End of June

Today is the end of my first month of running every day (although I only started on the 6th June so I'm on day 25).

Here's the log.

In June I ran 172.56 km.  I am pleased with that.

WOL

Ran along Water of Leith today.  I think it's my favourite run in Edinburgh.  So beautiful.  I'll miss it most if we move to Zurich.

The run was tiring.  It was my first training run after two days and three races in a row!

Shirt is a bit sweaty.....

Park Run

Ran the Park Run this morning.  I was going for a PB but I did't get it.  The last 1km I was nearly sick.  I wise woman once said to me, "either be sick, or man up".  :-D  So I kind of manned up and slowed down.  I was coughing and I could feel the bile rising so I decided to knock it down a notch.  Still finished in a decent 22:08 (official time not in yet).

It was also a really nice morning which is weird.  Park Run is almost always freezing and windy.

23 days in a row now and I feel great.  The hardest was the first 8 days leading up to the Mens Health 10k, but now my body seems to be getting used to it.  

Ran 10 Miles by Accident!

On Friday I ran my first trail race(s).  I originally signed up for the 5km race at Calderglen in East Kilbride.   I went along with a couple of the HBT guys - Jess, Brian, and another unattached runner called Lizzie.  On the car journey I was convoked to sign up for the 10km race as well.  I am very glad I did because it was on the best runs I have ever ran.  The 5km was tough - my plan/strategy was to run the 5km as fast as I could and then take it easy on the 10km run and that's exactly what I did.  I had about 7 mins rest to drink water and stuff half a banana in my face before starting the 10km.  The course was beautiful, really nice to run, undulating.  I did take it easy and finished in about 55 mins.

See the latest log....

It was great to run a race for the fun of it and not to....race.  It was an experience to be overtaking people and moving up through the field in the second half of the race rather than to be struggling for breath and to be the guy that is being passed.  It made me realise that everyone has to run their own race the way they want and I now have a bit more respect for the people you see sprinting the final 100m!  I still have no time for the people that stop every 1500m for  rest then run fast, stop, rest, run fast.  Still no time for that!!!

Two races and two medals.  Medals are awesome!  I will definitely start trail running.  It was so much fun.

UPDATE:  The results are in from the 10km race.

Calton Hill

Day 20.  A couple of times up Calton Hill at 8am.  It was nice weather, a beautiful morning, and good to be out jogging, watching everyone else make their way to work!  :-D

I went out at 8am because I might be going to Zurich this afternoon for a job interview.

For the record, there are 41 rows of cobbles on the way up the hill.

N.B.  Ran the Self-Transcendence 2 mile race at the meadows today as well.  Ran an 11 second PB in 13min 35sec.  I'm quite happy with that.

Day 18 - Arthur's Seat

Some excitement on today's run up Arthur's Seat.  There were 3 fire engines. No idea what they were doing - maybe just training or something (like me!).  I didn't stop to take this pic, it was taken on the move.

I felt that after shorter runs the last few days that I should up the distance a bit today, so I ran a 1okm (give or take) circuit of Arthur's Seat.  It felt OK.  It's always a hard run up the hill but it wasn't too bad.

Day 18 done and it's going OK.

Test of Will Power

I believe that this challenge is more a test of will power than it is a test of fitness or athleticism.  Today was my first big test.  It's been reasonably easy so far - the weather has been nice and I've been off work.  Today I was going on a hill walk with friends and I didn't know when I'd be back or how tired I'd be later, so I got up at 6:30 and went for a minimum 3km run when I really didn't feel like it. Job done and the running run runs on.

The hill walk was great!

Podium Place and a Personal Best!!!!

Today I ran the Leith Festival 5km Fun Run.

The good news is that I finished 2nd and I ran a PB for the 5km distance.

The bad news is that I finished 2nd out of 5, and my GPS watch recorded the distance as 4.65km.

Ah well.  It was a good laugh, organised by friendly people, and I am entered into a raffle so I might win a bottle of whisky later.

Here's the latest log and some photos form the day....

New Challenge, Familiar Run

When working at RBS it was traditional to rain to the Old Chain Pier (OCP) pub in Leith every Friday.  The deal is you run to the pub, have a pint, and run back.  Just because I don't work at RBS anymore doesn't mean I can't still run to the pub!

Day 15 was the OCP run.  

There was talk of running a half marathon on Harris next weekend (!!!) and a trail race next Friday.  I think I'll do both.  I have never ran a trail race before so in the spirit of trying new things......

Note:  Today my legs really hurt.  I think it's a delayed stiffness from the hill race on Wednesday.

Here's the latest log.    I removed the pace column because I can't get the formula to work and it's irrelevant anyway. 

It's Good to Try New Things :-/

Today's run was a hill race.  My first hill race.  It was this one...

http://www.strava.com/activities/150854858

When the idea of running a hill race was first mentioned, I laughed it off.  I did allow my arm to be twitted though and so nervously I set off to the start in Balerno with Kata.

I have mixed feelings.  I was really enjoying the run up until I got lost, ran off the course had to turn around and run back up hill and find the correct track again.  Mentally that was me done.  Race ruined.  Maybe it's a road running mentality?  Maybe hill runners go the wrong way all the time?  Maybe that's part of the skill of the race.  Whatever - I was furious.  I then fell trying to make up time and on the next big downhill I could feel a blister coming on at the bottom of my right foot.  I was worried that this (insert expletive here) stupid hill race had ruined my 'running every day for a year' challenge.  Well as I type this with a Compeed plaster on my foot, I am sure it hasn't.  

The weather was amazing, the scenery beautiful, and I can see how with practice that hill running/racing would be attractive.  I am just not sure I want to practice!  The jury is out.  I think today I will do the minimum 3km to rest my poor wee blistered foot.  

Here's the latest log.

A Very Good Place to Start

Let's start near the begining - a very good place to start!

I read an article in an inflight magazine on my way to Budapest. It was this story. It was the statement;

Mark told me he had run every day for a year," Sutherland told the Times. "I go, 'I'm going to try that.'"

That interested me. When I heard Sutherland goes to Mark, I'm going to try that, I go, "I'm going to go try that too". So with this in my head, I mentioned to Kata and Rachel that I was thinking about it, and that was it, the genie was out of the bottle. I had said it out loud and now I had to try it. And not even just try it. ACHIEVE it. Between the 3 of us we established the rules. Sutherland (and Ron Hill) set a minimum of 1 mile per day. My initial suggestion of a minimum of 5km a day was probably very wisely reconsidered at Kata and Rachel's suggestion, and we agreed on a minimum of 3km per day or 15 minutes.

And so it was and here is my log which I will endeavour to update daily. Once I figure out how to use this blog properly

Running Log

The purpose of this blog (Kata's suggestion) is to document the challenge in more than simple number. I will write about how I felt about any note worthy runs, how I feel about the challenge as a whole, and anything else that I feel like. I don't expect every entry to be as long as this one.

So day 10 run was the Men's 10k Race in Glasgow. This is my 10k PB course, although the PB was in 2012. When I started the run I felt very stiff and sore. I think that running every day is making me stiff and sore. I felt like it was a huge effort and I wasn't doing very well, but my awesome Garmin Forerunner 310x informed me after 1km that I hard completed the first milestone (kilometre stone?) in 4:35. Not bad. So it was sore but my pace was good. After about 3km the pain went away and I felt good. Actually I felt very good. I have decided that training actually helps after all and that if you can ignore the initial discomfort, it will all be fine. I finished the race in 46:50 which is about 2 mins slier than my PB but at this stage of my training I'll take it! I am pleased with that time. It's given me motivation to keep up the challenge and to run some more races.