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Then and Now

Then & Now

If you were to ask me what the weather was on any given day last year then for 364/365 of them I'd be guessing. The exception was 7 May 2019. To narrow it down, it was about 5:30pm on that date. It was raining.

Why is this fact etched so firmly in my mind?

Quite simply, 7 May was the day I'd been building up to for two and a bit months. I'd been psyching myself up to it over the last few runs. May 7 was the day I was going to graduate from Couch to 5k; and it was raining!

Not heavily, but it was definitely wet. Having been building myself up for as long as I had, I wasn't going to let some trifling precipitation dampen my spirits so I so off. I got to 30 minutes having covered 3.8km and, of course, I kept on running; running until I got to the fabled 5k mark. It took me 39:20.

Yes, I broke the rules. The 10% rule was never going to hold me back that night. I'd graduated and I'd run 5k and I was supremely chuffed with myself (it would take another 40 5k runs before I got the distance inside 30 minutes, but that's neither here nor there).

I've done a lot of running since then; just over 1,100km if anyone is interested. Tonight's run was my 151st since this time last year. That 151 runs has included 4 half marathons. 5 ten miles, 36 10k, 85 5k and a number of shorter runs.

To commemorate the first anniversary of graduating, I ran exactly the same route tonight as I did a year ago. It wasn't raining tonight, and I did it in a time of 29:54.

Assuming I'm able to do the same again next year, it'll be interesting to see what, if any, improvement I can achieve over the next 12 months. I can pretty much guarantee I won't be knocking another almost 10 minutes off my time though.

Run Graph

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Location: Pencaitland, Tranent EH34, UK

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