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Process or Goal Orientated?

I thought I was goal-orientated. I’m ambitious, driven and determined. I create plans and lists for targets to hit and tick off. I’m a Type A personality (a very common thing in the fitness world).

But I was walking Alfie the other day and listening to the Marathon Talk podcast (episode 349) and Martin was interviewing an amazing guy called Joe Grant. Joe talked about the crazy challenges he had gone on, running and cycling hundreds of miles and going on fantastic adventures. What became apparent straight away was that he focused on the “journey” not the outcome, like his time or placings. It was all about the experiences he gained, the training he went through that got him to the point of doing all those incredible races.

It made me suddenly realise that that’s similar to how I think. OK I am in NO WAY comparing myself to this amazing ultra marathoning pro, but in terms of what he focuses on is exactly how I feel. I asked myself, why do I keep running marathons? Surprisingly it’s not to hit some elusive time goal or smash my PB. It’s the training weeks leading up, it’s hitting those long runs and feeling accomplished afterwards. Obviously not always as sometimes they suck and I feel pants, but you take the good with the bad. Next week’s run might be different. The fact is though that I don’t need a race to validate my running and fitness.

Of course I have time goals for marathons, because otherwise how would I know how to train or what pace to set off at? But if I don’t hit that goal it’s not a failure. The marathon, instead, is the goal – the victory lap. I’ve done the hard weeks of training, ticked off all those long runs and now I get to see if I can make it to the end.

When I got my PB at Liverpool of course I was over-the-moon but actually had I finished in a similar time to the marathons before or slower I’d have still been happy. That training cycle was awesome. Each week was showing me what I could do and the race was just the cherry on the top to say, “you did it, it worked! Well done!”. And no, it wasn’t because I was getting faster or hitting PBs. It was because most of the runs I felt strong and I was happy running.

It’s the same with parkrun. When I first started parkrunning I was keen to beat my time every Saturday I went and it drove me to injury after injury. I lost the love. But when I stopped caring about my time (to some extent of course, I still look at the results and enjoy seeing progress), parkrun suddenly became fun again. And instead of aiming for things like “sub-20 minutes” or “first female”, I now aim for how many different parkruns I can do over the UK. Where’s my next one going to be? Where can I visit next? What’s the course going to be like? Of course smashing out a fantastically fast time (for me) is fun once in a while, but if I don’t get a PB it’s not a waste or a failure. It’s just another experience on another day.

Like I said in a previous post, I’m reading the Brownlee brother’s books and it’s fascinating. I love hearing about how hard they train and how ambitious they are. Reading their book though does feel a little empty to me at times. The most interesting parts are when they talk about their training or race in depth and detail. Of course they can’t do this for every race because it would be a mammoth book, but even aside from this, what’s clear is that they are very goal-driven. A race to them is summed up by the outcome first and foremost: where did they place. OK obviously that is hugely important to them because they are professional elite athletes and their placing is what’s important at the end of the day, but I almost don’t care about where they came. I want to hear about the details and the experiences – the nitty gritty. Instead they sum up races very quickly with “the swim went well, the bike was hard and the run went fast and I came first”.

For me, when I write race recaps (different league and incomparable talent completely, of course) I go into flowery details about when I needed to pee, what gels I took and what that marshal said to me at mile five. My result is purely incidental. Yes it’s important, but it’s not why I set out to race. (Please forgive my stumbling comparison to the hugely talented Brownlee brothers, it’s a whole different thing I know but it just made me think how different elite athletes are to the average Jo(e)).

For Chester Marathon I just want to finish uninjured and with a smile on my face. The journey has been tough with its ups and downs in motivation and hot weather but I can look back fondly and think, if the marathon goes tits up then I don’t mind because that 21 miler was cool, running to Fareham parkrun was so much fun and the Reigate Half surprised me with how good it felt.

This is not a rambling post to try and sandbag my time or claim nonchalantly “I don’t care what time I finish”. Of course I care. In fact, I’ll lay it out for you bare:

  • A Goal: sub 3:30 (this is really quite ambitious considering my training but hey ho, aim high! If I feel good on the day who knows what could happen…all the planets need to align though)
  • B Goal: sub 3:35 (realistically this is within my grasp I think)
  • C Goal: I’d like to beat Boston’s time (sub 3:38) or at the very least sub 3:45. I did my 21 miler at around 8:15-8:20 pace and this time goal is sitting just under that pace. But it will also depend on tangents and things like that.

