Typecast

I often over-share my running journey on  my Instagram account  with 2018 being a fantastic year for achievements, new challenges and lots of personal best times. 2019 was a bit up and down with a dreaded knee issue (osteoarthritis) flaring up again and threatening to push me into retirement. I still managed to complete a few races, including my first 10-miler and a half marathon for charity . 2020 was going to be my ‘comeback’ year but with emphasis on running for fun rather than chasing any specific times, although I did want to crack a 30-minute 5k at some point. I started to find my feet again by jumping on board as a volunteer with the Blackburn Couch to 5K community running group, being part of the pacing team for the Blackburn Road Runners Winter Warmer 10K as the back runner and doing a few 3 mile social runs with some of my old crew.  But then we went into lockdown and all the fun races that I had booked started to be cancelled. I’m the type of person who ne...

April and May weren't kind to me and my arthritic knees (read more about that in You've Lost That Running Feeling ) so I've been trying to mend myself by running less, using kinesiology tape to support the knee joint and staying within my comfort zone.  But I had planned to take part in a 6k trail race in Chorley so went out with a friend for a couple of 4-milers and did Hyndburn parkrun last Saturday . Pain was at a minimum, recovery was fine but my stamina is shot to bits.  I decided to give the trail run a go anyway.  I came last.  Finishing in last place I'm not a fast runner and, since moving from community running to club running and racing , I've become used to being one of the slowest runners.  It took a lot for me to get my head around that but I'm OK with it all now.  Coming last really didn't bother me .  I had thought about it a few times because this type of confidence-knocker can really mess with my head but I honestly ...

First the excuses and the mini-updates...  I hadn't written a "January Run Down" until now because there didn't seem to be much to say (I'm wrong, as usual). For me, the beginning of the year is always a bit of a slow start and, up until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't entered any races. My first run of the year was a mid-week, daytime run which is a HUGE novelty but I had an extra day off work and managed to get out with a few of the running gang and have a lovely six mile plod around Samlesbury. Nothing else exciting happened apart from occasionally leading the 11-minute mile group for Club Runs on Monday and Wednesday and joining in with some longer runs with my friends who are training for the Lisbon Half Marathon in March.  I currently haven't got a half marathon booked but wanted to increase my mileage "just in case". After all my protesting last year, I'm learning to appreciate the longer runs, but only when I have good people...

It's been just over a year since I joined Blackburn Road Runners . It's a decision that took me a long time to make but during the past twelve months I've come to realise that there's a time and a place for everything.  After my first race wearing a BRR vest (the Windmill 10k in Lytham) I decided to take a year for myself, attempt some challenges, say "YES" more than saying "no" and see if I could push myself beyond what I thought were my boundaries. Challenge 1 : Lose weight Challenge 2 : Run 1000 km in a year Challenge 3 : Run a long distance race Challenge 4 : Break 1h 10m in a 10k race Photo Credit : Gemma McAuley Photography Losing Weight The losing weight bit was separate to the running but was always going to compliment it.  I joined Slimming World and have lost almost 2.5 stone over the course of the year.  It's not as much as I hoped but its been steady progress. I could have stayed right on plan and possibly lost ...

At the beginning of this year I set myself a goal to run 1000km by the 31st of December.  I had just joined Blackburn Road Runners and was wanting to get some serious training done to tackle my 10k personal best time.  Little did I know that I would end up training for a 10 mile race by the end of the month and then training for, and completing, two half marathons ( Darwen and Southport ).  Because of the way races and club runs are structured, I changed my Garmin into miles and promptly forgot about my challenge. Read more about my Ibiza run  on Instagram That was until I went for a quick run in Ibiza , refreshed my Strava profile  and I noticed that I was within touching distance of 500 miles for the year.  I smashed through the 500 mile mark on a club run last week  then I did a couple of calculations, realising that I was nearer to that 1000km goal that I thought I could be. Read more about the run when I broke through 500...

A couple of months ago I noticed a request on our running club newsletter to organise a "club takeover" for a local parkrun so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  Hyndburn parkrun is a fairly new parkrun course (this was their 46th event), it's one of our nearby parkrun courses and is one that I really enjoy running. So I was put in touch with their Run Director, we chose a takeover date and I was given a list of jobs roles that I needed to fill on the day. Our club members really enjoy parkrun and we have at least 12 courses within an hours drive from our central point in Blackburn. This year we have a couple of challenges available to encourage you to get out of bed on a Saturday morning; there's a "12 in 12" challenge where we can be awarded a badge for visiting twelve different locations during the year and we have a volunteers badge available for rocking up and helping out on at least 10 occasions in a year.  One thing I do love about our...

I can't decide if I'm suitably embarrassed or completely proud of this "official" photo from my most recent race (more on that in a bit). Sometimes I think I need to bloody grow up or maybe I'm just having the BEST year EVER, taking on challenges to help me become a better person all round and listening to advice from my peers. I'm never going to win prizes or stand on a podium again so I might as well have a bit of fun whilst doing something I'm learning to love.  Photo courtesy of Ribble Way Run After my second half marathon I decided that I needed to try and maintain a 'running for pleasure' attitude seeing as though I was enjoying running so much. Our running club had a fantastic summer calendar planned and I thought I'd try and join in with a couple of the events where I could. The first one was a Grand Prix where the rules were far too complicated to explain but as long as the members organising it could work out the resu...

I can look back at my first half marathon with hindsight and see where I went wrong.  I chose one of the toughest local races and rushed into a decision after training for a different distance. Post-race, it took me a while to get back on my feet properly but aced a course personal best at a local parkrun, took the trainers to Tenerife for a bit of a holiday jog and managed to score a 10k personal best time at a mid-week race. I also started mixing in a bit of off-road trail running just to liven things up a bit - nothing too extreme but short, sharp shocks to the system, and huge hills to work the thighs!  Running was fun again so I was ready for another challenge.  Enter, stage left, the Southport Half Marathon. Now, I wasn't going to make the same mistake again, and I'd already started to put in some long(er) runs with Claire even though we didn't know what we were training for yet so it was just a case of upping the mileage each week and taking it fro...

Well folks, it's been a quiet but progressive two months.  Ironically, after being awarded "Runner of the Month " by my fellow running club members for March, I didn't do much pounding of the streets in April because we went on holiday to Tenerife.  I tried a couple of early morning runs there but it was just way too hot, even at 8am.  I found a lovely 2.5 mile route from the hotel to the town centre and back along the seafront. The scenery was gorgeous with mountains on one side, the sea on the other and a deceivingly steep hill to connect the two! Whilst on holiday I read the book, "Your Pace Or Mine" by Lisa Jackson .  It was bought for me as a present after completing the Darwen Half Marathon but gifted on the proviso that I lend it back after I'd finished it (this conditional gift giving could go far, trust me).  So I devoured it from cover to cover and highlighted inspirational passages and quotes that really hit home for when I ga...