It’s Been Some Time...

since I last blogged... so, to catch-up...

Back then, I was ensconced in a merry little round of paddling and jogging and twice a week helping out with the organisation of training sessions at the paddling club. The paddling in particular involved 40 mile round trips to the club, twice a week, for what amounted to an hours session, and then the jogging had to be fitted in around it. All this was all very well but neither jog/running nor paddling were being performed very well. The best I could manage was to just about scrape in a time in what turned out to be my last Hasler race, that got me to promotion to division 8. On the other hand it turned out that I didn’t win the Hare & Hounds cup this year. Unbeknown to me, thanks to the organisers never publishing a running total of the points gained by individuals, last year’s winner had been putting in appearances during the earlier races in the year and had gained an unassailable lead without any real opposition. To cut a long story short, and to ribbons, something had to give, and it was the paddling that had to go. I quit the job with the paddling club and haven’t been back to the club or on the water since. 

Instead I’ve been putting in some rather more serious training on the jogging front to see if I can get to the point where I can legitimately call myself a ‘runner’ again. At first it was quite pleasant just jogging around for the sake of it, but as usual the competitive element crept in and I found myself chasing the Parkrun age related list. I was placed at 39th on the Bushy Park list and 10th on the Richmond one without having done any real work to improve. Coming up to June last year I was about to make a bid for PB’s at both those venues as my age group was about to change up a notch. Instead I managed to pull a muscle that put jogging completely out of the question for over a month. Another birthday came, my age group creaked and groaned into action to change up a gear, and my name stayed in exactly the same place on the list. The only change it will now ever make in that age group will be in a downward direction as more able runners come along to leapfrog my placing. How sad is that?

Still, looking forward, I am now in a new, but 5 year older age grouping which is rather more exclusive with fewer members. It seems that running does take its toll. For Bushy I entered the new group in 8th place and at Richmond in 10th with my first runs. That was in June last year and I’ve been working on the place order since. After a few good runs including a couple of PB’s I’m currently  3rd at Bushy and 4th at Richmond. As usual the problem at Richmond is the hills in the last mile which add almost a minute to my time over the course. But I’m working on it.

One of the better ways of training is to do it with others who are just a bit better than you. For that I had in the early part of the year joined a small running group with a personal trainer. It was quite instructive and I got an insight into modern training methods. My methods are almost pre historic by comparison. Unfortunately it still didn’t stop me picking up injuries that took me out of training for a couple of weeks at a time. But it was also expensive, so in January this year I’ve rejoined the running club I was last a member of in 1989. They now run organised training sessions in ability groups which are well attended. There are about twelve of us in the intermediate group where I rank about halfway up the ability scale. Most of their racing during the winter is X-country and road during the summer. They also do a club age ranking which seems quite competitive. In a couple of weeks there are two club events that I’m looking to enter, just as long as I can keep the injuries at bay.