A while back, I tried a bit of running and became really interested in people who had written books about running. I don’t run anymore and now going through my long, long to-be-read list, I’ve got a few of these sporty books to catch up on. This one is a dash through the world of the 100 Marathon Club, people who have run a hundred marathons. Author Helen Summer talks to a variety of different people who are part of the club, from all walks of life. I wasn’t sure this was going to be of interest to me anymore as a non-runner, but actually it was fascinating to read just how different the people are who join this club, their reasons, their lives, how it affects their loved ones.

I’ve been wanting to read this for a while and I’m glad I finally got round to it. Bella tells the story of how she discovered running after a painful divorce and found it really helped with her anxiety and other mental health struggles. This is an unflinchingly honest look at how difficult and far-reaching mental health issues can be, and how there’s no one solution fits all. But for Bella, and for others that she talks to throughout the book, it was running that did it. This is a great, and important read. I felt it was a little bit repetitious in places, but I think it will be unfailingly useful for others going through the same thing. Just to know you’re not alone is the first step on a difficult journey and Bella’s done a brilliant job here of reaching out a hand.

I’m always fascinated by an adventure story, but this was so much more. Elise, the author, and adventurer, plans to run around the coast of Britain, with the typical lack of planning and preparation that often accompanies these grand schemes. And, spoiler alert, that side of things all works out okay. I wasn’t so keen on the staying in many different people’s places - although their generosity must be recognised. And meeting all the different people helped Elise tell the story of her own journey.

I read fewer books about running than I used to, now that I no longer participate in the activity myself, but I can’t help but indulge every now and then. This is from the long-running sports broadcaster, most notably known for his stint alongside Chris Evans on Radio 2, and details his own foray into running - from the very tentative early steps to try and improve health, to a huge ultra-running challenge.

Last weekend, my good friend Lukeh ran his first marathon, completing the incredible 26 miles in the first event held in Newport city centre. He was raising money for a mental health charity and was aiming to complete the marathon in about 4 and a half hours. I’d been watching his progress as he shared training updates on Twitter, and reading along as the nerves kicked in once the marathon was only just around the corner.

This is probably a book for die-hard running fans only. There’s no big coming-of-age story or over-riding point to make, it’s just the journey of one man through an amateur career of marathon running with details of the highlight races. Some are good, some are bad, each are instrumental in the journey from marathon first-timer, to a veteran at the 26 miles.

And so, I’m done. If you’ve been following along, you might remember that May was a bumper month for running activities, including an epic 10k. Unfortunately, that 10k was the pinnacle, and the eventual downfall of my running career. Gradually, things got worse and worse, and at the end of my May monthly update, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it. I completed four runs in June. The first was my attempt at a 5k, and it was bad but at least I completed the distance. The next was 1.4km, in which I had to stop and turn round, limping home with a painful thigh. I decided to take a full week off, and returned well-rested to complete a 30 minute run that felt a bit better. However, my last run was less than 3km, because the pain just came back again.

I’ve been making my way through several running books and, even those about running marathons, have something to them that an unfit jogger like me can understand. This one, however, it wasn’t at all relatable. This is all about ultramarathons and running for 100 miles at a time, up mountains and across deserts. It’s about pushing the body to its very limit, to try and find the breaking point, and step back just before you go too far. That’s not really my thing at all.

Starting with the good news, I reached the halfway point of the “500 kilometres in one year” challenge. It’s quite a big achievement for me to have reached the middle mark, especially considering the slow start to the year I had! The gap between actual and target is also very heartening. The bad news is that running at the moment is a complete nightmare. There’s a big leap in that chart where I completed a 10k. It felt okay at the time, although I was a bit tired afterwards and needed an extra day or two to get back in my running shoes.

This is an interesting read, a sort of guidebook to the concept of running a marathon. Written by Richard Nerurkar, it takes you through the very basics of why you might want to run a marathon, through some training schedules, preparing for the race, and advice on what to do when things don’t go to plan. There’s also an extra section about turning into more of an elite runner.

