Apparently, Yoga, strongman training, walking and random Shaun T workouts were not enough, different types of exercise, so I decided to go out for a run this weekend…

You know me, I can never seem to give up running entirely, even after the disaster that was Reading Half Marathon I couldn’t give up completely! I have somehow managed to get to a place where I quite like running. I am not very good at it at the moment, but I am improving again and I am quite happy just to compare my progress to myself. This is a pretty big thing for me, and it hinges on not putting myself into competition with others. When it comes to running competition does not do me any favours!

My run was on Sunday which is an unusual place to start this, but, chronology is not for me today! This run made me extremely happy, which, when it comes to me and running is a pretty unusual statement. But it proved to me that I am fitter than I was when lockdown started. Actually I can absolutely no questions say I am fitter than I was on 10th March when I last did some running. I have actual reasons and evidence for this assertion too:

• I ran 10 intervals of 45s running and 1.5 mins walking and I did not bail out early on any of the intervals.
  when I last ran I did the zombies run 5k trainer app week 2 work out which involves 5 intervals of 30s run and 1.5min walk, then 10 mins freeform run, I did not manage all of the 30s intervals and definitely did not run for more than 30s in the freeform run… this is without a doubt an improvement.
• I got to the end of the run and I felt like I could have done more, not much more but I could have added on intervals. I then followed the run with a 2.5k walk to get back to the starting point.
  in march I got to the end and couldn’t have run another step and my calves and feet and lower back hurt.
• I had a faster overall pace by 1.5mins/km than any other run this whole year. This is most probably due to more running and less staggering, but it is definitely an improvement!