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.
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Colinsmith
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Haha - it felt like my first half marathon mileage kinda day too - and I run listening to radio 4 (for similar reasons to you!!) how funny. Well done, loved reading this. Great stuff - keep going, north Londoner 👍
I know a great deal more about the life of Nietzsche now than I did when I woke up this morning. I can guarantee by the time I wake up tomorrow I’ll have forgotten every last word!
My other running favourites are The Archers and... My Dad Wrote A Porno. Hard to worry about the run when you’re laughing at that.
What an amazing Runniversary! It is truly amazing how far so many have come in such a short time, all thanks to C25k. Another success story! Looks like you don’t need to worry too much about fartleks, intervals and negative splits though....you’re mighty speedy already.
Well done. Yes, Laura's been absolutely great but would be glad not to hear "You and Joooleee" ever again. However even with the dodgy music if you've had to restart a few times like I have you get to know exactly where you are on the tape which helps. Here's to many more miles on your clock.
Wow, well done and happy runnivesary!!! I had sexy Michael Johnson for c25k and he didn't blast me with questionable music, thank gods, but then I used the app!
I’m with Ianodda Truffle on this Flick: if you used the app rather than the podcast, you’ve effectively cheated and should be required to do C25K again from the start. 😉
Actually, I enjoyed the music in a masochistic kind of way. I keep trying to persuade my son to do C25K so I can do it all over again with him - we’d have a right laugh at some of the cheesier tracks!
Happy runniversary, ColinSmith! I've graduated and done my first 5k race, but I'm a little behind you in the distance stakes. Keep on going, I'll try to catch up soon!
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Half marathon goal!! 😬
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