I have a love / hate relationship with books about running, because whilst I enjoy reading about other people’s adventures with the sport/exercise that has grabbed my attention, I am always insanely jealous of those who are actually quite good at it. This was an autobiography of sorts from Charlie Spedding, bronze medal winner in the marathon at the Los Angeles’ Olympics.

Hoorah! At last I have managed to not only keep up with the target, but overtake it and get a bit of a healthy lead. Another achievement this month is to have no gap longer than three days. That is something I am looking at working on reducing even further but I am slightly torn. This 5k route I have found myself is becoming routine but I think I would have to do less to run more days, at least to start with anyway. And I don’t want to give up my 5k!

I finally found a really good course layout that I am happy running along, and it is exactly 5km taking me from almost door to almost door. It’s perfect, and I started to get in a really good routine, into the groove. I crossed the 100 kilometre mark, moving past 20% of the total. I even managed to get ahead of the target even if it was only by 0.02 of a kilometre.

January ended with a disappointing 14km deficit from the target, thanks to some days inside due to snow and illness. I was determined to catch up a bit in February (there’s nothing like a target on a graph to be motivational!) and started off with an ill-advised 9k. I was aiming for 10 and had to give up before I got there, and then felt like I’d overdone it for a while. However, it definitely helped kickstart the month in an effort to catch up.

This year, I set myself a Runkeeper goal of completing 500 kilometres in twelve months. It’s a crazy goal, but in 2012, I managed almost 450km, so it should only take a bit more of a push to be able to achieve this. It’s one of those that is within my sights but is still going to be a bit tricky. Of course, if January is anything to go by, it’s going to be impossible. First, I was recovering from the stupid cold that ruined my festive holiday. Then it snowed. I had grand plans for getting into a regular schedule but I’ll have to wait until winter disappears for that, I think.

The final few weeks of the year haven’t really gone as I had planned. I didn’t manage to complete a 10k in December, which is disappointing but not surprising. The weather has been terrible, either freezing cold or torrential rain. I’m not a completely fair-weather runner, but it’s hard to get the motivation when it is both dark AND raining. I had planned to make the most of my holiday over Christmas to go out several times, but of course, I have got this stupid cold. I went for a run on Boxing Day, and that was that.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. I run occasionally, but I’m not so obsessed with it that I was convinced I could read a whole book about running. However, that’s not all this was about. Part memoir, part investigation, the book tracks the author’s trip to Kenya, his preparation for a terrifying-sounding marathon, and his findings about what makes people run fast.

It’s been a tricky couple of weeks, particularly this last weekend. I’m getting to the point where most of my running is going to be done on a weekend now, because of the lack of daylight hours. I had a four day weekend but spent most of it tucked up inside with an extraordinarily painful sore throat. No running for me. However, before that occurred, I had managed to complete a 10k, probably the only one for November, and it was, I suppose you would say, a personal best!

How has it been four weeks since I last wrote an update? Very odd. I managed to complete October’s 10k. If you’ll remember, I was hoping to improve on this: Jun – 1:34:31 Jul – 1:36:03 Aug – 1:30:55 Sep – 1:34:31 And I managed this: So, not a personal best, but close enough. In other personal best news, my thirty minute runs have topped out at 3.63km, which I managed twice this month. I’m desperate to get to 3.7km, that seems like the next milestone.

After the high of new running shoes wore off (only took a week this time, boo!) I wanted a bit of a boost, so I tried out another Zombies Run mission - it’s always good to try something different. I noticed that the people behind Zombies Run are creating a spin off version based on the Couch 2 5K thing. I’m jealous! Can I go back to the beginning and start again with the zombies chasing me this time?

After the last update, I did go out and purchase some new shoes. They’re in a similar fashion to my old ones - white and Nike - but they’re also quite awesome. They have purple insides and purple laces! How can they be anything but great? Instantly, I wore them and was back on form… if you can call what I do any kind of form. I completed another 10k, which is always fun.

