12 months ago this week, feeling a bit unfit and setting aside my deep concern about my ‘clicky knees’ I pulled on my old trainers, ancient football shorts and a cotton t-shirt, downloaded the podcast and set out around the park on my C25K journey.
I quickly grew fond of the lovely Laura, despite her questionable taste in music (‘You and Julie, you and Jooooleeee!’) and found I could actually run a bit and it didn’t hurt as much as I’d expected. After graduating, consolidating and racking up 21 Parkruns (slightly obsessed), one 10km race and gradually pushing on the distance, this morning seemed the perfect time to add a couple more Km’s and get to half-marathon distance.
There are certainly lovelier parts of the world, but on a bright, crisp Autumn morning the many parks of North London looked pretty bloody good as I wended my way on a mazy circuit there and back.
I’m very much a lurker in these here parts, but I enjoy reading about the trainer obsessions, Lycra purchases and arcane training methods of the fraternity. If I’m honest, as a bear of very little brain, I don’t think I’ll ever really get the hang of fartleking, intervals and negative splits etc. What works for me is sticking Radio 4 or a podcast on and letting people more intelligent than me distract me until I slowly forget that I’m putting one foot in front of another, over and over and over again.
I don’t run in football shorts and cotton t-shirts anymore though.
Thanks to Laura for giving me a fresh lease of life, and thanks to all of you for posting your stories, tips, achievements and battles. And thanks to Julie. I’ll never forget her.