Finding My Inner Runner

Back in March last year, when parkruns got cancelled and lock down started, I was a year on from starting C25K and my average distance per run was around 8.75k. Skip forward to today and my average over May, June and July (so far) is now about 12.5k/run. It has, in fact, now been over 6 months since any run has been under 10k. I don't say the above to brag, simply a recognition of the fact that for someone who just wanted to keep his fitness up between rugby seasons so that I didn't dread August rolling around each year on account of increasing age and it getting harder to pick up again each season, I really am amazed at how far (literally and figuratively) I've come since deciding to give Couch to 5K a try back in March 2019. I have had the good fortune to be active and have a reasonable degree of fitness all my life, but it's fair to say that now, in my 50s, I'm probably in the best physical shape I've been in my entire adult life, and it's all down to me ...

My run today was my 100 th run of 2021. It brought my total distance for the year to date to 1,192.9km (741.25 miles), making my average running distance this year 11.9km (7.4 miles).  My pace today was nothing especially noteworthy at 6:46/km, but that is pretty standard for my long, easy paced runs. The point for me being that, as a rule, I don't pay any attention to my pace until after I'm finished. Unless I'm taking part in an event or actually pushing myself for a PB, mostly I'm running on the basis of what just "feels right" In the current temperatures, the pace I set felt OK and allowed me to get a good distance in my legs. It is strange, in a way that, while I can (and sometimes do) run faster than I could this time last year, by and large, a lot of the time I'm actually running at around the same pace. The difference is that it running at that pace means I'm left with much more in the tank at the end of a run and I am averaging 2.5 - 3km/run ...