Mid-year review and What the next 6 months hold

 

I don’t usually do mid-year reviews of my running, leaving it all for my end of year. But this year I thought I would and may even make it an annual thing.  The reason being I wanted to reflect on the first 6 months and also look ahead to the next 6 months.

Milestones

In terms of doing what I set out to do I couldn’t really ask for more. I have done 21 parkruns so far this year, so on course to do 42 by the end of the year which is what I did last year.  My aim is to do 40 each year so have a bit of give.  So, I aimed for 20 by midyear and did 21.  I’m now on 383 parkruns so my 3-year plan has kicked in to reach 500, 3 years from now, 40 parkruns a year.  But there maybe a curveball coming which I’ll get on to.  But for now 400 is the aim and I have 17 parkruns to do, to reach that so should hopefully get that by the end of the year all being well.

Challenges and Achievements

One of the biggest goals I achieved in the first 6 months was getting under 30 minutes for 5k which was a Crinan Canal parkrun in April. This has been a long time coming and I am delighted to get under the 30 barrier again.  I didn’t really get close apart from that but out of the 21 parkruns I have done I have hardly been over 35 minutes which is a positive especially since I have been doing a lot of hilly parkruns.  And another positive which resulted in slightly quicker parkruns is that I have ran for the full 5k distance a lot more, even the hilly ones. Running the full way at Queen’s still illudes me but I am running more of it than before.

In terms of challenges, I have completed position bingo which is finishing in a place ending in 1, 2, 3, 4 up to 100.  So, for 1 it can be position 1 but surprisingly I didn’t get a number 1 and would have been 101, 201 or 301 etc.

I have also completed the pirates challenge which completing 7 parkruns beginning with the letter C and 1 beginning with R.

And finally, I completed the Volunteer tourist challenge which is volunteering at 10 different parkruns.

What’s next

Normally when I watch the London marathon, I have to resist the urge not to apply for longer distance events for a week or 2 as it’s so inspiring.  I think because of the number of running you tube channels I signed up for in the last few months this urge has lasted longer and I’m about to buckle.  Obviously, my parkrun goals are still important and I know plenty of people who balance parkrun with longer distances which is what I want to do.  It’s really just a case of getting the motivation to get out there and pounding the streets during the week and I’m going to see if applying for a few 10k races does that. It’s not like I’ve been doing no exercise during the week. As I have really upped the walking after work this year. But I need to turn that into running.

Let’s see what happens….