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!

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

Walking to happiness...maybe...

Not really a post, but just wanted to share with you all one of my aims for 2018 #walkmore

My walking streak started on the 23rd December and so far I have achieved an 18 days; the aim to achieve 10,000 steps a day for 365 days with out a break 

It is a little boring wandering round the streets at night, it take me back to when I was a teenager!  But hopefully as the weather improves new routes should open up to me.

It does feel a little odd walking for walking's sake, you see a lot of dog walkers out there and I''m sure they are wondering what I'm doing marching down the street towards them, perhaps if I had a dog lead so it looks like I'm walking my dog... the only problems is there is no dog!

You may be asking why am I walking and not running, well I have a little niggle I am trying to recover from so running is off at the minute.