I thought it was time to write what’s been happening since
my first half marathon (as always I keep meaning to write but don’t).
The first week or two after the Half (can’t believe it was a
month ago) were tough, like the weeks prior to the HM I was still struggling to
run, and was beginning to wonder if I would ever be able to run again. I decided to go easy on myself and go back to
run walking, take the pressure off. This
was followed by good run one night, and all my confidence came back. Also when I
looked at my post HM stats I realised that I had picked up speed a bit
without realising it, and I think maybe this was why I was struggling to complete
planned runs. But great that I’m getting
quicker. Then I got a hideous cold
(which keeps boomeranging back) so it seems to have been one week running, one
week off, annoying.
I’ve used my running as a way of exploring my new area too,
which has been pleasant, again it’s a mental battle though actually getting through a planned run, but the run walk thing is
helping getting me back to enjoying (rather than enduring) running, but its not
easy.
Also because the weather has seriously turned and the
chances of heading back out into sub-zero temperatures after getting back home
are very very slim, I’ve been doing the odd runcommute. This seems to work
quite well, except, I was doing this on the same route back in January, but now I have to run a km or two past my old house to my new place, mentally my legs are not impressed
that they are seemlingly running past 'home', but the last km is a slight incline down,
which is helps a bit, and when I get home I do feel great.
So last week after a long time I ticked Park Run off my
running bucket list. It’s taken a while to pluck up courage to do it,
especially as I’m so self conscious about running with people. I just decided that Saturday was the day, and if I could haul myself out of bed into the sub-zero
temperatures it would happen, it also helped as it was a part of exploring the
area.
I sort of didn’t think it through
that I would have to run 35 mins without stopping (ok I know its parkrun and
you can do it however you like to do it, but you know how hard I am on myself).
I decided the use the 2 miles to the
park as a warm up run, and within 10 mins I was walking, how on earth would I
run 5km? When I got there, there were heaps
of people milling around and everyone looked professional and fast. I have to
confess the night before I had studied the results from the previous week to
see who was slowest, just to reassure myself that I had a slim chance of not
being the last person back.
It was probably best that I hadn’t really thought it
through, as I might not have done it had I thought too much about it. After the briefing we were pretty much
off. It was sort of three loops of the
Park (I hate loops with a passion) I estimated each was about a mile/1.5 km so
focused on that and the miles disappearing.
I started off at a steady pace, following a lady and her stroller as my
pacer, she was chatting to a guy and about ¾ of the way then zipped off. I then got chatting to the guy she was chatting
to (my second pacer) he informed me in the midst of the conversation that he
was usually at 30min 5ker, which made me happy as I thought if I could keep him
in sight I’m on to a good thing. After a
while I let him go ahead, mostly because I was struggling to run and keep up
conversation, but my pace wasn’t too awful, and the distractions of other people
helped the first loop to go quickly. I
keep going and another lap disappeared, phew, 2 down one to go. In the third lap I managed to pace it a bit
(sprinting to certain points, then slowing, then sprinting) I managed to keep
going with no walking. As I came in towards
the finish I tried again to pace it, I was cheered by seeing Mr 30min5k ahead
of me, but he really paced the last 300mts.
And then I’d done it, I collected
my token and joined a queue.
Pic courtesy of Tooting Common Park Run (can't believe they snapped me!)
I hadn’t timed it on my app, but had registered for text
message results, so that was quite exciting waiting for that to come through.
In the queue I heard a couple who were looking at their watches and say '31
mins' (although they were quite a bit in front of me) but hearing 31 I got excited.
Later that day I got the results, exactly 32.00 wohooo! Annoyingly though it proved something to me
(again) that my running is all psychological, that morning when I had to run
walk (in fact every time I run walk) I think I can’t do it (‘it’ being running
without stopping) but that park run has proved otherwise, I so need to get over
this mental thing.
I really enjoyed my first PR and am keen to go back,
although the weather forecast is for torrential rain tomorrow (so it won’t be
tomorrow) on top of that I think I caught a chill walking back from PR and
haven’t run all week since. But aside
from that it was just what I needed to motivate me. It also proves that running with others
makes me faster, so I really need to join a running group.
So while I’m writing about goals here are my running goals
for the rest of the year:
·
Park Run
- TICK
·
Try at least 3 running groups
·
30minute 5k
·
Run 15 miles
And here are my goals for 2017:
·
Medal a month
·
At least 3 half marathons
·
Marathon
·
Try trail running
·
Secret goal (because it will sound weird out of
context, and the context is a future blog post)
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