Finding My Inner Runner

Miles for Mind has always been important to me, so having 4 seasonal challenges this year instead of just the traditional May version has given me even more reason to flex my running muscles. Across the 4 challenges, I clocked up 757km (470 miles) which has been a huge contribution to my target of running 2021km this year (only 16km left to do it at the time of posting). While the physical health benefits of running are obvious, for me, it is the boost to my mental health that is by far the biggest motivator to get me lacing up and heading out in all weathers and just going for however long/far feels right at whatever pace suits the run. 2021 may not have been the easiest of years, but it has definitely had its highs as well as its lows. Let's all celebrate the victories, big, small, and in between that we've achieved this year. If you feel like supporting my efforts by donating to Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) , you can do so by visiting my JustGiving  page .

Having given last week a miss on account of the fact that my legs were still feeling a bit sorry for themselves after taking on the Yorkshire 3 Peaks the day before, today it was back to my familiar stomping ground of Vogrie Country Park for the second time since Parkrun returned to Scotland a fortnight ago. Last time out, I set an all-time Parkrun PB of 25:58; this week I was a wee bit slower at 26:49 but, actually, I was happier with this run. It felt better, my pacing was much more consistent, and I wasn't dead on my feet in the finishing funnel. Maybe it's something to do with running in a group (which I almost never do) but it's funny that I can comfortably pace 10k - HM, but 5k often catches me out. It possibly also has a lot to do with the fact I seldom run less than 10k and today was only my fifth run below that distance this year. Anyway, I digress. It was a lovely day. The early autumn sunshine was pleasantly warm, the track was generally dry underfoot and, all in...

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 ...

I opened my 2020 running account on 2 January with a fairly leisurely 10k. It was only 10 months after I'd started my Couch to 5k Journey but, having already completed my first Half Marathon distance  and getting my 5k PB below 30 minutes in November, I was pretty chuffed with the progress I'd made so far. My plans for 2020 didn't really come to much at that point. This was before many of us would discover just how important running would become over the course of the year, but I had some vague goals; keep chipping away at my 5k time, get my 10k under an hour, bring my Half Marathon time under 2 hours 15 and, in addition to Parkrun, take part in a number of the organised events locally. The  distance/time goals would be achieved, but sadly every event (including Parkrun) would be cancelled. The one thing that was becoming obvious was that both my pace and stamina were definitely increasing. I had set a very vague goal of averaging around 100k per month, but I was exceeding ...

I suspect it's not the actual running we're missing; since many of us can just go out and run when the mood takes us so long as we are fortunate with our health and the COVID-19 restrictions in our particular part of the world allow us to do so. It's possibly not even being able to run in a group; since as much as I enjoy the social side, I tend to be a solitary runner. For me, what I actually miss is being able to have something to judge my performance against. Not my overall position on the weekly email (although that has its own value), but the arcane calculation that is the age adjusted performance and how it varies from run to run. Then I discovered that Running Heroes has a weekly 5k challenge. OK, so it's on a Sunday rather than a Saturday, but it gives you a leader board and age tables and all of those little things that turn a run into a "non-competitive" competition. It's not really the same, but it is nice to feel that you are part of gro...

Given that they don't come around very often (the next occurrence being until 2048), I suspect, like many people, I was quite glad that Jorge hadn't decided to turn up yet and gatecrash this very rare parkrunning event. Dunbar has a reputation for being the sunniest place in Scotland (and that's not really the low bar that many of you might think) but today it was overcast and grey and quite chilly. It was, however, dry with only the lightest of breezes. Conditions underfoot were decidedly muddy and slippery in places, so it was never going to be an especially fast run, but that didn't matter. Looking at the split times, it is almost possible to pick out the muddier stretches from those sections that were firmer. Today's time of 31:11 was my second best for the Lochend Wood's course , but for once I actually managed to get my pacing right and was able to get through the dreaded 3.5-4k stretch, where it frequently all goes wrong, without mishap. My cust...

So, with Storm Dennis heading in my general direction, but not yet making a menace of himself, I decided to head out along the coast to Dunbar to make Lochend Woods the venue for parkrun #15. It was grey, it was a bit damp, but the winds had still to pick up and, all in all, it wasn't too bad a morning for me and the 55 other runners who headed out. I decided, today, to do something a bit different. Usually, I just go out and run, and see how it goes, but today I thought I'd try and work a little on my speed. The Lochend Woods route is one of the flatter routes near me, so it fitted with my experiment. I'd taken the various weekly programmes of W1 - W4 of the Couch to 5k programme and turned them into workouts.  Instead of walking and running, the idea was that I would comfortably jog what had been the walking elements, and then pick up the tempo for the running sections. I'm not actually all that bothered about my pace, but I thought it might be interesting to ...

