Running in overtime

It’s now thirteen months since I embarked on a personal challenge to run 200 officially timed race miles before my 51st birthday. Despite a great start and being well ahead of target at the midpoint of 2016, a major change in my life circumstances in August brought an abrupt end to my running. Having lived in Cardiff all my life, and having reached the stage where I thought it unlikely that I’d ever leave, I was presented with an opportunity to take on a new role as the Pastoral Team Leader for two halls of residence at the University of Bristol. The role comes with accommodation, and so in September last year, Charlotte and I packed up some key essentials and moved our home to the southern side of the Severn Estuary. As if that wasn’t upheaval enough, we also then fell in love with a house in a new development that was being built not far away from ours in Cardiff, so promptly put our existing property on the market, sold it, and are now waiting for the new one to be completed in May of this year!

Whilst all this was going on, I was left with the guilt of knowing that many people had sponsored me to complete the 200 mile challenge, and that I was still some 60 miles short of the target. And so, on the first Saturday of January, I found myself once more lining up for a parkrun – this time in the beautiful (though foggy that day) surroundings of the Ashton Court Estate on the edge of Bristol. What they don’t tell you about the Ashton Court parkrun until you arrive for the pre-run briefing, is that it’s run up the side of a very steep hill. This makes for extremely asymmetric mile times – typically, in my experience, the third mile (on the way back down) takes about 4 minutes less to complete than the first one! Nevertheless, you do get used to it with practice, and I am now back to completing the 3.1 miles (5 km) in under 30 minutes, and I hope to make further improvements in the coming months. Just for a change, I’m actually going to be visiting the Llanelli parkrun this coming weekend, and I am reliably informed that this is as flat as it gets. I can’t wait.

In terms of the challenge, I estimate that (with weekly parkruns and some 10k races booked in at the start of March and April), I will complete the 200 miles in time for the Easter holiday. Just to be on the safe side, I’m also going to be running the Great Bristol and Great Manchester 10k races in May. The challenge will eventually be complete, but my running habit is hopefully here to stay now.

Marching onwards (monthly update on my 200@50 challenge)

March has been an odd sort of a month in many ways. Unseasonable weather a lot of the time (but pleasantly warm and dry on every occasion when I was running); a major breakthrough in my Cardiff parkrun career; an incredibly painful half marathon; and a 10k run that involved six laps of a one mile circuit. Oh! and 25.7 miles in total achieved towards my target of 200 miles by the end of the calendar year (a new monthly record). I am now ahead of schedule, having clocked up 64.6 miles in total since completing my first run at Centerparcs Longleat on 1st January 2016.

The highlights this month were setting a new parkrun personal best of 28:52 on 5th March, my first time below 29 minutes for the 5k run. For different reasons, the Llanelli Half Marathon on 13th March was run along a beautiful sea-front course in almost perfect weather conditions : cloudless blue sky, gentle breeze, and temperatures of around 6 to 10 degrees C. My performance over the first 6 miles of the run matched the conditions, but unfortunately, thereafter it was a long and painful slog to the finish.

The Sport Relief 10k in Cardiff’s Bute Park on 20th March was as much a trial of mental strength as physical. What I hadn’t bargained for when booking my place and selecting the 10k option was that this would involve completing 6 laps of a one mile circuit around Cooper’s Field and out to the edge of Blackweir. Completing the first three laps was ok, but even with my new approach to mindful running (trying to take in the surroundings and appreciate everything happening around me), the second three laps were incredibly boring. I stuck with it and finished the 6 laps (actually clocking up a total of 6.4 miles overall – there was a couple of hundred metres between the start and finish points of the one mile ‘lap’!).

Training has once again proved difficult to fit in around work and other commitments in March, although thankfully, football is back after the long break for the winter monsoon, so I’ve managed to do some ‘interval training’ while refereeing on Saturday afternoons. The early arrival of Easter has meant that I’ve got three runs in this week already, and preparations are now building for my third half marathon of the year at Haverhill, Cambridgeshire on Sunday 10th April. Hopefully this one will see me running to the finish…

Thanks to everybody who has already sponsored me on my justgiving page, with a particular mention this month to colleagues from the University of Bristol who have bolstered the sponsor fund significantly and inspired me to press on with the challenge.