May

Well this has been a fun month.  It started full of promise and full of hope as I set out on a structured training plan for my half marathon in August. The first of the month, a bank holiday, 35 minutes easy running it said.  This should be easy enough! I got about a mile into it and started to feel more and more unwell till I just stopped, turned around and walked back feeling very faint.

That was me for the week. House bound. No exercise. No work. No nothing. By the time Saturday came round I was perking up a bit so headed over to Ruchill parkrun which at the time was the newest addition to the Scottish parkrun family. So I decided I was just going to jog round given the week I had. Well I thought it would be a jog. Its a 3 lap course and somehow it feels like you are always going up apart from one wee bit where there is a short, sharp downhill.  I jogged about a mile and a bit and ran/walked the rest.

For the rest of the month I really got into the plan and stuck with all the sessions bar one where I wasn't feeling up to it that day. But I am enjoying the mix of speed sessions, easy runs and slightly longer runs. Before this plan I have always just done loops of a certain distance. But this plan does so many minutes. So I have been doing out and backs trying to keep even pacing and doing smaller loops at the end if required to make up to a certain time. I think I may go back to loops though as I kind of know roughly how long each loop takes anyway.

One run on the schedule which I have changed is the 25 minute easy run on the Saturday. And you will be shocked as to the reason. To do an all out parkrun.  The week after Ruchill I did Linwood and did just over 27 minutes and gave a really good effort.  Then the next week I did Strathclyde. I wasn't unwell but I just didn't feel like going fast that day so set off conservatively.  But I found as the run went on I was gradually getting faster and finished off just under 29 minutes.  Then my last parkrun of the month was Victoria parkrun where I surprised myself a lot.  My brother came along too who has been running well recently so I expected him to beat me.  He shot off at the start and I settled into a nice steady pace. With Victoria being three laps and going round a loch I saw him build a substantial gap.  But on the 3rd lap I realised I was closing and I took a point where he passed and counted 20 seconds gap. But I thought that was too much as there was less than a kilometre left.  On the straight back towards the loch though I caught and passed him. I fully expected him to overtake me again on the home straight but he never caught me.  I finished in a seasons best of 26.06 with my brother getting a 5k PB just 7 seconds behind me.

I have also started the steps challenge again last week where I am aiming to cover 10,000 steps every day for 100 days (till the end of August). I have decided not to do lots of blogs on this, this year though and focus on my half marathon training instead. I am aiming to beat my average last year which was 13,000 steps a day and will give wee updates just to say my progress compared to last year.

Step count as at 29th May after 5 days

2016: 61,620
2017: 75,121