Well I really enjoyed the majority of that..

Edinburgh has come and gone, all over in the blink of an eye! scary really after 16 weeks of training where every run felt tough, then slowly as the runs got longer they started to feel a bit easier and dare I say a little more enjoyable. Having said that I was really pleased to be done with the 2+ hour runs.

I had set my goals for Edinbrough which were twofold:

a) finish time with 4 at the start

b) still have the desire to put my trainers on and run again

To help me enjoy the run I had created an awesome music playlist, that I was really looking forward to listening too. It was an interesting mix of songs that I love both listening to very loud and singing along to in my car very badly! I'd purposely not listened to music too much in training and my long runs have mainly been listening to podcasts to distract me so listening to my mix was going to be a real treat.

Before my race, my training had really been turning a corner, with dropping around 10kgs and actually enjoying my running, my speed has started to pick up. So many people had started to question my seemingly soft target of a 4 something marathon.  

Did I achieve my two goals?

Goal 1: Finish time was 4:05 ✔

Goal2:  I really enjoyed the first 22 miles my songs where awesome, each one was a joy to listen to not quite singing out aloud but there was a lot of smiles, air guitars, air drumming and plenty of dancing hands. 

The weather had perked up which was brilliant as conditions at the start was awful, downpours and heavy drizzle then as the start got underway the rain dried up and it stayed dry for the entire run (despite the advanced weather warning!!) and finally the crowds where brilliant out in there droves clapping, cheering and telling everyone how brilliant they were.

But a marathon is 26.2 miles so what about the last bit….. last 4.5(!) miles were tough, it felt like I'd been handed a piano and to run into a headwind all the way to the finish!! 

There were a couple of walking breaks but I soon started running again. It helped to remind me that although this was tough, this was nothing compared with what Dad had to go through during his treatment.  When his last few rounds of radiotherapy were well and truly kicking his arse (excuse the Bowel Cancer pun), he continued to get himself to the hospital have his treatment because he knew that was what he needed to do to beat cancer.  

I also remembered telling him that his last few treatments were like the last 4 miles of the marathon, tough but you know you need to carry on because you don’t want to waste the first 22 miles…….

Eventually, I rounded the corner and the finish was in sight, halfway down the white runway to the finish I threw my hands in the air and even tried to smile a little!

I'd finished and yes I do want to run again, but just not marathons!

BHAG

Well as another year starts our minds turn to the goals we want to set ourselves for the up and coming year.  As I realized last year, I didn't actually commit any of mine to paper, so it is understandable that they fell by the wayside.  Having said that I did achieve a number of things and took myself out of my comfort zone, thanks to a last minute Thunder Run entry and the XC season.  But  I didn't pushed myself, in terms of pace, which is why I have been spending some time putting together my marathon training plan for London.

Last year a local marathon legend developed me a marathon plan which saw my achieve a goal of getting the qualifying time for London however, I seriously disliked the long rep's (5 minutes) and I started to loose a bit of my running mojo; I was just going through the motions which is never good. 

So this time I have decided to create my one plan, using some of the excellent sessions from last years  plan and adding some of the things I like to do as well to keep me engaged. I am going to be my own experiment and lets see what is going to happen!! 

As for my goals, they are here , they do scare me a little but you need to do things that scare you at times, so here goes......

Recycle or start a fresh ?

As December roles around, I'm already thinking about next year's goals and what should they be. This got me reflecting on those goals I had set for this year and I can't actually find any! 

I was convinced I had set some but it looks like I never committed them to blog paper.  So, is this like the tree that falls in the forest if no one see's it does it make a sound?  As I didn't write them down, was I really committed to them?? 

Ok so my unofficial targets were:

1. Set a new PB for the Marathon
2. Get a qualifying time for automatic entry in to London (GFA), 
3. Silver medal at the Potters arf, which means finishing under 1:45 on a very very hilly course
4. Go under 23 minutes for Hanley parkrun 
5. Set a shiny new half marathon personal best

Did I achieve all or any of these? 

Well, I set a new marathon PB of 3:43:28 ( goal 1) which gained automatic entry to Virgin Money London Marathon 2015 (goal 2).  Read all about it here

The rest sort of fell by the wayside, but perhaps we have unearthed the reasons why I didn’t achieve them because I did commit them to my blog, which meant I had nothing to prove and no-one to hold me accountable!

So my the big question is do I a) recycle these goals for 2015 or b) set these to one side and think of some new ones? It is clear I need goals but perhaps it would be an idea to stage them, rather than setting them all out in one go, use them to build on and improve my running??

Best get my thinking cap on