Finding My Inner Runner

The ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, reputedly once said: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". Well, today, at my twelfth park run, I passed the 500 mile mark for 2019. It's 500 miles that includes: 1 x half marathon 3 x 10 miles 17 x 10k 57 x 5k numerous other shorter runs.  While I may only have reached half of Lao Tzu's 1,000 miles, the principle still remains the same, it all began with me choosing to take that first step when I embarked on Couch to 5k at the start of the year. Being a bit of a stat fanatic, for me it's been fascinating watching the distances covered and the time spent running increase as the year has progressed; from running my first 5k in June , all the way up to my first (and to date, only) Half Marathon in November and all the landmarks in between such as: My first Parkrun The Edinburgh Race For Life My first 10k My first sub-30 minute 5k My first 10 miles The Edinburgh Men's 10k None

No rugby again this weekend, so decided to visit another of my local courses at Lochend Woods , in Dunbar. Ironically, it starts just next to the pitch that I would have been running around, had the game I was meant to have last week not been cancelled. The course is fairly flat. It's a kind of figure-of-eight around the sports field, then into the woods, then the same again, finishing on the far side of the rugby pitch from where you started. It's the kind of course that, were I perhaps not suffering a little from pre-Christmas drinks from the night before, I might actually be in with a chance of beating my Portobello time .  That wasn't going to happen this week, for reasons of the aforementioned alcohol consumption, but I won't turn my nose up at  the 31:26 I did achieve.

No rugby this morning due to my game being called off at short notice, si I went and ventured a wee bit further from home (albeit about 5 minute longer drive than usual) and headed out to Portobello , Met a couple from Brisbane, who were trying to adjust from being plucked from mid summer into the depths of the Scottish winter; complete with grey skies, wind and a strengthening drizzle, and a couple from Wesham who accidentally missed breakfast because they hadn't figured on the fact that for some reason, parkruns in Scotland start at 9:30 and not 9am. It's three laps, pretty flat and fast. The terrain, and the number of people threw me a bit, and I got my pacing completely wrong and started faster than I should have. Ended up walking for about 50m at the 3,75k mark, and still came in in a time of 29:02. Even with that walking section, it was still my third fastest 5k, so I'm not complaining at all, and I definitely earned my post run slice of chocolate cake.

Tonight it was dark, wet, cold and blowing a hooley; so do I settle on the sofa like any sensible human being might do? No, I head out and do a 5k lap of my village looking like some weird running cyborg minion. Once I got into my stride, |I didn't really notice the weather that much, apart from the final 500m of my route, which was uphill, into the wind, which meant I got the rain hurled into my face. Proof, if any were needed, that there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing... Who am I trying to kid? On the whole though, It was still good to get out and shake off the cobwebs after a day glued to my desk. If you follow this blog, I'm holding you entirely responsible for what I've become...

Having wimped out of my usual Monday evening long run yesterday on account of it chucking it down and a howling gale (I, know, excuses, call myself a runner....) so went out tonight with the intention of a fairly leisurely lollop around the village. My legs, it seems, had other ideas... 10 miles in 1:49:19!?! That's 10½ minutes off my previous PB (or, effectively, a shade over a minute a mile faster). I've no idea where that came from but for my first run of December, I'm definitely taking it...