Finding My Inner Runner

Monday is traditionally my "long" run, but for a combination of reasons, I just wasn't feeling it so I postponed for the evening. On tuesday evening, I still wasn't really in the mood, but I wasn't going to let myself talk me into missing out another night so I head out and, despite everything, I managed a smidge over 5¾k in 40 mins. It wasn't really the distance or the pace I was looking for. Still, a run is a run. Thursday, felt much more positive. Nice evening, not too warm. Chose a new route and 80 minutes later, 10½k was in the bag. Might have done it slightly faster if it hadn't been for one 50m stretch that was so overgrown and tangled I had to walk to avoid the risk of turning an ankle or worse. Got home feeling much more upbeat than I had on Monday. That's the second month in a row that my first run of the month has been a 10k. Do I sense a new tradition brewing? Today, parkrun. I was on a mission. My previous best was 33:09 and I w...

After the cluster-burach that was last week's run where I went off way too fast and bombed out just shy of 2km, this week I managed to keep things together, run much more sensibly, and still achieve a new PB. All in all, a good start to the weekend...

OK, I know the "F" word is strictly verbotten, but there is no other word that can be used to describe the first bit of this morning (and I'm actually thinking of a word much stronger than "failure" here, but I digress). I wasn't really in the right frame of mind but headed off to one of to Meadowmill parkrun anyway, thinking it might help me re-calibrate. Unfortunately, it only managed to make things worse. I basically got everything wrong. I allowed myself to get caught up in the surge of faster runners at the start and the inevitable happened... Yes, so I got PBs for 400m, 1km, ½ mile and 1 mile, so that's kind of great in a way, but I bombed out at just over 1.9km; nothing left in the tank; all gone. The most annoying thing is that I knew I was too fast but it was just one of those ones where, try as hard as I could, I just couldn't reset my pace; no matter no consciously I slowed myself down, unconsciously, I kept speeding back up. I ...

I can't quite believe that it's June already. Today, I decided to indulge in a little parkrun tourism and headed to Meadowmill ; although I suspect it doesn't really count when the run you attend is almost exactly the same distance from your front door as the one that you have arbitrarily decided is your home event, but that's a minor technicality. Both Vogrie and Meadowmill are about 10 minutes drive from my front door; it's simply a matter of choosing to turn left or right when I get to the end of my road.  Today, I turned right... Meadowmill isn't as scenic as Vogrie, but it is flatter (although with two short but fairly sharp climbing sections that have to be done twice on account of it being two laps. My time was a health 33:02, so no complaints on that front and I was the 59 th finisher out of a field of 81, which was also quite reassuring. The coffee and the cake in the cafe afterwards were also very welcome and definitely hit the spot...