Preparing for Southampton MoRun

Southampton MoRun is fast approaching, and I’ll be honest that my preparations have not been ideal thus far. I’ve only done 13 runs over 9km so far in 2018. The last time I ran that far was at Thunder Run in July.

My most recent parkruns

I had plans to continue my parkrun tourism, but a variety of reasons have meant that my last six parkruns in a row have been at Southampton.

So close to a PB for this parkrun year

Last week I ran alone and had quite a good run.

I was frustrated that I didn’t realise that my best time this parkrun year (since the event’s anniversary) was 29:02. I was so close to it that if I’d known, I think I could have beaten it. My best time in 2018 overall is 27:18. I’m going to have to train hard to beat that.

Tired and frustrated

I’d love to have more time and opportunities to go out running, swimming and cycling. It has been a huge source of frustration for me recently. M does not sleep well. My sleep deficit that has built up over the last two years means that I feel exhausted most of the time. I’ve also got a huge workload in my day job, so I rarely get a lunch break. Stu and I have discussed making the most of the opportunities we have as we’re both unhappy about being overweight and unfit. We have agreed that one of us should run to parkrun each week so that we can fit a long run in. As I’ve got the MoRun coming up, it was my turn this week.

I left home at the same time as Stu and M left in the car. I was a bit concerned that I would be late as I’ve really not run much at all recently. Fortunately, it’s downhill all the way to parkrun.

I got to the start and could see Stu and M, but I’d only done about 3.5km, so I decided to head off and fit in another mile as it was about 8:45. It’s quite strange heading away from the start of parkrun that close to the event’s start time as you are running against hordes of people.

Can I still run 10km?

As there wasn’t a lot of time to spare, I ran 800m out and then 800m back. I judged the distance fairly well but still had a hundred metres or so to run when I got back to Stu and M. M was confused about why I was running away from them and then back again. The run took me about 35 minutes, which doesn’t bode well for my time at the MoRun. My goal for my first ever 10km was to finish in under an hour. My official time was 58:30, but my friend Jez was wearing a Garmin and pointed out that the course was short. I’d love to finish MoRun in under an hour, but that seems a long way off right now.

Fortunately, my parkrun was a bit quicker. I ran with Rachel and one of her friends. They lost me for a bit on the final uphill drag, but I managed to catch up with them on the downhill. In the final 400m, we encountered a young teenager who was struggling. I felt sorry for him as he seemed to be alone, so I ran with him and coached him to the end. I think I finished about 10s behind Rachel and managed to sneak under 30 minutes.

Although it had a short break in the middle, I was pleased that I had completed 10km. The downside is that I’ve definitely got DOMS today!

Have you ever had a break from training and lost your fitness? How did you get it back?

I’ve been nominated for the Running Awards. If you enjoy reading Fat Girl to Ironman, please take a moment to vote for me. Just go to the Running Awards, go to Blog, Personal, Fat Girl to Ironman, and hit vote! The long list is open for voting until 18th January before being cut to a shortlist of the top 10 blogs. Thank you x