It’s not been a good couple of weeks, I’ll be honest. I had hoped to go out for a longer run this weekend but I only had two opportunities - one of them was far too hot to even consider and the other one… well, I went for a nap instead. You know how it is. The last six runs I have done have been thirty minutes each, and have gradually gotten worse. For example, distance covered in kilometres:

There hasn’t been too much to report for the last two weeks, I’m afraid real life has just got in the way of my dreams of Olympic stardom. In reality, I have been training at work for two weeks, with another still to come, and it’s amazing what a difference this change of pace makes. Firstly, I’ve been getting home from work a little later than normal. With time such a precious commodity in our house, this has a significant impact on my opportunities for running. Secondly, work-style training is really quite tiring!

I renamed the category for these posts a while back, opting to call it the Running Diary. As that is the case, here is a true day by day diary of last week’s workouts. Monday Definitely in the mood for a run today, having not been out since Wednesday. It was a busy weekend, so no real time to hit the pavements. Went out for thirty minutes, felt good, relatively fast and it just started raining as I got in.

The book is made up of several chapters detailing what it is to take a gold medal at the Olympics - how much work goes in to it, all the unexpected things that come along with it, and what it’s like to try and stay at the top of your game. Michael Johnson talks us through his own career history, as well as interviewing other top athletes from track and field, plus swimming and cycling as well.

Firstly, I can’t quite understand where the last two weeks have gone. These are meant to be weekly updates but they keep turning into fortnightly ones because the days are escaping me. It felt like it was going to be a really good week/fortnight for running this time, although now I look back I didn’t go nearly as much as I had thought! After running on Sunday, I also went out for two thirty minute runs, one on the Monday and one on the Wednesday. I had planned to go again on Friday, but didn’t. I don’t remember specifically why - but let’s lay the blame on the Olympics.

(Bit late posting this one, but the heat! When you get to read about this week’s running adventures I already know it will say TOO HOT TO BE ALIVE! But that is for the future.) I don’t know. Each week I start with the best intentions and they just get brushed aside as quickly as I can snap my fingers. Instead of whining on about when I did and didn’t run, here’s an interesting comparison.

I had to take it easy the week after my first ever 10k as I wasn’t feeling too good, and then the weather began to turn. It worked out okay, because the rest did me some good. Last week, things were a lot better, and I went out on Monday and Wednesday. Finally, I was seeing 30 minute runs with average paces under 8:30 again. Phew! I thought I’d forgotten how to do that. I had planned a Friday excursion as well, but there was some epic rain out and about. I should have anticipated it, given that it has been Wimbledon fortnight.

This week, I did good. I ran on Monday and Wednesday and Friday. I didn’t do anything in between, which isn’t really sticking to the plan, but hey, running more. Go me! I had Friday off work, which meant I had some time to do a longer run. I also needed to do a longer run due to some over-indulgence during Film Watch the night before. So, I started slow, and I ran and I didn’t really have a plan in mind. I got to 5k, and thought it would be really good if I could get past the 6.79km that has been haunting me since last time. I got that far, and figured I might as well try and get to the 8.06km which is my longest to date. And, once I got there, I was still surviving and decided that as I’d come so far, I might as well try and go all the way.

My weekly updates are more often than not becoming fortnightly, but that’s okay, there has been so little to report of late. This week has been a complete washout because back pain has stopped me doing anything more than walking like a robot and sitting. I don’t really know what happened, I thought at first I had just slept funny. I went for a run that first day but then as the night wore on, the pain got worse and worse.

I didn’t post an update last week because there was very little to report. We’ve been in the midst of a heatwave - probably the only summer that Britain will see this year - and it was just awful. I could hardly keep the motivation to stay upright, let alone go out and exercise. The beginning of this week was similar, although I did think it was cooler on Monday and risked a run. It was not cooler. I felt ill for the rest of the evening.

I was a bit late posting the last update, so it feels like only five minutes ago I was writing about being rubbish at running. But here I am back again to talk some more! This week I managed three runs, so we’re back to the minimum that I should be doing, although I still want to do more. It has been three shorter runs this week, though. As mentioned last time, I’m falling into the clutches of going out for just thirty minutes at a time during the week, as the 10k workout requires longer distances and I don’t have the evening hours to spare.

Two runs in a week, this is progress! What I am finding now is that as the 10k program I’m working through gets harder, the runs get longer. Which is fine physically, because I am just about keeping up (if getting ridiculously slower as the distances get longer). It’s just timewise. I’ve said it before, but it’s tricky to justify more than an hour of running in an evening, unless I have an unusually free schedule.