But ultimately, I’m happy as long as I finish uninjured. If I don’t get any of the above goals and “just” finish the marathon, it’s another one ticked off my list and (after some actual time off – I promise, this time!) I’ll be on to the next one, happy as ever. This is why I’m happy to tell you my goals because if I don’t achieve them, I’m not embarrassed or see myself as a failure. It’s something I can dissect and improve upon next time. *Rubs hands in glee* all that data, all those training runs…It builds into the next training plan to polish it all up for the next marathon.

Are you goal or process driven?

Why do you race?

Do you often have targets you want to achieve? What are those targets: times, experiences, quantities of events?

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Last long run and dating frustrations

This was my last weekend before the Chester Marathon. I had one last long run to do and decided on 12 miles, an arbitrary number based on the fact that I had a good route for 12 miles.

I would have done it on Sunday morning but I was going to be marshalling fairly early at a local race so I decided to do it Saturday…But this also meant a very early morning and sadly not being able to do parkrun as my dad and me were heading to the O2 at 9am. We had gotten tickets to Empire Live, which is an event done by the Empire film review magazine. I’m a huge fan of their podcast and we had tickets to watch the it being recorded live. We also had tickets (it came as a package) to see some old and new films at the cinema there but the timings didn’t work out (we’d have had to have left super early or stayed there later than we fancied) and really we were only interested in the podcast, having a nice meal and a wander around.

Anyway, so Saturday morning saw me up again at 5.45am to be running by 6.30am. I felt very tired in general and like I should be in bed during the first mile but then I woke up a bit and got going (basically woman’ed-up). I saw a gorgeous sunrise over a farmer’s field that was growing pumpkins and it really was a beautiful sight. I wished I’d have taken a photo but I couldn’t be bothered with the faff. A bit later on though I did decide to snap a photo as I was a bit more compos mentos…img_5306The run seemed to fly by quite quickly. The temperature was lovely and cool and only started slightly warming towards the end. I did have a near miss moment with a squirrel that I almost ran over. I don’t know who was more shocked, the squirrel or me! He (she?) lept out of the bushes and in a comedy-esque moment stopped dead-still wide-eyes when he (she?) saw me. Then ran away.

capture

And my last long run was done! Woohoo! It’s funny because this twelve mile run was exactly the same as one of the first long runs I did when I started this marathon training. I did that run in an average pace of 8.20min/mile and for this run I did it in 8min/miles. Good progress I think!img_5329Then I got showered super fast and we were on the road to London. I decided to just have two apples for breakfast en route as I wasn’t that hungry to have anything bigger straight away and we were having a big early lunch as soon as we got there that I didn’t want to spoil.o2I’ve never been to the O2 before so it was quite cool seeing it – it’s huge! We’d booked a table at a Brazilian restaurant called Rodizio Rico which was fantastic.rodico-o2It was the usual Brazilian-style cuisine with a huge salad bar and the waiters offering different meats on skewers. I was in heaven. I was so proud of my dad who was very restrained and careful about his choices (he’s trying to lose weight). In fact, I think we were both quite good. I ate a lot but not so much that I felt uncomfortable (like I do so often!). It was very tasty but it did start to get really busy as a Marvel event finished and about 20 families with little children came in. Our cue to exit fast 😉img_5341The live podcast was fantastic and really showed how good the guys who run it are as they’re exactly the same on and off mic. They’re so charismatic and knowledgeable about films. There were two guests interviewed as well, Tom Bennett (from Love & Friendship and the Ricky Gervais film) and Mike Colter (he’s in the new Luke Cage series – I didn’t really know who he was but he was a really nice guy and built like a house). It was a really fun thing to watch. We then had a mosey about and a (free!) drink in the Empire Hub (which was like the main congregating area) and then we headed home.

