Running On Empty

Classic navel-gazing post ahead! So, I swore I'd not dwell on this, but why didn't I manage to make it to 30 parkruns in 2023? Thanks to my handy-dandy calendar-of-runs-and-excuses, I can look back and see exactly what I did instead of going for a run at 9am on a Saturday morning. In short: other priorities. Specifically, family life. But also, preventable injuries. 😞 A snippet of the latest runs logged in my calendar. And one measly bike session. Here's the full breakdown of excuses: Injury: 8 times Holiday: 7 times Family needed me: 5 times Illness: 2 times Volunteering (but not running): 1 time Snow/ice: 1 time I actually quite like the sound of holidays getting in the way 7 times. I must've had a good year! 😂 But I also know that one of those occasions was in Wales, where I was due to run at Penrhyn till a storm had other ideas. Boo! Only being ill twice actually sounds okay too, especially given the wife tells me I'm "always" getting ill. (Quite cl...

So, the end of my second year of running. Not really sure what to say beyond what I said at 3 months , 6 months and 9 months . Maybe just that while the final quarter of the year didn't quite go to plan, the rest of it has been a massive success. Lining up for the start of the Great North 10K in July 2023 First of all: I'm still running. That alone is worth shouting about. I still can't thank everyone who encouraged me during Couch to 5K in 2022 enough. You helped me establish a habit that is making a massive difference to both my physical and mental health. 🥰 As for my year's goals, I achieved nearly all of them. The 30 parkruns goal went right down to the wire, but in the end, I didn't manage it. I was ready to, but... on Saturday 30th December at 8am, I felt other things were more important to me. Here are the goals I originally set myself for the year anyway: ✖️ Attend 30 parkruns ✅ Attend 5 new parkrun locations ✅ Parkrun under 26 minutes ✅ Parkrun under 25 m...

(And post #100!) I knew I should've got these retrospective posts written sooner if I wanted to actually remember anything of the events. As it is, my scattered memories mean I've got only enough content for a post if I bundle all of the remaining ones together. 🤦‍♂️ Let's do it... Town Moor : the main thing I remember about this run was the occasional sudden, intense pain I got from the stones on the tracks at the eastern edge of the moor. The course page for Town Moor says "gravel", but really, it's not gravel. It's moderately loose, sizeable aggregate type stones set on and into a track that's often baked hard. With my old trainers, that was about the worst possible surface I could encounter and there were a few times I hopped and stumbled in pain after catching a stone just right . Little wonder I vowed to stay away until I got better trainers. The time of 26:11 was just a second shy of my PB at the time and it's fair to say I could've bea...

This was my second run at Rising Sun, just a couple of weeks after my first. In fact, it was my first time doing a second parkrun at the same place, so my goal was simple: beat my previous time at Rising Sun (28:19). I was also looking to finish in the top 55% of men, working towards the year's goal off getting into the top 50%. On the day, the weather was pretty hot, IIRC, but I did beat my previous time (with a 26:37) and get in the top 55% of men. In fact, I smashed my way into the top 50% of men, ticking off another of my goals. It wasn't all plain sailing, mind. Despite having been looking forward to the run the day before, on the day I truly felt like I couldn't be bothered. Halfway round, I was seriously considering dropping out and going home — it was probably the closest I've ever come to doing that. Which just goes to show that it's a mind game as well as a physical fitness thing — I would've missed out on a venue PB (by over a minute and ...

Last July, I achieved one of the main goals I'd set my sights on for the year: taking part in the Race For Life 5K run, and running the full route. These days, that length of run sounds pretty routine, but less than a year ago, I'd run a 5K only once in my life , on a treadmill, about 15 years ago. When the day came, I'd already completed Couch to 5K a good six weeks previously and had been keeping up to the regular running, even if not always 3 times a week. The main thing that was going to give me grief was the fact that it was July, the run started at about 11am and it was a hot day. With the event being held on the Town Moor in Newcastle too, there'd be precious little shade. That said, right now, I'd happily take the heat. Would make a nice change from running in bitterly cold winds! 😂 Once the race began, it was pretty seriously congested, as you'd expect. Heading out of Exhibition Park and onto the verge of the Great North Road, we even had to walk thro...

Back in June, I had my best orienteering experience of the year. Over the jubilee weekend, an urban event in Newcastle City Centre  was held by my club,  Newcastle and Tyneside Orienteers  (NATO). To qualify for British Orienteering Federation rankings, I needed to run a course that had an optimal distance of 8km. On the day, Google Fit reckoned I ran about 11.6km, which speaks volumes for both Google Fit's accuracy and my navigational skills. 😂 My time, in the end, was 1:13:58 (trailing the winner in my class by 26:05). Panorama of Ouseburn at the eastern extent of the course, courtesy of geograph.co.uk That might not sound brilliant, but by god, it felt like a real achievement. Looking back, the biggest thing about it was just that I'd signed up for it  ...and done it. When I'd seen it in NATO's future events list, I'd initially had a typical reaction of "that's not for me", especially given how badly I'd done in a 3.5K event in Cramlington in A...