I am taking a different approach though and trying not to put enormous pressure on myself when it comes to racing, have to admit to rocking up to Halstead Marathon without a real plan, legs were still heavy and I decided to just go and have a good day out running. I went out way too fast but it felt ok and did a reasonably quick half (for me) the second half I paid for my speedy start and slowed a fair bit, but I did have a great day and a 4:36 finish was far quicker than I had anticipated.
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| Halstead Marathon 14 miles (photo by Mike Eldred) |
The following week was Braintree 5 which I was running with an ever growing group of friends from school, many had only been running a few months and this was their first race. Again I rocked up without a plan after a five mile warm up run and some digging holes at Great Notley Country Park for parkrun! A migraine also hit and a plea for some paracetamol was answered and I felt ok to run. Some motivation from Claire before the start ignited my competitive spirit and for the second time in a week I went out stupidly quick, doing the first mile in 7:45! I slowed a bit but managed to finish in 41:58 a new five mile PB.
It was a great morning and I was extremely proud of Team Beckers, everybody finishing in under an hour.
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| Beckers Green Runners at Braintree 5 (photo by Mike Eldred) |
Next Sunday I will be at Stour Valley Marathon, a self navigation, trail run which I have completed four times before and is a firm favourite. I will be treating this as a training run for Robin Hood 100 in September, so basically a 27 mile trail run, hopefully in the sunshine!
During June I am taking part and hopefully encouraging other to do 30 minutes of activity for 30 days as part of the 3030Essex campaign. For me I already do at least 30 minutes daily so I am gong to do three 30 mile runs during the month to challenge myself,
So Robin Hood 100 is the big one this year, A 100 mile finish has as yet eluded me, but I have a great support crew and I know what went wrong last time. I believe I am physically fit enough to complete it, for me the issue is being mentally strong enough, not letting the pressure build, keeping it fun, not worrying about a finish time.
I have always loved running but this year it is bringing much happiness to my life, I love seeing friends that have previously said they can't run taking it up and being brilliant at it. parkrun as always is one of the highlights of my week and I was truly honoured to be asked to take on the role of co-event director recently. Before I discovered parkrun, several years back now, I was pretty much a solitary runner. parkrun has made running a much more sociable activity, and as someone lacking somewhat in social skills, it is lovely to spend my Saturday morning with such amazing people who I am privileged to call friends.
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| RD at Great Notley parkrun |
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ReplyDeleteTreasure those "amazing friends" Nicki and treat them better than you did this one.
ReplyDeleteAnd relish those Sat Mornings too in full knowledge that you would have no involvement with gnPr if it wasn't for my encouraging you. Your total lack of support and understanding for me when I was in dispute with Len was callous and your subsequent indifference to the consequences of his self serving manoeuvring has been bewildering and cruel as demonstrated by your highlighting it in your blog above.
I only wanted to support you when we were friends and I did so in many different ways as our mutual acquaintances will be aware so it is beyond disappointing that you chose to not reciprocate when the opportunity arose recently with the Livewell events and back in Dec when I was being stabbed in the back by Len and the rest of the team.
I loved being part of gnPr and the opportunity it gave me to grow socially and to contribute to the running community and you and others took that from me to selfishly protect your own "parkrun fix", I hope you are proud of what you have done and the damage it has caused