Wrapping up September

Final run for this month done. A fairly comfortable 10k in just under 68 minutes.

What a month it has been...

Started with a rotten cold and didn't run at all during the first week. By the time I sat down to type this, despite that set back, I'd managed 14 runs covering a total of 92k. In those 14 runs, I managed four 10k runs and a further five 5k runs.

My 10k time fell from just under 74 minutes to 67 minutes, and my 5k time fell from 32:36 to 30:41.

My year to date totals are now 104 runs covering 515k.

Oh, and on top of all that, just before Christmas, having been pretty inactive for much of last year due to my oft-mentioned tendonitis, I topped the scales at 15st. Today, I am under 13st for the first time in about 15 years.

I've been on quite a journey since I decided back in March to give this running thing another try.

I turn 49 on Saturday. I'm fitter than I have been since my mid-30s. My modest aim is to get my 5k and 10k times below 30 and 60 minutes respectively before I turn 50. If you'd suggested any of this to me this time before my last birthday, I'd have probably told you to get your head examined. It's definitely been an eventful few months.

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So, this happened...

Back at the start of March, after an 8 month lay-off, I picked up where I left off on week 2 and restarted my Couch to 5k journey. I completed the plan on 7 May, running 5k in a time of 39:21. Today, just shy of 4 months later, I ran 10k non-stop for the first time in my life with a time of 1:19:36. It hadn't been my intention to run that far tonight; I wasn't due to make my first attempt at the distance until next week. Tonight I was aiming for 8.5-9k but it just felt right and I kept going and, well, the result is what it is... Feeling dead chuffed with my achievement, but I need to thank everyone on the forum for their encouragement and support at all points along this journey and (I'm sure) for the continued encouragement on what is still to come. I'm off to give my poor legs a well earned rub down...

One run, two more PBs

It's been that kind of week. At the start of the year I set myself the following goals for 2020: See how much lower I could take my 5k PB below 28:38 Get my 10k PB below one hour from 1:03:49 Get my 10 mile PB below 1:45:00 from 1:49:29 Get my Half Marathon PB below 2:30:00 from 2:30:23 I haven't really been doing anything specific towards reducing them, although on Monday , I did a sprint interval session and brought my 5k time down to 28:04. I was meant to be running the Edinburgh Kilomathon tomorrow, which is a 13.1k run through the city, stating at Ocean Terminal and ending in Murrayfield Stadium. Alas, due to CORVID-19, this event, like so many others is currently on hold. Since I wasn't going to be able to do that run, I decided to do my own thing today. Rather than run 13.1k, I decided to push on and go for 13.1 miles. The result; two more of my goals achieved. My 10 mile PB now stands at 1:44:54, and my Half Marathon PB is down to 2:21:21. My 10k PB...

Two years ago, having finally shaken of the tendonitis that had put paid to my first attempt at the Couch to 5k plan, I finally put all the excuses behind me, laced up my shoes that had been gathering dust since I unboxed them at Christmas, and started my running journey in earnest. There were a couple of "training runs" along the way, but I completed the programme in May 2019 and quickly moved on to JuJu's 10k plan which got me to 10k on 1 July that year. Before 2019 was finished, I'd get to 10 miles in October and my first HM in November and, by the time the bells rang in 2020, I'd clocked up over 500 miles. Then, 2020... Well, actually, from a running perspective, it turned out better than anticipated. Yes, OK, so the final parkrun was a year ago this weekend just past, and all the organised events I'd entered were cancelled or postponed until some indeterminate point in the future, but running, it seemed, was an escape and helped my cope with the whole...

Finding My Inner Runner

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