2017 Review

This year has been a year of 2 halves. The first half was quite good. The second half wasn't a disaster but I definitely have gone backwards.

After doing the Marcothon in December 2016 it really did set me up amazingly and for the majoirty of January I continued that. Things were looking good for my half marathon in March as I ramped my long runs up to 9 miles. But for whatever reason took my foot off the gas.  February and March were back to parkruns including my 100th. I was still running well at this point just over shorter distances. In May I started another half marathon plan which was going really well and in June I peaked.  Scoring my best 10k time since 2010 of 55 minutes. Along with a 26.06 parkrun at Victoria, which was only 30 seconds slower than my fastest time last year.

So it was all going so well then illness struck again and again.  Every time I thought I'd got rid of it, it would come back again. It wasn't a serious illness but enough to impact my running and had to take several weeks off work.  I did joke in my Strava in the 1st January when I was tail runner at Pollok that I was setting my seasons best for the year. Well I very nearly got a worse time than that at Pollok. Also I have come 2nd last in two other parkruns. In the first half of the year 26-27 minutes was a good time for me and 30 minutes was taking it easy. In the second half of the year 30 minutes was a good time for me and no parkrun really felt easy!

I still enjoyed getting out to parkrun regardless and a big change for me this year has been volunteering where I have been volunteering a lot more down at Roukenglen junior parkrun. Any excuse to see my nieces more!  Also it's great to be more involved in parkrun. I am probably more obsessed with it now more than ever.

So what are my parkrun run stats for this year? Here you go: 

4 between 26-27 minutes
4 between 27-28 minutes
2 between 28-29 minutes
5 between 29-30 minutes
16 between 30-40 minutes
2 40 + minutes

33 parkruns total - Now at 129 altogether
New parkruns visited: Harlow, Arrow Valley, Ruchill and Edinburgh

Most visited parkruns this year:

12 Pollok
4 Linwood
3 Tollcross
3 Strathclyde
2 Victoria
2 Springburn
2 Ruchill
2 Drumchapel

I don't think illness was the only reason for getting slower though. My running buddy Andy left my work in June and since then I haven't been getting out very much at lunchtimes. I have still been running when I have been working from home but the motivation for getting up early to get the lunchtime runs has defo declined.

The positive to take from this year is that I'm still running. Even with the rubbish times I didn't let it affect me and looked forward to the next week. That's 3 and half years now I have been back running which I reckon is now my longest period of regularish running in my life. The highlight of the year did come in the second half of the year and that was the weekend through in Edinburgh doing the Cramond parkrun and Tough 10 hill run with the bro.  Going into 2018 I have set new goals which I will go into in another post. These goals have been set with how this year has gone in mind.