Finding My Inner Runner

Yes, I'm talking about January. .. For a number of reasons, January has its detractors. The weather is miserable, it's cold and dark and all the bright lights that marked the end of the year have been switched off. There always seems to be way too much month left at the end of your money and don't even mention the various forms of abstinence that we are either supposed to sign up to to suck what little joy there is out of the month, or feel guilty about for not doing so. So, yeah, January, cheerio. At least I get an extra day this year before we have to cross paths again. But longest month? Well, no. If you live in the UK or other countries that adopt daylight saving time, that honour actually goes to the month of my birth, October and we mostly spend the extra hour we gain in bed. Anyway, I digress... In one respect, January has, personally been the longest month; and in a good way too. I set a new distance record of 121.2km for the month. My previous highest ...

I will be honest, I did not want to go out tonight. It was (and still is) cold, wet, windy and utterly miserable outdoors and, to top it all, my legs were still protesting a bit after Monday night's exertions . I was, however, still a little short of the distance target I set myself for this month, and as awful as the weather is this evening, it's forecast to be worse tomorrow and Friday, so I decided to just be brave, and head out. 40 minutes and just shy of 6k later, I returned home, soaked to the skin, looking thoroughly bedraggled, but with a sense of achievement that comes of ticking off another goal as completed. Weather permitting, I may manage one more run between now and the end of the month, but having got my 120k for January under my belt, I won't be too disappointed if the weather encourages me to take an extra rest day or two before I start my assault on February...

This running lark can't half mess with your head sometimes... Monday night - long run night. Conditions were pretty much perfect; cool but not too cold, dry and almost no wind worth mentioning. Headed out, got into my stride and the ks just ticked along nicely. Got to the 10 mile mark and I was feeling good; the legs seemed to have plenty left in them, so I pushed on. Onwards... 17k... 18k... 19k... 20k... it was still going well, I even managed what for me resembles a sprint finish to bring it home and complete HM distance. In doing so, I set a new PB, knocking just shy of 18 minutes off my previous best time. Was I delighted? Of course I was. There was, however, a "but". Not a big "but" by any means, but a "but" nonetheless. My new time (according to Strava ) was 2 hours 30 minutes and 23 seconds. Was I trying to go under 2:30? No. If I'd known there was a possibility that I might have gone under 2:30, could I have run any of it any fast...

After an extended festive break, it was back to herding egg chasers in muddy fields again this morning. This morning it was the turn of Musselburgh to host Berwick. Just shy of 5k in cold, but bright and dry conditions, and there was actually some good rugby going on around me at times too. I'm always slightly surprised when I look at these maps with how much of the pitch I actually cover during the course of a game, and also the fact that there are sections of the field that I seem to totally avoid (in this case, the bottom left corner didn't see very much of me at all. No parkrun this week as a result of this, but I think, looking at the graph below, this still counts as a pretty intense interval sessionm..

Set out for a fairly leisurely 5k after work and somehow this happened... The intention had been to do it all at an easy pace of 7-7:30/km, but my legs, it seemed, had ideas of their own. Given the trend that had been set during the first 3k, I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it. Not quite sure where that final kilometre came from, but it helped turn an otherwise fairly mundane lollop into something a bit more. There's something to be said, sometimes, for a relatively slow start...