I have run 500 miles in 2017 (Go on, who is singing the song in your head? All together now: I would walk 500 miles…). I left it to the last minute but 500 miles it is. I am really pleased with that and a little bit proud. 500 miles is a long way. Some of those miles were bloody horrible. They really were but sitting here reflecting on a year of running I don’t really seem to remember those.
Here are the memories that I do cherish from one hell of rollercoaster ride:
The places I’ve run
I have loved seeing the seasons change on the loops I run from home, how things look different at different times of the year or even just different times of the day in different light and depending on which way round I’m running the loop. I’ve enjoyed running away from home in places as varied as Seahouses, The Lake District, Mexico City and Disney World. I’ve loved how running makes you see even familiar places in a slightly different way and how it lets you explore unfamiliar ones. Some of these runs were hard, really hard and included meltdowns but I wouldn’t change a thing. They are now part of my story and part of an awesome running year.
Discovering I’m even more stubborn than I thought (hard to believe, I know)
On several occasions this year I have tried something new – a new trail, a distance I haven’t done for a while, a new surface (think beach), a ridiculous hill… and failed. I 
have abandoned several runs because I just couldn’t find the mental strength to push through and on each of those occasions I have gone back out, later that day or the next, and I have done it. I have run each and every one of those routes and every time I found something I didn’t know I had, gritted my teeth and kept putting one foot in front of the other. Towards the end of the year I have found some of that determination or stubbornness without having to give up and later go back out. I’m getting mentally tougher.
The creatures seen
I have been so lucky with wildlife sightings this year. It’s quite staggering to think that I have regularly seen kingfishers; that the flash blue and orange is now almost familiar – 
awesome but familiar. Herons continue to be my good omen bird. They’re so majestic and calm and quiet and somehow they install a sense of quiet confidence in me whenever I see one. There have been regular sightings of smaller birds including dippers, wrens, sparrows, robins, all manner of tits, wagtails… and several sightings of woodpeckers and kestrels. I’ve seen deer, rabbits, a mink, hedgehogs, squirrels and a rat or two. The ducks, geese and swans along the canal have been my cheer squad and several times now we’ve seen red kites at Bolton Abbey (as well as at Bramham Park during Endure24). We also saw some very serious road runners and cyclists and decided they’re funny creatures.
The events
Events featured far less heavily in 2017 than in 2016 but I enjoyed Endure24 for the
camaraderie and our team – the running was secondary. I didn’t really enjoy the Lakeland Trails Helvellyn event for the running but I enjoyed having completed it and it once again showed me that the impossible is possible. Kath and I learned a lot about each other that day and we’ve changed how we run as a result. It was worth it for that alone.
The people
I don’t like people generally. So to have a section of this post about the people is slightly odd. However, there are a few who have contributed significantly to me running at all and running 500 miles this year. First, there’s Kath of course. I remain slightly bemused (but very grateful) that she has so far resisted what must be a near overwhelming urge to push me in the canal (or the Wharfe or any other waterway). I wouldn’t be running if it wasn’t for her. Then there are those of my friends, not all runners, who humour me by listening to my running stories, who ‘like’ my posts, who are more supportive than I suspect they realise. I’m looking at you here Bex, Kat, Tammy, Donna, Jenny, Robin, Heather, Sammie, Jo (and others I will have forgotten – sorry). I’m sure having a gym buddy in Nick made me go to the gym and stretch (even if not much else) just enough to avoid serious injury and my online running club continues to provide advice and
support specific to running as a fat lass at the back. What has surprised me though is how much difference the support of the other Facebook group I joined made. The Trail Running Magazine’s Run1000Miles group has been epic. I thought I’d feel like an outsider at best. I thought I’d be intimidated and daunted but the opposite is true. Seeing the inspiring posts, amazing photos, staggering achievements and the support, advice, encouragement and trail running love in the group made me see running and runners in a whole new way. Without that group I wouldn’t have run 500 miles. I am excited to share their adventures and share mine with them in 2018.
Happy New Year!
have to find a child to do it for me). It does everything I want it to and more. It also does some things I really don’t want it to. I will see how I go but I suspect the function that tells me to move if I am sitting still for too long will have to be turned off and I’m really not sure I’m made for smart notifications. I don’t think I need my watch to tell me when my phone’s ringing. Old school, I know. I’ll do a proper review when I’ve taken it out a few times but for now I absolutely love it. It’s nice and light so I forget it’s there and it works well as a watch as well as general activity/step tracker and then the running watch. In terms of the running watch, my favourite feature is the run/walk alert features that means I don’t have to programme or set intervals for a run. I can just set the alerts and programme the run time or distance or whatever or not programme it at all and just set it to go when I set off. The beeps are loud enough to hear without being intrusive but there is also a slight vibration which is great because I can imagine that there are situations where you don’t hear the beeps.