Only my second parkrun of the year, and my first back at Vogrie . Warmed up with a a bit of 1 minute walk/1 minute run intervals, made my way to the start, half listened to the briefings and then we were off. As usual, there was the inevitable need to not get caught up and head off too fast, but as I bounded gracelessly down the opening hill, I settled into my stride. First lap, nothing really to write home about. Kept a fairly even pace despite it being muddier than usual in some places, and pretty much before I know it, I'm at "Pam's corner" and heading into the home straight, ready to start lap 2. At about 3.5k in, I hit my nemesis. There is a long, slow, gradual climb. It's not steep. If you were walking you'd almost never be aware of it, but recently, for some reason, on my last couple of visits, I've ended up walking about 100-200m of this stretch. There are steeper climbs on the route that cause me no problem, but this bit seems to have got ...

No rugby again this weekend, so decided to visit another of my local courses at Lochend Woods , in Dunbar. Ironically, it starts just next to the pitch that I would have been running around, had the game I was meant to have last week not been cancelled. The course is fairly flat. It's a kind of figure-of-eight around the sports field, then into the woods, then the same again, finishing on the far side of the rugby pitch from where you started. It's the kind of course that, were I perhaps not suffering a little from pre-Christmas drinks from the night before, I might actually be in with a chance of beating my Portobello time .  That wasn't going to happen this week, for reasons of the aforementioned alcohol consumption, but I won't turn my nose up at  the 31:26 I did achieve.

No rugby this morning due to my game being called off at short notice, si I went and ventured a wee bit further from home (albeit about 5 minute longer drive than usual) and headed out to Portobello , Met a couple from Brisbane, who were trying to adjust from being plucked from mid summer into the depths of the Scottish winter; complete with grey skies, wind and a strengthening drizzle, and a couple from Wesham who accidentally missed breakfast because they hadn't figured on the fact that for some reason, parkruns in Scotland start at 9:30 and not 9am. It's three laps, pretty flat and fast. The terrain, and the number of people threw me a bit, and I got my pacing completely wrong and started faster than I should have. Ended up walking for about 50m at the 3,75k mark, and still came in in a time of 29:02. Even with that walking section, it was still my third fastest 5k, so I'm not complaining at all, and I definitely earned my post run slice of chocolate cake.

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...

Thanks to hectic schedule this past few weeks, Saturdays have either been spent doing rugby things, or been my rest day, so this was my first Parkrun on a few weeks. A brief, but intense downpour accompanied the pre-run briefing, but it stopped just as we started running in much more clement conditions. It was muddy and slippery underfoot, but that clearly wasn't too much of a hindrance as I posted my new PB of 32:12 for that route . The post-run coffee and caramel shortbread definitely seemed well earned.

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...

This morning was a bit strange. I was moving along quite comfortably and about 3.6k in I suddenly switched, mid-stride, from running to walking. No transition, no struggling, no feeling out of wind, just switched of between one footfall and the next. It was odd. The only way I can describe it is it was if there was a brief block/airlock in the fuel line and once it was through the system, I was fine. I walked for about 30 seconds and then slowly got going again; building my pace back up, and had enough left to push the last 200m and knock 3 minutes off my previous time on this course, but that was still a strange blip. I should probably just put it down to being a glitch in the matrix perhaps. It's that or the realisation that I was at the farthest point on the course from the finish, so it was a long walk back...

So, having signed up for the Edinburgh Race for Life on 23 June, today I did my first ever parkrun at Vogrie in Midlothian. I was a little apprehensive as all of my running to date has been done on my own, out of sight of the general public. Having looked at the results page for the event, if I got round in anything like the 39 minutes of my two 5k runs so far, I'd be comfortably somewhere in the middle of the field. As tends to happen to me, while waiting for the first-timer's briefing, I bump into someone I knew at university (which means we hadn't seen each other in over 25 years). The hardest thing, was not getting caught up in the crowd and going too fast, but I found my comfortable pace eventually. Towards the end of the first circuit, I did get lapped by a couple of the fastest runners on the day, but I didn't worry about that. The second circuit was slightly slower than the first, but I had no complaints and I was definitely happy when I received m...