It’s taken me a while to write this post, I’ve been going through the list of runs for 2014 and trying to pick up my highlights for the past year. Obviously, my number one highlight was the birth of my daughter, Alys, in January but that shouldn’t count as it’s not a running highlight (but it’s still gonna).
So, highlight number two; For most of the year I’ve been running with a stitch, then one Sunday morning, with no difference to my routine, no difference in my evening meal or breakfast, apart from a Berroca drink. I started a run. I had planned to run a normal paced 10k ish. About two miles in I realised I felt ok and my pace was quite quick, bear in mind, anything under 7 minute miles to me is quite quick. I carried on at the same pace for the rest of the run and aside from getting slightly tired towards the end, I felt great. I checked my watch at the end and sure as, I’d beaten my previous 10k PB by over two and a half minutes.
Highlight number three; The Tonbridge Half Marathon. At the end of the race, this felt far from a highlight. I felt so bad I thought I might pass out, my time, although really good, I was disappointed with and it turned out I had a stomach bug for a few days afterwards. However, on reflection and taking everything in to consideration, I felt better about the race. My time was ten minutes quicker than when I last run that course, I’d knocked a few minutes off my half marathon PB and I was in the top 25% of the field. Still, it was tinged with disappointment as I was doing so well in the race until I hit the wall in the final mile….so close.
My third and final highlight; Parkrun. I’ve only done this a few times, however, what a fantastic event. A friendly atmosphere, great support and volunteers, very well organised and I get points for my health insurance too. Parkrun has all different levels of runners, from beginners to families to good club runners and some exceptionally fast 5k-ers. With such a mix you’d imagine it would be chaos but the Great Lines team and volunteers make it run so smoothly you’d think it was a paid and professionally organised event. For me, this makes it in to my highlights for 2014.
I’ve considered the idea of doing a ‘lowlights’ for 2014 but it was such a good year for my running, both in times and experience I can only think of a few. So I’m going to end on a high and look forward to 2015 with more PBs and events to top even the great 2014.
Thank you for reading my blog and thank you friends and family for your support and to Geoff for being a pacemaker.
