up with a 20 one week and 21 mile a week later running to my parents' house on a very hot bank holiday Sunday!   It didn’t get any easier but knowing they were behind me was a comfort and that my miles would start to decrease helped to lift my spirits in the final mile. We decorated and swapped rooms around in the house, the carpet that had been down since we moved in finally went and both rooms got spruced up!  Our collective weight loss is becoming more and more noticeable and we had to take 8 bags of clothes to the charity shop!!

May -Can only mean one thing Marathon Month, but before the Marathon, we had the Market Drayton 10k and I managed a very respectable time of 50:29, I had secretly hoped for sub 50 but that wasn’t my A race so I let it go and carried on with the taper which should have been easy at a lower miles however it certainly didn’t feel like that.  Then before we know it were heading up to bonny Scotland and finally the marathon is here! 4hours and 3 minutes later and 26.2 odd miles and I crossed that finish line and yet again vowed to never run another marathon again…but I still wanted to run

June - After all the build-up, miles and hours put into training I was able to diversify my training again and with a Pool based sprint triathlon scheduled for September I needed to get back in the pool again que the 5:30am starts and being in the pool for 6am!

July - we are in the holiday season and we were heading back up to Scotland first to go to Rewind 80festiveal in Scone with another cheeky parkrun tourism and the commencement of our Scotland road trip in the campervan, we visited some lovely places and I got to swim in a Lido which was another first for me!

August -  The Hanley park renovations have finished and we could finally run the course 2B and start to use the bandstand again, shame they never did put the sides on it so we could use it as a shelter during the occasion wet Saturday parkruns….final bank holiday of the year before Christmas was an excellent opportunity catch up with friends and walk/wander and stagger the  Hartshill beer mile 

September- after much discussion about house renovations we decided to that wanted to update the garden and make it a haven to come home too and spend time in during the summer months (should we actually get some nice weather) so our GRAND DESIGNS garden work started and finished! I ran the Great North Run again and had a blast this is one of the best half marathons and one everyone should run and I closed out the month with the North West Sprint Triathlon.

October- We had a quick running weekend away to run the Bilbao half marathon and if it hadn't have been long I'm sure that I would have got a sub 1:50 but that is Brexit for you…also the realisation of the over the last couple of months starts to dawn on me that my running has really improved recently, my times are coming down which is great !

November- There was a brilliant weekend away with the girls to Wales and we saw our first snow of Winter 2019, we participated (very hungover) in Pont y Bala parkrun  and I finished in a very respectable 5th, to be fair there were only 24 people and we made up a third of them! I managed to actually get a 10 mile PB at the Derby 10k which I was really pleased with, but then got injured right after it!! Oh and I finish my contract in Nottingham and start to look for my next contact as well as updating my project management skills

December is all about going out with friends, catching up with friends and spending time with the ones you love! Oh and I ran my fastest parkrun in 6 years!!

Heres to 2020 and whatever not only the new year but also the new decade holds :) 

Me a PB surely not!

My last race of the season was in November and I got a PB to boot, the race was the Derby 10 mile. The other 10 mile races I have done are; Flying Fox 10 which is a beast and very hilly and Castle Donnington which was around the race track which was also decidedly lumpy in places, so I was looking forward to a ‘nice’ flat race for a change.

Training had gone well,  with being back at home there is a new morning routine as my familiar running routes are on the doorstep and  the need to run on the treadmill has gone. But with coming home my normal once a week treadmill interval session had ceased; before you start yes I know these could now be run outside….but I can’t find the motivation to do this outside at the minute.

November in the UK was a decidedly wet with record rainfall fell during the month which saw record floods across many parts of the UK rain, which included Derby!  But the Derby race director and team in the week leading up kept everyone up today with what was going on via email/Facebook about the state of the race route and they were confident that the race would run, but the route may need to be tweaked.

The alterations needed to ensure we kept out of the floods meant that course it was going to be rather dull; a couple of out and backs with a loop through a park or two. Although it can be quite dull at times out and back the nice thing about it is that you have an opportunity to see friends which does help to take your mind off things a little. 

The miles were ticking by nicely and the legs were feeling fresh and they had plenty of miles in them, I kept a healthy pace of around 8 min miling, on the first out and back it was an opportunity to look out for Sean and it was great to see him just around the 2 hour pacer, which I knew he would be been pleased with. 

We pushed on through the park and out along the dual carriageway which was the second of the out and backs and the front runners coming back towards us. There was no clear indication of where the turnaround was and all I could see ahead of me was runners so there was only one thing for it, to keep pushing on.  

When we did finally hit the turn around point there was a cheeky downhill, under the dual carriageway u-turn and back up the cheeky little hill before heading off back down the road.  This was my next opportunity to look out for Sean, which help massively to distract me and kept pushing me on, then he came in to sight and he was now in front of the 2 hour pacer which was brilliant, with shouts of encouragement and high five I pushed on the to the finish.

Having worked out the maths, I needed to keep going at this pace or a little quicker to get a 80 minute finish time.  The legs were definitely feeling tired now but each time I passed someone it felt like I gain a little more energy and it was the last corner just before another sneaky little hill and the finish line came into sight…my finish time 80:47 seconds.....BOOM…a PB by around 2 minutes 💥 and Sean finished his run in 1:49 well under the unofficial target of 2 hours 👍. 

What a great way to finish off the year!! 

Where have I been!

Is that the question you are all asking?  the year started promising with a blog post in January bragging about my walking 10,000 steps per day for the year and writing all about it….

No, I didn't get lost or just carry on like a walking Forest Gump...I managed 52 days in total, it was 21^st Feb that let me down, only 9,823 steps! I must have fallen asleep and forgot about my target because if I have known there would be been some pre-midnight house prowling going on. The next time I missed it was 28^th Feb and this time only 9,312 step…slippery slope.  

From then on in there was a definite decline in performance and it is much easier to say the number of days per month I achieved 10k a day:

March 14 days,

April  8 days

May  19 days

June 21 days

July 13 days

August 23 days

As you will imagine this is the pattern that has been replicated in my running, which for some time has been rather below par… 

I had fallen out of love and favour with running, the tight hamstrings didn’t help and neither did the long commute.  Now 45 mins to 60 mins might not seem like a long commute for some, however, for me it was too long and sometimes soul destroying; by the time I got home, a run was the last thing on my mind and running before work was not an option as I needed to start my journey to work early in order to miss all the static traffic. 

In May, I got a new contract 😊 , started work in Nottingham which was better as I could stay in Derby (Mon-Fri) and my commute was back down to 10-15 mins much more my style. Now my problem now was lack of familiarity with my surrounding and fear of getting lost in deepest darkest Derby City.  

However, I was able to continue my Gym membership with Nuffield Health, started going back to the gym again and if needs be I could use the dreadmills, although that might not be the best way to re-spark my love affair with running again.

Over the last few months, there has been progress on both my steps, my running and spinning; with my routine being spin class most evening, and every morning out for a 6am run with a quick shower at the gym and in the office for 8 ish.  I have even started to incorporate a short run interval session, which is something which you can do on your own, but for those longer tempo runs, I am going to need to find some company.

So my running goals are for the rest of the year are:

• Consistency  running ideally 4 times a week
• At least one quality run session a week
• Get up to 25 miles per week by the end of year

All of this is because I have signed up for Edinburgh Marathon (hence the tracker that has appeared on my blog)…which is something I never thought I would do again…..just goes to show how things can change.

One last thing, I promise to blog more....I have a few things coming up in the next few months so potentially lots to write about