The next morning I was up at 7am to help marshal the Perform 5 race, which is very local to me and is helped run by my club. I took Alfie with me and we walked to the cricket stadium, the Ageas Bowl, which is just up the road and we collected our bibs, signs and instructions.img_5348My instructions were so confusing about which side of the road needed to be closed and for how long. It was really quite stressful. I would have to stop traffic but it wasn’t clear from which way! I was so worried about telling cars to stop but not knowing if I actually should be telling them to stop. In the end another marshal came and joined me on my spot to help out as no one could work out what the instructions meant.img_5354

We worked it out thankfully after coordinating with the marshals up and down the road and could relax a bit until the race actually began. We were around 4ish miles so it would be a while until the first runners got to us. We were right next to Burger King so we used their facilities and bought some coffee 😉

img_5359The lovely Louise and me

I think our position is now a coveted one due to how convenient it’s location is 😉 As the runners started passing through I really got into cheering them on. I started yelling silly things like “Pain is temporary! Glory is forever!” and “the incline is a figment of your imagination!” and got a few laughs and wry smiles. I really enjoyed myself. Alfie even got a few quick strokes.

After my marshalling duties I then headed out for my own run. Four miles round the block. It was windy but lovely and sunny. The run started fairly sluggishly but then I got faster as I went on. The route was a new one to me and nice because it was literally two miles away from home then swinging back for two miles home again so it felt quite satisfying.4-miles

 

 

 

I then got showered super quickly and made some lunch. I had a date planned (met through Internet dating, God help me) for a coffee in Winchester at 2pm so I needed to have an early lunch. I’d luckily had an early breakfast so this worked out nicely…Until the prospective date cancelled at the last minute saying his mum wasn’t well and her partner had asked him to look after her at the last minute as he wasn’t there. I’d practically given myself indigestion trying to eat as quickly as I could to make the time. *Sighs* I’d washed my hair, put a nice outfit on and made some actual effort…for it to be wasted. Oh well! I went shopping with my mum instead. Hey hum.

Do you do any marshalling at races?

Have you been to the O2 before?

Have you ever had a date cancel on you?

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21 miles and late for parkrun

For my last long run I’d planned to do between 18-20 miles on Saturday. This was my third BIG mileage run. I’ve previously done an 18.5 miler and a 19 miler.

I’ve been feeling completely different to a few weeks ago when I felt fed up, anxious and just not feeling the marathon training. Now having got two big runs under my belt and nothing bad happening, I was ready to conquer the final one.

I wanted to tick Eastleigh parkrun off my parkrun list as it’s such a close parkrun to me and yet I’ve never done it. It’s literally ten minutes drive from where I live! As usual I got up at 5.45am on Saturday to be ready to run by 6.30am. I’d had a pretty crappy night sleep as the wind and rain hammered against my window and when I woke up it was still raining. I had memories of winter long runs…

I exchanged a few social media messages with fellow runners who were up and about to do their long runs too and we exchanged some good lucks and “God look at the weather” moans. It was nice as it didn’t make me feel so alone and crazy!

I headed out and it wasn’t actually very cold at all, quite humid but very wet. I was thankful that I was wearing a t-shirt and my running skort (and compression socks!). I felt a bit tired but otherwise I felt quite good. In fact, I felt really good!

The miles ticked by so quickly and before I knew it I was at five miles and heading towards Hedge End. I was soaked through and rain was dripping down my face but it was lovely and refreshing. I got to Hedge End after 10 miles and still felt good.

I hadn’t really planned my route past getting to Eastleigh but I knew vaguely where the parkrun started so that would work, right? [Honestly, how I survive daily life amazes me with this supremely optimistic and naive view of the world I have]. I got through the tough hilly section of my route (there really is no way of avoiding these hills if I want to run from Stubbington to Hedge End).

I started to feel a slight bit of worry in my stomach as the time ticked past 8.30am and I wasn’t in Eastleigh yet… but it wasn’t much further. And that’s true. But where the parkrun was was. At 8.45am I decided to stop and check my phone. I knew the road names I needed to find and I knew it was located in Fleming Park. Basically, I knew where it was in a theoretical sense, but when you’re actually on the roads it’s very different. I found I was a fair bit away still.

Thankfully there were loads of signs for Fleming Park and I quickened my pace – my watch beeped past 17 miles. I finally found a park-like place and saw the wondrous sight of the parkrun flag… at 9:08am. I saw some marshals  and gasped, “Can I please start late?”. And they kindly said that was fine and showed me the start. I reset my watch and got going.

