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Good story with a cliff-hanger. What are your goals then?
My aim at the minute is to be able to run the local 'red-walk' at the local wood with my dad, and also to hit sub20 mins for a 5k. Very much soft targets: I won't be sad if I don't hit them, they both need to be achieved pre-2020.
yoshy-
What's a 'red-walk'?
Having hovered briefly outside the national top 10 for my age group in 800 (after trying my first ever race at that distance - horrible), I'm aiming to crack the top 10 for the 400 and 800. Need some speed too, so based on stats, time goals are:
200 - 25 something
400 - 55 something
800 - 2.05All the fives. I'm not far off, so hoping a much more focused winter and spring will hone the strengths and bolster the weaknesses. Trouble is the way my age increases. I've yet to find a way to slow or stop that process.
The residual urge to run a sub-17 parkrun persists, but 5ks are just a general fitness thing for me now rather than a target. My 13-year-old son is more of a diesel middle-distance-and-up runner than me, so I think next year might be the one where he bests me in an honest 5k duel. Hope so.
BringMeMyFix
Hello. I'm still running, and have enjoyed catching up on the past few months of the thread (though I've been keeping abreast of some people's runs on Strava).
In one way, I'm about to come full circle with running (ignoring childhood/teen efforts). It was about three years ago I was cajoled into trying a parkrun after a 30-year running hiatus. In time – after a few months of predictable mistakes and injuries – that led to volunteering, joining a parkrun event core team, encouraging both wife and son to get involved with running and volunteering, helping out at the juniors as well (there's quite a buzz to be had from scanning the barcodes of six-year-olds dressed as a banana and a pineapple who've just tried to outsprint each other in the funnel), first finishes, and an age group course record. Meanwhile parkrun led to me joining a club (one of the developments encouraged by the parkrun core values document), and that opened a whole universe of training, cross-country, camaraderie, track and field, vets' leagues, 5ks, 10ks, HMs, trail runs, and getting very cold standing around between mine and my son's races. Peak dad-life. I've also become quite the expert in tendinopathy rehab protocols and tissue degradation/synthesis research (but would rather not have needed to).
Now, after much arm-twisting by the more virtuous part of my brain, and having done pretty much every other role, I've finally agreed to be a run director at the end of the month, donning the new and not-very-visible RD's vest, and our crowdfunded defibrillator in its own mini rucksack. Obviously I'm shitting myself, but nothing ventured…
And prior to that I'll be doing the 20min pacing this weekend (unless I get a bad tendinopathy flare-up) if anyone's looking to cross that particular threshold doing five-and-a-bit laps at Highbury Fields in North London.
Are we doing goals for 2020 yet? I have mine, but fuck knows if I'll stick to them. Famously fickle.