Well… the end of 2016 is upon us and what have I achieved with my running over the past 12 months ? I’ve ran over 2000 miles, I have 2 more marathons under my belt, found a lovely new half marathon which is going to become a regular on my calendar, a few new races that I’ve found challenging, and a old favourite that I couldn’t imagine not doing, but most of all I’ve found a new love … trail running.
I’ve always enjoyed getting out there on the trails but it’s really taken off this year, I ran a sort of trail marathon this year (along the Thames path) and enjoyed every step of it. I now look forward to Sunday’s when I can get my backpack on and go and explore. I love the feeling of finding new things, running though the mud and woods, reaching the top of hills to find fantastic views but most of all I love the freedom.
Freedom … some people will ask what I mean by this and I’ve got to say I have become a lot less obsessed with the data on my Garmin, so much so I’ve changed the screen to a different format. I’m not so worried about pace anymore and have started looking more at things like elevation and heart rate. While I will always enjoy a road race, and running on the roads is a must to get training done, I now think of that as time I’ve spent to improve the time I can spend on trails.
I’ve enjoyed my new found guilty pleasure so much I’ve signed up to my first ultra marathon in 2017, I must be completely out of my mind (and lots of people have pointed this out) but I’m really looking forward to running my first 100km in the summer. I have so many questions about how I should go about it, so many things to try out and loads of new places I want to run. I haven’t a clue how it’s going to go but I’m going to start writing in my blog more again and keep you updated.
Anything you would like to throw out there in the way of advise (apart from don’t do it) feel free to comment, in my book you never stop learning so I truly welcome it, or follow my Instagram or Twitter accounts (links are in my blog) to see in pictures how it’s going.
Wish me luck …
Brighton & Beyond ... 