Does anyone else think that running is like marmite? People either love it or hate it? I’m a love it person, I’ve been running for a few years now and it’s got to the point where my day doesn’t feel the same if I haven’t gone for my early morning run. However the distance tends to be on a ‘how far do I feel like running today’ basis, rather than training to go further or faster. I’m a lazy runner if you like…..
So when I signed up for ‘Race at your pace’ I chose to do this month as I liked the medal, not because I had consciously thought about my day to day life and how I would fit an increase in mileage into it! I’ve never followed a training plan, instead I try to do one longer run, a couple of mid length runs and an interval training session per week. I choose 100km as it’s slightly further than I usually run so would be a challenge but not something (hopefully) that would be a strain. ‘They’ do say that you shouldn’t increase your mileage too quickly as it increases your risk of injury which makes sense.
The first week had a very mixed start to the challenge. I started off with my weekly long run, 14k along the riverbank in lovely weather, however on the run I noticed that my foot was playing up, grrrr annoying but I had a suspicion that it may be due to my running shoes getting old and worn. Time to go shopping! New shoes, more stretching and a few gentle runs seemed to help and the challenge continued.
Halfway through the month I had a holiday planned to Rome for 6 days and I don’t usually run while I’m on holiday (give my legs a break for a bit!). However with 120 km to run in a month I figured now was time to break with that tradition and try running in Italy. Its definitely an interesting experience figuring out a run when you don’t really know where you are or how far you’ve run. I had looked on google maps and found a path that looked like it would be nice to run alongside the river, fast forward to first run when I’m running on said path and find its covered in slippery mud, so nope, go back to the start and figure out a new route!
Each day I tried a variation of my previous run and got to explore the non touristy area of Rome a little more. Its also a chance to try and figure out the driving system around Rome, it consists of a lot of traffic lights, not all of which you can cross at, and lots of people trying to get to places fast 🙂 It helped later in the day when we were exploring as at least I had a clue about where you’re allowed to cross etc. I still didn’t do enough mileage in that week to meet my challenge goal but I enjoyed the runs anyway, getting to see something different.
Weeks three and four were back in the UK, still sunny and warm and fairly standard running weeks; sometimes I think maybe I should mix my runs up a little as I tend to do the same runs each time? However I do love my runs by the river, watching the rowers and kayakers and using them as pace markers.
I’d been using the Map my Run app on my phone to track my mileage, which makes it a lot easier to track my weekly and monthly total mileage.
Race at Your Pace is a great idea to keep me motivated throughout the month, on the facebook page there’s lots of pretty pictures of people with their medals plus it gives me something to aim at. I always find it easier to slack off running when I have no goal, but also don’t have the time to book lots of races!
Race at your pace is really easy to sign up to on the website, just enter your details, choose the length of race, decide wether you want to compression top and medal (£14) or just medal (£10) and off you run. At the end of the month you get an email asking if you have completed the challenge and if you have any evidence to send in, however they do trust you to complete the race and you don’t have to prove it to receive the medal.
They have a variety of races from kids to 25, 50, 75, 100 and 200 miles over the month, (How can people run 200 miles in a month??!!)
I got my email a few days ago, completed the form and sent it off. This morning I got my medal…. for 50 miles…. rechecked my email and yep I entered the wrong distance! Opps! I don’t know I do these things sometimes…..
Anyway still proud that I managed to run 100km, maybe I’ll try again when another medal comes up that I like the look of, and this time try to get it right! Lol!
Have a good weekend
Xx
Adventure30 
Heck yes.
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