I'm back! Hurrah!

Well.  It's  been over 2.5 years since my last blog entry and I really thought that I was done with this.  I got tired of writing about the seemingly endless cycle of injury-recovery-injury and drifted away to be injured on my own time and to just get on with running without having to think of anything interesting (or positive) to say about it.  And I have, indeed, been running.  Here are the high points:

Autumn 2015:  After pulling out of yet another marathon due to injury, I decided that I needed to get some proper guidance with Strength & Conditioning (S&C) rather than just faffing about on my own, so signed up with a personal trainer.  This was one of my best running-related decisions ever!  2.5 years on and although I still have imbalances and I'm still not very flexible, I am strong enough, flexible enough, and balanced enough to do the kind of running that I want to do without constantly getting injured.  In fact, touch wood and say it very quietly so that the Running Gods don't hear:  I haven't been injured since starting PT.  Thank you, Kim, I could not have done it without you!  For various reasons, I'm taking a break from PT at the moment but I've found some online resources to fill the gap - I've learned my lesson about neglecting the S&C side of things.

October 2016: Loch Ness Marathon.  I loved my training and I loved the race.  I finished in 4:49 (an hour faster than London in 2013 and on a more challenging route) but, more importantly, I finished uninjured and with a huge smile on my face.

March 2017:  I went to a week-long running camp in the Algarve, organised by a company called Full Potential.  This ended up being a week that challenged many of my assumptions about myself and about my running (e.g. 'I can't run two days in a row,' 'I can't run faster than 11:30min/mile pace,' 'I'll get injured if I do XYZ') and I left feeling energised and hopeful that maybe I wasn't too old to make improvements.  Huge thanks to Cathy and Paul, who also attended the camp, for inviting me along!

April 2017:  On the back of the Algarve camp and, in particular, an inspirational chat with Coach Ben, I decided to experiment with having a running coach.  I figured that I'd give it a month and if I hated it, no harm done.  So I signed up with Coach Ben through Full Potential and found myself immersed in the world of threshold runs, Kenyan Hills, easy vs steady runs, 90% effort runs, race pace runs....yikes!  And it was hard hard hard until my body got used to what was being asked of it, but I loved it.  I was never bored and I quickly started to see progress with not only my pace but with being able to run much more comfortably over longer distances.  And I didn't get injured.  Working with Ben has been another one of the very best things that I've ever done for my running.  I targeted the Florence Marathon in November 2017 and along the way ran the Edinburgh HM in March (2:13), the Nairn HM in August (2:14), a 10k PB at the River Ness 10k in September (54:14), a HM PB at Aviemore in October (2:10), and for the Florence Marathon...

November 2017:  In heavy rain and wind and with a cold, I finished in 4:31:27.  Uninjured.  And with a huge smile on my face.  I had enough energy to pick up the pace by 30-60 seconds/mile for the last five miles and had the best time.  I still smile when I think about it even now.

But now it's a New Year and I have New Goals, and I wanted to resurrect this blog to track my journey towards them.  Tomorrow's topic:  If it doesn't scare you, it isn't worth doing!