Good morning. Happy(?) Monday. As always, I hope that whoever takes the time to read this weekly life and training update had a great weekend. If for whatever reason, you didn’t, I hope that the next seven days are kinder to you. My weekend had two highlights; walking Sutton Park parkrun with Ellen and running for 25 minutes without having to take a walking break. The NHS Live Well website provided the following information about the three training runs in Week 6 of the Couch to 5k training plan. My Wednesday and Friday evening interval sessions started with a fast warm-up walk and ..read more

Good morning and happy Tuesday. As always, I hope whoever takes the time to read what is likely to turn into a lengthy weekly update blog containing a fair amount of waffle and food photos had a great weekend. My weekend had a couple of highlights; a post-parkrun trip to McDonald’s for a healthy brunch and running for 20 minutes on Sunday morning without my knee hurting. The NHS Live Well website provided the following information about the interval sessions in Week 5 of the Couch to 5k training plan. After an unplanned break from running due to illness and slightly temperamental knees, I was ..read more

Good afternoon and happy(?) Monday. As always, I hope whoever takes the time to read what is likely to turn into a lengthy weekly update blog containing a fair amount of waffle had a great weekend. My weekend had three highlights; volunteering as a parkwalker at my local parkrun, somehow managing to run for 20 minutes, and a homecooked Sunday lunch. The NHS Live Well website provided the following information about the interval sessions in Week 5 of the Couch to 5k training plan. Like the last time I attempted the fifth week of the Couch to 5k, I looked forward to tackling three different tra ..read more

Good morning and happy Monday. As always, I hope that whoever takes the time to read what is likely to turn into a longer-than-originally-anticipated blog had a good weekend. My weekend had a three highlights; volunteering as a parkwalker at my local parkrun, completing two interval sessions in 12 hours, and Wolves winning. The NHS Live Well website provided the following information about the interval sessions in Week 4 of the Couch to 5k training plan. Each interval session started with a reasonably fast 5-minute warm-up walk and ended with a slower 5-minute cool-down walk. I supplemented t ..read more

Good afternoon. Happy(?) Monday. As always, I hope that whoever takes the time to read this weekly life and training update had a great weekend. If for whatever reason, you didn’t have a very good weekend, I hope that the week ahead is kinder to you. My weekend had a couple of highlights; volunteering as a marshal at Sutton Park parkrun and catching up on some much-needed sleep. Following several years of limited running, I decided to go back to basics and start again with the Couch to 5k training plan that is available on the NHS Live Well website. This version of the Couch to 5k training pla ..read more

Good morning and happy Monday. As always, I hope that whoever takes the time to read what may well turn into a longer-than-originally-anticipated blog had an awesome weekend. My weekend had a couple of highlights; volunteering as a parkwalker at Sutton Park parkrun and the return of Gladiators. I decided to start again with the Couch to 5k training plan that is available on the NHS Live Well website. This version of the Couch to 5k training plan is spread over nine weeks. The NHS Live Well website provided the following information about the interval sessions in Week 2 of the Couch t ..read more

Good morning and happy Monday. When this weekly training update goes live, I’ll be wading through the emails I received during my three weeks of annual leave. I can’t say I’m thrilled to be back at home. I wasn’t going to publish weekly training updates, but I love writing them and people have said that they enjoy reading my training (and life) updates and. I also hope that my random thoughts help other beginner runners who, like me, are tackling the Couch to 5k. Anyway, I hope that whoever takes the time to read what I suspect will turn into quite a long blog containing all sorts of randomnes ..read more

Happy Friday! I’m going to start by making what sounds like an incredibly selfish wish; I hope 2024 is an injury-free year for me. I know that there’s more to life than running, but I really hope I’m finally able to run consistently. After several years of injury problems, I hope that 2024 is the year I leave my injury woes behind me. I’m aware I’m repeating what I said 12 months ago, but I’ve had enough injuries to last me a lifetime. I’ve reviewed the previous 12 months in far, far too much detail here and I’ve drawn a line under 2023. It’s time for me to look ahead to 2024 and set myself s ..read more

Happy New Year!! As 2023 recently came to an end, I decided to review my running highlights, low points, and the lessons I learned throughout the year. As like the previous three years I spent a chunk of the year injured and unable to run, I decided to share some of my non-running highlights and low points. If you don’t enjoy reading lengthy annual review posts – I’m nosey, so I find them quite interesting, but I know from previous feedback that not everyone does – I’d strongly recommend you navigate away from this page and continue with your day. Here are the links to my previous annual revie ..read more

My ‘True cost of running’ in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and in 2022 posts turned out to be quite popular, so I decided to work out how much I managed to spend on what I call running-related purchases in a year that featured a lot of parkrun volunteering, but not a lot of running. I decided to use the same categories; running clothes and trainers, running accessories, race entries, etc I used in previous years so that I could compare this year’s spending with what I spent last year. And yes, I know it’s not the end of the year, but now I’ve stocked up on socks in the Versus Socks Black Friday sale ..read more