Eastleigh parkrun is three laps, pretty much all on a grassy track around a park. I was running on my own as I was so far behind but soon the front runners were lapping me. I said well done to them as they past me, gazelle-like. I eventually caught up to the tail runner and made slow process overtaking the runners at the back. It was quite nice to be running past people and using them as markers to get through the run, which by now was feeling quite tiring.

There’s a horrible gentle incline that seems to go on for ages that you have to do three times and it was a killer. My friend, Aaron, caught up with me (him on his last lap and me on my second – he’s very speedy!) and we had a nice little chat before I told him to push on as he’s a lot faster and I didn’t want to hold him back (he was even running at a slower than normal pace for him as he was doing 16 miles in total!).

My parkrun time was 31:31 (ooh the number symmetry!) as I had started late though my watch said 25:36. I’m really happy with that as I felt like I was crawling by the end. I was completely soaked through and it was still raining. I felt more sorry for the marshals though who looked very cold and wet!

How cool does this map look of where I ran? It really shows how far 18 miles is!

I bumped into my old work colleague, Ian, which was nice. He was actually the person who told me about Hedge End Running Club back in the day. He’s not part of the club but he’s a regular runner and Eastleigh is his usual parkrun. Then I caught up with my friend, Aaron.

He graciously bought me a Fruit Shoot drink (love those things) and we sat in the warm and dry of the café to have a natter. He’s planning on entering the Boston marathon so wanted some advice. He’s a very talented runner and is planning on doing the double – Boston and London (they’re five days apart). Crazy!

When we got up to leave I realised I’d left a little puddle of water in my chair from where I’d dripped…nice. We walked outside and Aaron ran home and my dad picked me up. I was now really cold so when I got home the first thing I wanted was a hot shower before anything else. My hair, though… God what a nightmare.

So knotted and tangled! My hairband was on so tightly I feared I’d rip out half my hair if I tried to pull it out. So I risked it for a biscuit…and used scissors.

Thankfully I avoided cutting any of my actual hair, whew!

When I drove back to my house after showering and breakfast (well, brunch!) I basically drove similar roads to what I’d run and found it ever so depressing how quickly I was zooming along those same streets. It was like Tom Hanks in Cast Away when he spends hours painfully trying to build fire and then at the end of the film picks up a lighter and flicks it on in a second…

Have you ever missed the start of a race or parkrun?

How do you deal with crazy knotted hair?

Do you mind running in the rain?

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19 miles and no more glasses

And just like that, summer seems to be over.

September is here, the sunshine seems to be diminishing each day, and the nights and mornings are drawing in. But it’s quite nice in some ways to snuggle into the duvet at night and feel cosy rather than hot and stuffy!

I’m also grateful for cool days for running as well. Like the weekend before I did my long run on the Saturday and combined it with a parkrun, Netley parkrun this time. I stayed at my parent’s house on Saturday and had a route planned out that would get me to Netley after running 15 miles.

I set off at 6.30am and it was almost cold. I remembered my compression socks this time and wore shorts and just a singlet. I was at a perfect temperature. The first mile took me up to the seafront at Hill Head and the mist over the water tempted me to take a photo as it was so beautiful but in all honesty I couldn’t be bothered to faff about and get my phone out. I took a mental snapshot instead. It was so quiet and peaceful at this time.

There were a few lone dog walkers and some photographers and fisherman setting up near the water (along Hill Head there are usually lots of photographers taking photos of the wildlife and sea; it’s a very picturesque place and it’s right next to the Haven Nature Reserve so there are usually lots of birds and wildlife about).

In my head I had broken the run up into 6 miles (where I’d be running a familiar route – actually my usual long route but going the opposite direction) and then 6-11 miles would be getting to Hedge End (where I live) and then from there getting to the parkrun. So it was nicely broken up. There were a couple of nasty inclines at points (but also a great decline as you can see!) but otherwise the miles ticked away quite quickly.

In my head I really wanted to do a bit more than last week (18.5miles) and when I arrived at Netley I’d done 15 miles so I went round the long way to add on some extra distance. I’d also arrived at 8.40am and didn’t want to stand around for that long before parkrun.

In the end I only managed another 0.7 as I bumped into my friends (and one of my friends from my non-running group who’s been doing parkrun on and off for a bit and we’ve been meaning to meet up to do a parkrun for a bit – another Anna. It was lovely to see her).

