Running without goals...

My last blog was all about me not giving up on the triathlon dream before it began, hmmm well I have to confess to not going near the pool or bike since. I quite like swimming and would happily put in the effort to get better at it, my stumbling block is the cycling, I just don't enjoy it! Sorry cycling friends but I don't. I haven't made a final decision about the triathlon but I will over the next week or so. The thing is I want the exercise I do to be fun, to look forward to it as it's what I do when I'm not working!

This brings me onto the main point of this blog running without goals...

I have had the happiest week's running for a very long time, obviously it helps that I am a lot less stressed than I have been for a while and my mental health is improving so I feel more like me again, but it's not just that. I haven't raced since September last year when I did the Colne Engaine 5! This is mainly due to not having any money to enter races but it's great.

Running group friends at parkrun (photo by Mike Eldred)

It's half term this week so a week to do as I please and I have had some great runs, some with friends, some on my own, some with my dog,  loving running and supporting my friends at my running groups, today we ran far enough to warrant having coffee and cake at the end! I have started listening to music again on some of my runs. The best bit though has just been waking up and deciding as I put my trainers on where I'm going and how far, sometimes I don't even decide this till I get going.
Yesterday I had the whole day without much planned so I packed my race vest with some drink and a bag of jelly beans and just headed out the door, it was a beautiful morning and I ended up running 16 miles and loving every step.

Race vest and headphones ready for a long one!

I am still run streaking and am at day 412, with my streak now 2083 miles long, I have set myself a little goal of reaching 2500 miles at day 500! (So not running entirely without goals ha ha!)

I'm sure at some stage I will return to racing as there are lots out there I still want to do, and completing 100 miles is still firmly at the top of the worm food list. For now I am going to continue to run 'just for fun' and see what happens. Surprisingly I have found some speed recently (fast for me I hasten to add!) whether that's because I am feeling better or because I have no races to train for or a mixture of both who knows.

Enjoying a 'just for fun' long run

Hope you are all having as much fun with your running as I am, and if you have booked yourself into races enjoy the training and the events themselves.

Happy running xx