Aiming for a season’s best

I’ll be honest this year running has been really hard. I’ve struggled with illness, weight gain, tiredness, stress and motivation issues. All of this meant that my ‘season’s best time’ for 5km was in a pretty poor state.

In late summer, I decided to try and get back on top of things by returning to Lordshill Road Runners. It was hard having to return to the beginners’ group when I’ve never stopped running, so my first goal was to improve enough to get into group C. I had to be able to run 5k in under 30 minutes.

Getting back into Group C

I managed some sub-30 minute 5ks in summer and by September I was managing it consistently (when I wasn’t buggy-running). This was great as it meant that I was able to move into group C with Lordshill Road Runners.

Moving into Group C was important for me as I know more people in that group. I find that running with friends makes me more likely to turn up and train. My next challenge is to be able to run 5k in under 26:30 so that I can move up a group. Most of the friends I had before having M run in Group D, so it would be great to see more of them.

After improving my 5k time, I had a few other challenges in mind. I wanted to do some parkrun tourism. I ran three different parkruns in Australia at Bathurst, Cowra and Shellharbour.

Aiming for a season’s best

I then looked at my best times for each year since I started parkrun. After having a fantastic running year in 2017, things have gone downhill. I felt really frustrated and set myself the target of surpassing my season’s best of 28:43 (set in August 2019 in Southampton).

I was absolutely delighted to run with Kate and smash my time:

My next goals are to beat 27:40, then 27:18 before getting back to sub 26:30.

Highest number of parkruns in a year

Another goal that I achieved today was equalling my highest ever number of parkruns in a year. Considering that I was really ill at the start of the year and I’ve missed some because of travelling, I feel quite pleased.

My next goals

My next goals include:

• doing all of the parkruns in Cornwall
• reaching 50 different parkruns
• getting down to 26:30 so that I can move to group D

What are your current goals?