100 Days! And Another PB!!

Yesterday was day 100 of consecutive running!  It also happened to be Parkrun day so I pinned on my little '100 Today' badge and headed off to Parkrun to allow the good people at Silverknowes to bask in my reflected glory.  When I arrived, I was very surprised and very happy to find out that Kata had arranged a little party of sorts for me.  What a girl!  Steve, and Rachel H were there to run their first ever Parkrun, and Brian was there too which was great.  Not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but those guys along with Kata and I is also our team for the Survival of the Fittest race.

Survival of the Fittest team.  We are so going to win. 

I have no idea what's going on here but something on Steve's watch is clearly funny

At the end of the race Kata supplied some non-alcoholic fizz and plastic champagne flutes to toast my landmark which was again very surprising and very very nice.  It felt like it was my birthday but even better!  

Toasting the landmark with some Elderflower fizz

The race was also notable for my running another 5km PB.  20:18.  That beats my 5km of 20:43 from 10 days ago, and my Parkrun PB of 20:56 set 3 weeks ago.  I'm delighted with that.  Maybe in another 3 weeks I can get below 20 minutes?  That's the target.  After breaking the 21 minute barrier my times have been improving fast.

New 5km PB

It was a beautiful day at Silverknowes.  Perfect conditions - no excuses!

As I did at day 50, I'll list some some observations that I have observed over the 100 days;

1. Favourite race -  Hard to chose but it's between The Beast, Berwick Law, and The Calderglen 10k Trail.  What they all have in common is that I had no expectation of time and not target to beat.  I ran just for the fun of it.  Calderglen was my first trail and the first time I can remember overtaking the pack at the sharp end of the race.   Berwick Law was short, fast, and the atmosphere was fun.  I think in terms of an event though, I am going to have to go with The Beast as being my favourite. 
2. Weight loss - I wish I'd weighed myself at the start of this challenge but I didn't because weight loss wasn't and isn't why I am doing this.  But I did blog on the 16th July that I was 85.2kg (13st 6lbs) and I weighed myself after yesterday's race and I was 80.0 exactly (12st 8lbs).
3. Bracelet Wrist Band - This was a good idea.  I am now much more confident when playing real life Frogger with the Edinburgh traffic and am able to take many more risks when running out onto the road (only joking).  
4. Injuries - I've been lucky.  I had a couple of weeks where my hip was giving me a bit of pain but I stretched it out with Kata's help and it's all good now.  I have been remarkably injury free (although one of my toe nails is still purple from the Berwick Law).  
5. Mentality of racing - To me, every race no matter the distance is a series of much smaller races that are 1km long.  For example the Haddington Half-Marathon, I pushed myself hard the whole way around and every one of the 21 kilometres was a personal race between my and my watch.  This helps me reach my goals and makes the distance less intimidating.  Hey, it works for me!
6. Bad days - Sometimes I just have bad days when I feel like the worst runner in the world, my pace is rubbish and I feel unfit.  This normally happens on training days.  The good thing about having decided to run every day is that I can't dwell on it or get despondent and give up, I have to go out the next day and run again and then everything is right in the world once more.  
7. Highlight - The highlight so far has been setting a new 10km PB.  That was the holy grail and the record had stood for about 2 years.  I doubted at times if I was capable of beating it at all, and beating it by 2 minutes was fantastic. 
8. The REAL highlight - Being called "inspirational" by Kata.