The unintended lollop

I wasn't meant to run tonight on the grounds that I was supposed to be refereeing a 7s tournament tomorrow. Unfortunately, due to the deepening Covid-19 crisis, the SRU have taken the step of cancelling all domestic rugby in Scotland until further notice. While this is no doubt disappointing to many, it is an entirely sensible and understandable step to take in the circumstances.

Combine this with the fact that no one knows for sure if parkruns will be held tomorrow (and no one could blame anyone if they were cancelled), it meant I suddenly found myself at something of a loose end.

Fortunately, there is a virtual 5k challenge (courtesy of New York Road Runners) happening this weekend (there's also a half marathon challenge, but there was no way I was doing that tonight); so I laced up my trail shoes and went for a leisurely lollop along the old railway path and through the woods, and added another 5.15km to Team HU's total for the Vitality Running World Cup. Managing an average pace of 6:25/km, it actually wasn't quite as leisurely as I had intended, but it was certainly a good way to close out the working week.

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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...

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