If you look back over my recent posts you’ll have seen my yearning to go back to running for fun, going back to a time when I can run with music blasting in my ears, without a care for pace, distance, or direction.
Regretfully, this doesn’t appear to be the case in reality. There are two things going on here:
- I haven’t been for a single run “for fun” since I completed my target 10km race a couple of weeks ago
- There are a series of photos taken of me a few hundred metres from the end of that race, and in those pictures I am smiling; possibly even grinning.
Point two here is interesting – the race was fun! The race was hard, but I was enjoying it. I had no music on, I cared a lot about my pace and where I was, I was focussed on getting that time.
While I would like to go back to running for the sake of running (and I really do), I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a good boot up the bum in the form of a goal to get me there.
This week I’ve been thinking about what that goal could be, what is a realistic goal that is going to inspire me as much as the 12 year old 10km pb challenge has done?
To answer that, I looked up some of my old records. And one stood out.
Parkrun. I haven’t been to Parkrun for a long time (I think I wrote about this previously, life is different for me on Saturday mornings these days), but when I last did, I set a time. A good time. Possibly too good of a time.
Ten years ago I ran the 5km race in 21 minutes and 40 seconds. It feels like a pace far above what I could hope to achieve now. But it is there isn’t it; it’s a goal. I’ve just beaten a twelve year old record for my 10km time, so why not this.
Sounds like it’s time to start a meticulously detailed training plan again – perfect!
run another 
This resonates so much with me! I’m struggling to believe that just over a year ago I set a marathon PB as since then I’ve taken my foot off the gas, worked too hard at my day job, and allowed running to take a back seat.
I’ve signed up for a couple of races and have not done the training, so last week decided that parkrun would be the goal. The last PB was in 2016, I’m several minutes over it just now and I’m not convinced I’ll do it again, but I need a focus.
Good luck! I look forward to reading about your progress.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for that, it’s great to hear we’ve both come to the same conclusion around how to focus our training. Aside from competing with clearly a bionic version of myself setting a ridiculous time 10 years ago, my big concern is that because Parkrun is every week it’ll be difficult to target one particular race. With anything else you have to run on the right day, at the right time, when everyone else does it. With Parkrun I’m worried I’ll have a laid back, try-again-next-week attitude! One to keep an eye on. Good luck to you too – hopefully this’ll be a fun challenge for each of us.
LikeLiked by 1 person