Today's run was a nice steady 5 miler. The sort of run that feels good and you feel like you could run for a lot longer than you actually do. In fact I stopped myself from doing too much as I want to leave something in the legs for tomorrow.
About half way round my run I thought about some of my early races and in particular my first race. I say my first race as I dont include the odd cross country race at school where it could be argued were forced upon me! I was never a natural runner at school so when I took up running at 16 it was because I wanted to run not because I had to. I remember my first ever race as a 16 year old. It was the Saltburn Carnival fun run although I must have entered the wrong race as I remembered it being around 7 miles long taking in lots of hills, Errington Woods and more hills! I dont remember a lot about that race apart from adopting a run - walk strategy, feeling good when I finished and almost collapsing later on the afternoon on my friends sofa watching football on the TV. I was given the idea of running in that race by my cousin Mark (Edwards) who was a prolific marathon runner at the time and soon became a hero of mine on the running scene...it took me well over a year to beat him and i've not looked back since! Next year as well as being Olympic Year it will be my 25th year as a runner!
1993 was a year when I saw real progression.....12 personal bests in that year saw me progress my Half Marathon from 1.21 down to 1.16.36, my 10km pb from 35.01 to 33.56 and my 5 mile time go to 27.11
Over the next two years from 1993 to 1995 I progressed at all distances taking my Half Marathon time from 76 to 72.26 minutes, 10miles pb 52.27, my 10km down to 32.26, 5mile time down to 25.17 and 5km down to 15.11. I may be a little way off those pbs now but they are closer to me now than they have been for some time.
The motivation to run is still there and who knows maybe those pbs are not as far off as I think!
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