The parkrun itself felt tough and I was mentally ticking off every 0.1 to the finish. It did feel a bit sad to be relatively slow compared to my normal times of late but I’m more than happy to take a slower parkrun (24:17) and get the long run done so early than a fast parkrun and still have the long run to do the next day! I’m chuffed I beat last week’s time at Fareham though by about 30 seconds.

I decided as I was running I’d add on a little extra to bump up my total distance to 19 miles. This meant running through the finishing funnel, taking a token and carrying on running up and around the field until I got to 3.3 miles. Woohoo 19!

I then sat down and contemplated life for a bit I was knackered!

I then helped clear down parkrun with the other guys – which was good as it meant I could shake off my legs a little bit. After a coffee, my friend Mike gave me a lift back to my house. I’d checked with him beforehand if it was OK because otherwise I’d have been a bit stranded (and luckily just before I left my parent’s I remembered my keys so I could get in my flat!). Thank you, Mike!

I felt pretty good after the run! Though I distinctly remember being in the shower washing my hair thinking, I could honestly do with a good nap. I didn’t though sadly as I had to rush around getting stuff done before my dad picked me up and took me to my eye laser surgery appointment. Can I just stop for a moment and celebrate the happy circumstance of my weekend travels? So my car was at my parent’s house, I ran to parkrun, I got a lift back to mine. Coincidentally I had an eye appointment that meant I couldn’t drive afterwards due to the drops they’d use in my eyes – so handily my dad took me and brought my back to their house – reuniting my with my car. Ta da! Obviously big thanks to my dad for being my taxi of course.

So yes, laser eye surgery. I had a consultation and after a lengthy eye examine and, well, consultation I decided to go ahead and book my appointment for 31st October. No more glasses and no more contact lenses! Now me wearing glasses might be a shock to some of you because I never have any photos taken with them on and I rarely wear them in public. I hate them and think I look awful in them. But I am very short-sighted and have been since I was about 10, just progressively getting worse. Now my eyes have finally stopped getting worse and I’m fed up of the faff of lenses. I’m fed up of not being able to tell the difference between the shampoo bottle and the conditioner bottle in the shower. Or seeing the clock in the middle of the night.

I still need a firm go-ahead from the surgery, and I’ll have that appointment in a few weeks but (hopefully) I’ll be able to get it done. It takes four minutes to do the surgery but about a day to recover (though no pain, just blurriness). THIS IS AMAZING. Yes it’s a lot of money (just under £3k) but it’s something that really affects my confidence. And it’s just such a faff wearing lenses and then having to take them out in the evening and effectively being all ugly again (in my head). I’m not saying people who wear glasses are unattractive, absolutely not. I just don’t seem to look as good as other people in them. I wish I could wear those bold, in-your-face glasses but I just don’t seem to suit them. People say I look “studious” in my glasses but I don’t want to look studious!!

The worst part about the appointment was that I wasn’t allowed to wear my contacts for the day of the appointment. This meant running 19 miles in my glasses and my running friends seeing me. I felt so self-conscious (and not to mention how annoying it was to run in glasses – steaming up, getting droplets of water on them and not sitting right with my Aftershokz headphones that go over my ears). But if it meant the possibility of never wearing glasses again (OK until I need reading glasses) then I was happy to do it.

Finger’s crossed my next appointment goes well!

Do you wear glasses, or contact lenses?

Is there anything you feel self-conscious about?

Would you get your eyes lasered if you needed to?

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18.5 miles with Fareham parkrun

When I finished work on Friday, instead of feeling elated and chuffed that it was the start of a long weekend, I felt nervous and anxious. I realise this is ridiculous, but I was dreading the next day and the long run I had planned.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I’d got 18 miles planned. In other marathon training cycles I don’t remember ever being so worried about a long run. Yes there’s always a few nerves and “oh God” feelings before but I think because I haven’t’ been enjoying my previous long runs this time around and have been finding them such a grind that I could only think it would be the same but, well, longer.

Instead of leaving it to hang over me all day Saturday I planned to do 15 miles and then finish with a parkrun (5km). This should break the monotony and get it over and done with before 10am on Saturday, leaving my the rest of the weekend to chill. It would also work nicely as I was going to meet my friend, Adi, at Fareham parkrun and get breakfast afterwards with him. We’d met at the Marathon Talk Run Camp weekend and he was in the area for the weekend.

