January

This year certainly started off with a bang.  It was double parkrun time!  Not that I did one parkrun after the other but I was involved in both.  I missed the bells to get an early night so I was up fresh and early on New Years day.  Firstly I was helping out with marshalling at Strathclyde parkrun.  Then it was up to Tollcross parkrun to run it.  I couldn't quite believe just how tough Toll cross was.  The course starts off going straight up a hill and I was huffing and puffing after that!  There was various other hills round the course. But the main one you have to go up 3 times.  On the last lap I gave in and had to walk. I just had nothing left. I struggled round to the finish in about 30.30 meaning I must have been making the most of the downhills!  A great start to the year having finished it but boy did it take a while to recover from!  I skipped the park run on the Saturday and vowed to get more hill work in. I managed one hill session and that's been it for various reasons I'll go into.

On the 10th I was back at Pollok parkrun and was pleased to finish in 29.10 which is only 2 seconds slower than my best 2014 time at the event.  This showed that I had maintained my fitness from last year and I was in a good position.  Then of course illness struck and I was off work. It took about 2 weeks to fully get rid of it and I managed not to get frustrated at the lack of progress I was making.

The weather then had its turn on making it difficult to run. I made it down to Strathclyde parkrun last week which was fun.  They used the alternative course which was on the grass and is basically 2 times out and back.  I did find it tough though especially the 2nd time. Unfortunately there is no record of the run on the site as it looks like my barcode must have not scanned properly. But from working out my time from other results I was about 33 minutes. Slowest ever at Strathclyde but it was on grass.

Today I planned to do Pollok but it was cancelled so off to Strathclyde again.  This time they had an alternative route but it was 2 times out and back on the path.  It was a wee bit icy and very cold so I had it in my mind before the start I would just take it easy today.  I was pleased with just over 31 minutes and had plenty left in the tank.

Overall considering I've not really run much this month, I'm happy with where I am at the moment.  I've signed up for my first event - the Balfron 10k in the end of April and will be edging back to Tollcross as I get more hill work done.  I've had to change some other plans as the Kielder 10k clashes with Great Scottish run.  I've decided I want to do Kielder as I quite fancy doing the marathon one year and the 10k seems like a good time to check out the area.  Since there was a big gap between events I'm now going to do the Killin 10k in August