Articles

When Things Are Going Well…

Ali Bowen

I’m sat here at the airport waiting for my flight to go away for the weekend and thought I’d reflect on what I was doing last Saturday….

 

Having had two races in one week I’d begun to feel overwhelmed by the pressure (?) of being timed. I’m not naturally competitive outside my working environment so when it comes to running I have no issues coming last, the main thing is actually completing it!

 

So much of our lives are governed by times and deadlines that I needed to not be part of that last week so instead of my normal parkrun Saturday, I opted to volunteer at parkrun. I was barcode scanner and I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt like I was giving something back having taken advantage of relying on other volunteers for me to take part.

 

I made the commitment to Claire that I would fit my run in over the weekend. 

 

Sunday morning arrived and after a little bit of encouragement from my wife I set off on my run… It was 7:45am and it was lovely. I had no plan apart from knowing what direction I was going in and boy was it good to feel so free. I listened to my music and barely looked at my watch. 

 

At my normal turn around point I carried on up the hill until I got to the top and I felt awesome. I did some stretching and then ran home. I didn’t have a care in the world! 

 

Having got home I checked my stats and apart from the km uphill my pacing was the best it’s ever been. I was buzzing!

 

On reflection the best bit was the achievement of getting to the top of the hill on this particular route. I always turn around half way up but I did it and it felt amazing. My mind was in the zone and my legs reacted as they needed too. 

 

I decided I need to vary my training up with Claire as I have excess skin appearing and need to tone up. 

 

I discussed this with her in detail on my Monday session so come the end of the month when I finish the current batch of races I will be doing weights and other fun things for a month or so, before the start of Brighton half marathon training begins.