Well hello 2018. I’m not sure what to expect from 2018. I don’t know if it will be different, better, worse than 2017. Nothing’s changed from one day to the next, it’s just a change in calendar, diary or filofax insert and if you’ve gone all electronic it’s not even that. But still I quite like the reflection that often comes with a new year. I like the looking back at the year that’s gone, cherishing the memories, laughing at some of the dramas and raising an eyebrow at some of the tantrums. I also like the promise that a new year brings, a whole range of what ifs, new challenges, new adventures or old adventures revisited. There’s something magical about that.
I hope I can continue my running adventure through 2018. I’ve made a good start. After having managed 500 miles in 2017, I would like to have a go at cracking 1000 this year. So I have again signed up to the Trail Running Magazine‘s #Run1000Miles Challenge, as has Kath.
We kicked off our 2018 running year with separate runs and I did just over 5km run/walk with quite niggly calves and sore feet following on from the New Year’s eve 7 miler. It was good to be out though and it was good to get started! After a rest day my legs felt much better. I was also getting anxious about a team building trip I was going
Thursday/Friday so I needed to get out and run off some crazy. I managed to run consistently for the first time in quite a while – the driving and cold rain was an incentive. Things started getting niggly just before 5km so I ran to 5km (slowly but lovely to see a time under 40 minutes for that for the first time since I’ve had to run/walk) and then I ran/walked the rest of the flat section and walked up the hill home to complete about 4.5 miles.
Thursday I set off to the Lake District for the outdoorsy team building days I had to go to for work. We weren’t told exactly what we were doing so anxiety levels were high. Day 1 was really just a little walk with some team building problem solving game type activities along the way (yay my favourite – not) and then an abseil. I didn’t relish the thought of the abseil but it was fine. Day 2 was completely not my thing. We went ghyll scrambling at a beck at Coniston. I don’t like
scrambling. I’m not really bothered about being in the water, even fast moving water but I just don’t like scrambling. My ankles are pretty weak (although getting stronger with running off road more) and my core strength is non-existent and I was in so much gear that I felt like I had no range of movement at all. I’m not confident in my footing and I hate slipping etc. So each step, little climb and scramble was just taking me further out of my comfort zone. I was actually relieved when we got to the first pool and I could do a trust fall backwards into a pool and again relieved when we got to the first jump and I could do that and take my mind off the actual scrambling. I quite liked the look of the final jump too but not of the scramble up to it so I didn’t do that one. I was pretty close to a sense of humour fail. But at some point I just disappeared into my own world, counted my steps, forced myself to keep moving forward as if it was mile 19 of a marathon and started to sort of enjoy the physical exertion. I actually started going for more physically demanding routes through the deeper water rather than the slippery exposed rocks. I used my running mantras when I was ready to pack it in and as I got more tired I started smiling more – fools my brain and everyone else.
Today I have been tired. I thought I might have a few achey muscles but nothing actually
aches, I’ve just been tired. When Kath went for her run I actually went up to get changed too, sat down on the bed and fell asleep. Then I’d sort of decided that I was just going to rest today but there was something niggling me and eventually I got my kit on and ran to Kath’s mum’s to drop something off. It’s only just under a mile and a half round trip. I had said that I would see how I was when I got there and would carry on if I felt fine but my legs are soooo tired. Still running a mile and a half is better than nothing at all!
Tomorrow we’re having a look at the Bolton Abbey half marathon route and are planning on running the 8 mile loop which is the first loop of the course. I’ll see how that goes and then make a decision as to whether I’ve missed too much distance running because of my feet or whether I’ll give it a go on the 4th Feb. I’ll probably come last by some way but that’s ok. So the running adventure continues and if I can get round the 8ish miles tomorrow my first January running week will give me a great start to the #Run1000miles challenge.
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.
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.
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.
really (not) a runner 