Fareham parkrun is another very close parkrun to my parent’s house, about three miles away, and one neither Adi nor I had done before. So this would mean ticking another parkrun off my list! I’m now on 17 (though technically 18 as I did the one in the States but it only counts for UK ones to get on this special 20+ parkrun lists).

I broke my run into three parts: 12 miles of regular long running-ness on my own following a route I always do, then three miles to head to parkrun, then actual parkrun which would then equal just over 18 miles. I can’t tell you how positive this made me feel beforehand. I’d psychologically tricked myself into thinking it wasn’t actually that long (the question “how do you eat an elephant?” comes to mind).

So I headed out at the delightfully early time of 6.30am (having woken up at 5.45am, surprisingly awake and ready to go, no breakfast as normal). Obviously it was a lot cooler at this time and wonderfully quiet and peaceful. It felt easy getting going and I had the brand new podcast episode from the BBC 5 Live show on. I was in a happy place.

Everything went swimmingly apart from one tiny annoyance with my calf. It started to feel really tight as I headed to Fareham. Not injury tight or worryingly so, but just a sharp reminder of why I normally wear compression socks for long runs. It was bearable, just annoying. I also realised I actually didn’t know how to get to the parkrun.

OK I knew where it was and Fareham is a very familiar place to me having lived around that area for most of my life, but the start is surrounded by really busy A roads and I wasn’t sure where to get to the safe crossing. I managed to add half a mile onto my run for going the wrong way…well it could have been worse!

And as I arrived I bumped straight into Adi which was perfect! And then my friend, April, appeared as well which was lovely.

April and I know each other through social media and briefly chatting before parkruns but we’d never actually spent a long period of time in real life together so it was really nice to properly chat to her for once!

A few of my running club were there too which was nice so there was quite a crowd of us in the end!

The actually parkrun was, at first, quite hard to get going again having been stood around for about 10 minutes but once I loosened up I was fine.

Photo credit: Peter Stod

Obviously I was tired but it was nice chatting to Adi and April as I ran. The parkrun is an out and back and on a trail path (easy stones not grass) and relatively flat and it seemed to fly by. 18.5 miles done with a negative split parkrun to finish!

April had run seven miles beforehand and is coming back from injury and Adi had recently run 100k (his first ultra!!) so I think we did quite well considering!

April joined us for breakfast afterwards which was lovely. We had planned on having breakfast at the Cams Mill pub just next to the parkrun but they weren’t serving food until 10am (or “when the chef arrived”) so we decided to walk into Fareham proper and find somewhere there as it wasn’t far. In the end we chose a Whetherspoons which was perfect as I their fry-ups are just the right balance of greasiness and tastiness

It was so lovely to catch up with them both and talk all things running and randomness. We then parted ways and my dad, who was handily doing his big Tesco shop just over the road, gave me a lift back. Perfect!

So in the end my run went really well. I loved that it was over and done with so early and it didn’t feel like a slog. Going a lot earlier is obviously a lot better as well (I realise this is a “you think, dumb arse?” moment) but I get up so early in the week that I hate getting up super early at the weekend.

The rest of the day I was so chilled out. I wasn’t actually that tired either which was a big surprise as normally I’m fit for nothing after a long run. I went shopping with my mum, sister and little niece, Ellie.

A Starbucks stop was in order of course and Ellie asked me her advice on what cake to get. Using my wealth of knowledge of all things cake I suggested the caramel mallow top cupcake. Ellie even graciously allowed me to try it, bless her. And we both agreed, it was a fabulous selection. The whole top of the cupcake was covered in marshmallow fluff (and had caramel injected inside it), then covered in caramel and chocolate on top of a chocolate sponge.

Yum. After my mammoth breakfast I actually didn’t fancy a whole cake to myself (who am I!??!) and didn’t end up eating until dinner that evening. To be honest, when you’ve run a long run you do feel a bit ‘off for the rest of the day I find. It isn’t until the day or two after the runger fully hits you

Anyway, I’m so relieved that the long run went well. It’s made me feel so positive about long runs going forward. I’m probably going to do something similar for this weekend but running to Netley instead and making sure I arrive with only five minutes before the start so there’s less standing around. We’ll see!

What’s your ideal way to do a long run? Breaking it up or all in one go?

How many different parkruns have you done?

What’s your ideal breakfast after a long run?