LONG POST ALERT!
Haven’t posted for a while, but still here and still running. Started this year with the intention of running an organised half marathon sometime this year. Was training towards this, just self-training, not an organised programme as frankly interval training and the like doesn’t do it for me.
I had got to 11.06 miles, my longest run so far, whilst aiming for 12 but conked out, a result of going too fast earlier in the run, my biggest weakness is pacing.
However Convid -19 has probably put a kibosh on my plans for the moment and I’ve been reigning my runs back a bit during Lockdown, although as a key worker I’ve been working. But in order to comply with the guidelines I’ve been limiting my runs to 10k, and also because Runners World Magazine has pointed out that runs of longer than an hour actually surpresses your immune system for up to 72 hours after so they advised to just keep things ticking over for now.
So I’ve stuck to my 5K circuit dong it twice of course for 10k runs. Then I had a brainwave of doing it the other way round for a bit of variety.
That way around is probably slightly easier as the total elevation is slightly less and I noticed that the downhill sections, previously stiff uphill climbs lended themselves to some speed work.
So a couple of weeks ago I suddenly found myself on course for a 10K PB but just missed out. Tried again about a week later and again recorded my 2nd fastest 10K.
Getting a bit annoyed now LOL. Anyway I started C25K in January 2019. I realised at the beginning of the week that I was 10K away from completing 500 tracked miles since I started running.
So Friday morning, bright and early I went out to run that 10k to bring up that milestone. It was quite windy so felt that it was pointless trying to go for a PB as well. So set off and a mile in my pace looked good. So told myself to keep my pace under control, using the downhill sections to bomb and the uphill sections, telling myself to pump those arms. The 3rd mile is the longest uphill section and was running right into the teeth of the wind, it would be my 6th mile too, BUT going into my 5th mile I realised I was well under PB pace and going well. So dug in as 5 miles were completed and faced the hill and wind again keeping low and pumping those arms over the brow and the last .4 of my 1Ok is all downhill. Glance at my watch, I can do this! Bombed down the hill shouting coming past to another runner in front of me, left him spinning around in bewilderment I think and hit the stop button dead on 58 minutes 59 secs inside my previous best 10K time.
So completed my 500 tracked running miles in 17 months and 117 tracked runs, and took almost a minute off my PB, my 1st PB of the year on the same run. Not bad before 9 am on a Friday.
So I know my fitness level is still there, and with the guidelines relaxing to unlimited exercise time I feel maybe the time is right to start to move towards that elusive 13 miles again, and running further afield than the 5k circuit.
Hope everyone is keeping well!
AlMorr, my quickest 10 miles run 2:01:02
Run report, an evening by the sea! HUHM v10 Miles 
HUHM virtual 10 Mile Run Report (+ 2 bonus miles!)
First 10 mile run 🎉
