19 – 25 April 2021 “Get the cool shoeshine.”

It’s April, the sun is shining and running events… are back on! Well, kind of. They’re trickling through, with constant concern that they’ll be cancelled at the 11th hour. However, the Cheshire Elite (aka Wrexham) marathon took place today to seeming great success, with a few of my friends participating. With anticipation swelling, two of them officially achieved spectacular times of 2:30 and 2:35!

Despite my general apathy over the last six or so months towards events, joining in the collective celebration was a nice source of inspiration today, getting me to think again about what I might achieve in the future. I’m more enthused about trying for a sub-75 half marathon, and then consider if I’m willing to put in the work for a sub-2:30 full. Having seen up close the kind of commitment needed, it’s no small thing!

Adding to my motivation this week was a club session. Not just any session though, but my favorite kind: the track! This was tricky-to-remember intervals of 1k fast, 800m marathon-pace recovery, 800m fast, 800m recovery, 600m fast, 600m recovery, 400m flat-out-blast. I’d set my watch to kilometre measurements just before starting, but it wasn’t until we set off that I realised I only knew my target pace in terms of miles! Tagging along with the fastest group nonetheless, I’d thought the fast pace was too fast; some quick calculations suggested we were at a sub-16 5k pace instead of my more realistic sub-17. Sticking with it though, all reps were completed successfully, with the last lap touching a sub-4 minute mile pace!

Continued decent weather provided nice incentive to get out running, chasing down cyclists and enjoying the outdoors (and a good excuse to wear my new sunglasses!). In fact, one cyclist I chased got me momentarily at about 3:40 pace. I didn’t think it impresive as I’d hit 2:56 on the track… until I realised that the track was min/km, whereas this was min/mile! Perhaps I should wear a second watch, just to monitor my pace in km!

12 – 18 April 2021 “James St. Patrick.”

Earlier than I normally would, I’ve bought a new pair of trainers! I tend to get a new pair when my existing ones hit about 1,200 miles (or they disintegrate: whichever comes first), “recommendation” from running marketing be damned. But as great as the Nike Pegasus 37 were, I’d noticed a pain in one knee lately so I felt a change was necessary. Continuing my trend of trying out different brands and models while nothing major is happening run-wise yet, my new pair are Brooks Ghost 12; not from personal recommendation, but just from checking running websites for what was popular and effective for my budget (usually about £80 for non-racing trainers).

There’s nothing particularly exciting about them; no real new-shoe-bounce, no super-speed ability. But, they get me from A to B and back to A again, and that’s all I need right now. Oh, and they come in black!

New gear aside, this has been a quiet week run-wise, albeit they were pretty relaxed and enjoyable. With lockdown restrictions easing, I had some concerns that paths would be more congested than usual, but thankfully they’ve been quite clear.

It’s also been encouraging to see running events come back nicely. Last week one of my Strava friends (met at Silverstone, gave me a banana during my first London marathon, ran an impressive 2:42 marathon by himself) ran a 2:45 marathon, finishing second out of 112 participants. Impressive for one of the first organised marathons in over a year! In addition, a couple of friends are running Wrexham marathon next week, so I’m expecting to see some fast times there also.

It’ll be interesting to see how long adjustments – distancing, hygiene measures – will last with such events. Will they fade to “normality” in time, stay permanent (let’s face it, some activities were decidedly anti-hygienic!), or instantly switch at the whim of the government? No matter the approach, it’ll just be nice to race again!

5 – 11 April 2021 “Running on snowshine.”

While my mileage is far lower than where it used to be, I’ve nonetheless only skipped two days this week. Typically, a couple of those days were threatened with snow! Snow! In April! Weirdly, it was so intermittent that it changed every time I reconsidered about whether to go out (akin to this random Spongebob moment!). Persistence (and perhaps pride) got me out each time anyway, with the weather staying in my favour. On another day I’d misjudged how cold it’d be and – perhaps for the first time ever – had to take off my gloves mid-run, stuffing them into my running belt. Of course, this made it look like a bum bag from the 80s (how were they ever in style?)

Here’s something I probably haven’t shared before; whenever I’m first finisher at parkrun, part of my celebration routine is to play the Flash theme (the speedster TV one, not the Flash! Ah-ahh! one) and DMX’s “X Gon’ Give It To Ya”. So, sad news this week regarding DMX’s death, with a couple of runs dedicated to him.

A highlight this week was a long overdue return to the club. The session? Hills, of course! A good turnout at the club and nice to see growing-unfamiliar faces, perhaps about a dozen of us rampaging through Sutton Park. I took it a bit easier than I’ve done in times past, feeling a bit drained and generally a bit meh. Nonetheless, all reps were completed succesfully and I comfortably stayed in my pack.

All in all, a positive week running-wise. Probably won’t be increasing the miles any time soon (particularly if the weather keeps being temperamental!)

22 March – 4 April 2021 ” .”

First up, my apologies to the regular readers of this blog; I trust you’re in good health and keeping up with whatever activity takes your fancy. I appreciate all of you, and recognise I’ve been infrequent with my posts lately. I’m facing a number of personal issues and time constraints, so my priorities have shifted somewhat. Even my running has been more irregular than usual, to the extent that I’ve stopped monitoring my pace entirely and have no game plan right now. Second, I’m not 100% sure if I’m running tomorrow, so this update is a shade earlier than usual.

For the runs which I did have over the last couple of weeks, they proved to be what I needed; resetting my state of mind and providing a moment of calm (when I wasn’t avoiding dogs, cars and pavement-hogging pedestrians!) A bonus has been the weather; finally warm enough to ditch the gloves and even got me sweating on a couple of runs! Today’s run was nice, a return to the new route I ran a few weeks back, and – for the first time with a new route – I didn’t get lost or need to check a map!

I’ll give a quick shout-out to my nemesis, whom I had a fun lunch run with and today achieved an incredible sub-16 5k (I’m not sure I even drive that fast!)

Despite my apathy to training, hopefully I should be able to return to the club this week. There are many things I’m not looking forward to with the return of non-lockdown life, but club runs are not one of them 🙂