Well! This ultra-slow Japanese shuffle-runner has just made it Home on RunLEJOG4!
Making it from John o’Groats to my home town near the M6, at the weird mile mark of 333.3 miles, was originally a stretch target, with my calculations of weekly averages getting me at that point to Worcester (257miles)! So I obviously improved on my average weekly distances, not enough to finish the challenge in time by 16th August, but well in time to get home with almost 2 months to spare!
I’m minded to email the team at End2End and plead for my medal.
And it was a lovely 8.5k run today which resolved quite a few issues:
- First run since last Sunday, as work was hefty and hectic, and my health did not quite feel right. This might have been due to the heat which felt stifling, but I am also adjusting my medication.
- Hubby and I as a walk-run team set out only to do a 6k, but as the grass fields had been mown we found ourselves trying out the lost public footpath that I couldn’t find when stuck at 8k. This is part of using a new, hilly ( but hubby smirks at my use of that term, but what does he, the Walker, know! 😤) route that will extend into a 10k out and back route.
The route still has high grass section (bottom left pic), where I almost twisted my ankle as the ground underneath all that grass is uneven. So not good for running. But my feet were nimble enough to catch myself, something I’m sure wouldn’t have happened 18 months ago.
But it allowed us to get to the path leading to the bridge where … yesssss! … I met my virtual me running up the M6 as part of LEJOG4!
- On the return route we decided to do the courageous thing and jog through the private farm, making this route so much easier than using the overgrown public footpath.
- So this route will be my second 10k route. The first one was my lovely level former rail line leading pretty much from my doorstep straight out in West-North direction. But this one is an undulating, uneven paths over fields and cops, again from my doorstep straight out in South-West direction. And my aim is to have an out and back 10k route from my doorstep into all 4 directions, each time working my way back up to 10k.
So there it is! Many of my fellow LEJOG4 runners have made it to John O’Groats long by now. But I’m still running, ultra-slow but steadily and consistently.
I may not look like a runner, or will ever do, but I AM a runner. And since starting this running journey, although I cannot see from photos that running has made a difference to the way I look, I feel immensely different and hubby confirms that I have changed and that - in his words - I am energy personified, so much more than a year ago.
So over and out for now from this smiley, happy runner and wishing everyone one, whatever the speed, the shape, the cadence or the distance, a very happy running journey!
I finally made it!
