Luke Goodman writes:
It is amazing how fast time goes when you have a race that you want to get fit and prepared for. These last two weeks have flown by! I am slowly starting to increase the amount of exercise I am doing on a weekly basis. For the past couple of weeks, I have managed to do some form of exercise most days which is a big improvement from where I was a couple of months ago. I’ve started to enjoy getting on my turbo trainer at home and cycle around the world of Zwift. I’m slowly building up the distance and frequency that I’m on the bike and I have noticed small improvements which is promising. I’m also doing more strength and conditioning which hopefully will help with injury prevention and overall fitness and strength.
The highlight for me in the past week though is that I have increased my longest run! For the past month or so, all of my runs were 5k distance, which were primarily done at parkrun. I started with one run a week and then have moved to two. During the last week I managed to run the mind-blowing distance of 3.5 miles! I was so excited! Now I know I’ve run marathons before, but the one thing I have learnt is that it is all relative. While running 3.5 miles might not sound a lot to some (or most) people, to me this was a mini-breakthrough and as a result I am now looking forward to slight increases in distance over the coming weeks.
One of the reasons I was able to run that little bit further during the week was because a mate of mine was over from New Zealand and in town for a few days, and he wanted to go for a run. So one cold day I met up with him and his son for a lunchtime run. It is amazing what running with others can do in overcoming obstacles such as being able to run that bit further than you thought, or giving you some extra motivation to get out there and do something when it would otherwise be so much easier and warmer to stay indoors. I am very lucky to have met lots of people through the Eagles that have joined me for runs in the past, or motivated and encouraged me at other times to get out there and go for a run.
I can remember last year when I ran the virtual London Marathon for A Mile in Her Shoes. In the days leading up to it, I was just going to set out by myself and see how I got on. Then all of a sudden, despite setting off before 6am, I was met with Keith and then Jay, who both joined me for most of the first half of the marathon. It certainly made the time go faster and it was really enjoyable. I was then expecting to run the second half by myself, but Lucy had other ideas! She had spoken with Jay and Keith and they’d given her an idea of where I was running. She then ran around in circles hoping to bump into me – and bump into me she did! She then joined me for the second half of my marathon, helping me continue when I felt like stopping and providing endless conversation 😊 The support of the running community and the Eagles really does help and cannot be underestimated.
I think my focus on the coming weeks will be to be able to join others on runs again as I have missed this when I haven’t been able to run. I think that sometimes when people like me have lost fitness there is that concern that you will slow the others down if you join them, or that they won’t want to run with you because you can’t run as far or as fast. My experience shows this couldn’t be further from the truth for most people. So in the next week or two, I am going to try and make an effort to run with others. At present because I am still building up strength I am only running in the days as I need to be careful where I step, but going forward I hope to join a clubrun or two prior to London. But for the next week, I’m sure a few of you will be hearing from me for a run and Caz watch out, as you will be the first 😊