Also for my birthday I got a new yoga mat. I needed one. My old one was baby pink, full of holes where cats have stretched with their claws out, and it may have survived a lamb incident or two earlier this year. It was in a state. The new one is pretty. It’s much thinner that the one I had before so I wondered how my knees would do. It feels great though – supporting, non-slip but more stable and easier to balance on than the one I had before. Again, full review to follow when I’ve used it a bit more. It’s a Bionix Professional Support one. I can’t find a link to a site that isn’t just a selling site so no link for now.
really where I do most of my miles, (although a lot of the canal towpath would be fine with road shoes) we asked to see what trail shoes they had in our sizes in the sale. They had a pair of Hoka Speedgoat and something else I now can’t remember in my size. I tried them both but the Speedgoat felt comfy – a bit weird – but comfy. So at 30% off I thought ‘what the hell’. Kath bought some Hoka Vanquish 3s for the road which she is now wearing sitting on the sofa – not sure if it’s love or she just can’t be bothered to move. She also bought some trail shoes – they were definitely love at first wear: Saucony Peregrine. We’ve been for a little run and I think Kath thinks they’re magic go faster shoes because she left me plodding along at my run/walk to put down a fairly blistering (for us anyway) 9 minute something mile. I wore my new Hokas – see mud on them and everything – and I think 
they’ll be great. I didn’t tie them tight enough at the beginning and realised about a mile in that I was moving around in the shoe too much and it was making my feet hurt a bit. I re-tied them and did them too tight so then my feet were in agony. I did my first hill repeat and then stopped to re-do the laces again. I seemed to get it pretty much right then because the pain eased and I managed the remaining 4 hill repeats (the heart rate data is interesting!) and then run/walked the rest of the 4.8 mile loop with Kath who had just finished her hill sprints when I arrived at the hill – she did another 4 with me… There’s always one!
always did. Kid’s parties are a little awkward on Boxing Day if you actually want your friends to come (I’m not sure I did though, I’m not sure I really liked enough people enough to warrant a party – hasn’t changed that) and I did used to have a party in summer which I’m not sure I actually ever enjoyed that much. So you can see why a Boxing Day birthday is attractive! In fact it’s the perfect day to have a birthday if you’re an introvert who is really quite happy in her own company and can’t really think of anything worse than hosting a party. I mean, just imagine all these people making a fuss, no ta. I don’t have to pretend to be sociable on my birthday because everyone is too busy falling out with their outlaws or too full of mince pies and cheese to even contemplate the possibility that it might be somebody’s birthday, never mind actually come round to say happy birthday. I am particularly happy this year because I don’t think anyone wrote happy birthday in my Christmas card – just don’t do it people, just don’t.
birthday and opening presents, I’d just drunk a stupid amount of water before going bed last night so 6.15 was all my bladder could manage. I crawled back into bed and Kath brought me a cuppa and my presents from her. Oh goodness I got monorail highlighters. Life doesn’t get better than getting monorail highlighters for your birthday. Seriously, that was it, day made. Kath brought them back from 
me to be an impossible pace and yet he looked more comfortable at his pace than I do taking a leisurely walk to the end of the road. I was admiring the effortlessness and thinking that he looked vaguely familiar when it hit me that he looked familiar because watching him run is familiar – I’ve done it countless times on tv. It was 
So on we went to more dippers and plenty of ducks. The sun was coming out and the light was glorious. We walked up the path by the Strid and carried on. We didn’t cross the aqueduct so 4.5 miles minimum it was then. We stopped briefly at Barden bridge to take some photos and admire the views and then we toddled on. At almost bang on 3 miles I got the first painful niggels in my feet. I had a couple of tight calf twinges a little earlier but they had settled down as soon as we were on the flat. My feet were painful for maybe a quarter of a mile and then settled into a slight pins and needles and an ache which stayed with me until we finished but didn’t get worse and the pain didn’t come back either. We finished at the Pavilion rather that pushing on for the longer loop. I don’t want to break and 4.5 miles on hills is the most I’ve asked of my feet and calves recently. It also felt like such a 
gorgeous positive run that I didn’t want to spoil it by pushing my feet too far.
Christmas Eve run on a run walk as 
We woke about 6am but took our time coming round and getting out of bed, had a cup of tea and a mince pie while opening our presents from each other and then got dressed. We headed out about 7.15 and everything was still so quiet. Most houses still seemed in darkness and just every now and again there was a light on in one room or the Christmas trees lights were twinkling. It was coming light slowly. We ran/walked about a two 2 mile loop and my feet were achey but not really painful at the end. It was great to be out and have fun.
I did throw in some hill sprints on one of the almost abandoned runs just to not be too disappointed. That worked because I’d run about a mile, then walked a bit, then run another mile and then walked most of the last mile before the hills. At least I had a decent workout. Yesterday we were going to do two loops to add up to a total of 8 miles but I didn’t make it round the first so instead I stretched, foam rolled, stretched, hydrated, stretched…
really (not) a runner 