I’m getting a bit fed up of saying “well, this week I didn’t run much” but it turns out to have been another fortnight of frustration. What with family things, work things, and trying to find the right combination of time, weather and energy, I’m just about getting back on top of it. So, last week there was just one run on Monday, and this week I also went out on the Monday. I was starting to think that would be all I would do and it would be a disappointing week, but then the weekend arrived.

This week, the one run I’ve got up on Runkeeper isn’t quite fair, but it has been a rather pitiful seven days. Monday, I went out for a run but after about ten minutes, I knew my calves weren’t having any of it. A further few minutes on and my app cut off midway through a pace update and when I checked, the time had gone all weird. I decided to call it a day and half walked, half jogged my way back.

I didn’t write an update last week because I got a bit mixed up with the days, given the two bank holidays. Before I knew it, it was Tuesday, and I figured it could wait for a double update today. I’ve also not been running as much as I would have liked, after some rather busy days followed by some more reluctant days. I’m still working through the 10k class, and have completed four runs in two weeks. Not great, but there’s still forward progress.

It doesn’t take long before my attention span wanders. I had that plan, run thirty minutes in the evening, a long run at weekends. Then the clocks changed, and there was all this daylight in the evening, and I wanted to do something a bit more focused. So, I went and signed up for another Runkeeper Fitness Class. Actually the same one I did before, the 10k one. I could go right ahead with all the excuses and things now, but really all I need to say is that I’m just taking it as it comes and not pressuring myself to do anything out of the ordinary. I’m not always going to be able to spare the time for the distances in an evening, but I’ll do my best and see what happens.

A couple of good runs this week, but no big one at the weekend. I was mentally prepared to do it, but then the race went on a bit longer than imagined and I ran out of time. Oh well, gearing up for it, I suppose. During the week, I found myself listening to my own music, rather than those big running megamixes I have downloaded. At some point, it clicked over to this Doctor Who soundtrack, and it was awesome. It’s like I was training to be a companion! Very motivational.

Back to running again, which was a good feeling. The first run back was great! I thought it would be tough, but as it turns out, it was pretty much exactly the same as the one I left off with - and that was a good one! I had intended to go out today, but it’s been a bit of a busy and mixed up weekend - what with the start of the F1 season. After an extended nap this morning, it suddenly started bucketing down outside. I figured I could probably leave the running for another day!

No running for me this week, and boy do I feel guilty about it. I’m seeing tweets of people running super speedy 10k distances, or beating their personal bests, or Jenson Button’s girlfriend completing her first marathon and I just feel awful. Physically, I probably could have managed a week of running but mentally, I was all over the place. Job stuff, car stuff, work/life balance stuff, podcast stuff, it’s all taken over. Some of it is fine, some of it is fantastic, some of it is tough, but whichever it is, it then comes to Sunday and I haven’t done any running and I’ve got a blog post to write to keep my “running diary” up to date.

I’ll admit it, I’ve been pretty hopeless with the running this week. With all kinds of healthy activities really. It’s just been hectic, and excuses, excuses, excuses. Today should have been my long run day but I woke with such a headache, I couldn’t face it. This is the first day in a long while where I have just had the entire day free to do what I want, and resting seemed more of an important option than running.

During the week, I managed two runs which isn’t quite up to the amount I want but is close enough. Finally, my new shoes are broken in and the problems I was experiencing are all gone. The only issue I’m left with is that the flat of my feet feel a bit weird once I take the shoes off. I’m assuming this is something I will get used to. I don’t remember it being a problem with my first shoes but it was quite a while ago.

It’s been an interesting week, running wise. It started off with the first run for six days on Monday. It wasn’t very good, my ankles and calves hurt. My knees started protesting after the event, and it just all felt very wrong. I tweeted about it and got a few good responses with ideas of what it could be - a lack of practice, the requirement for new shoes, the cold weather. I suspect that first run may have been a mixture of all three.

Again, it was a bit of a dull week, as the weather played a big part in keeping me indoors. I tried to make up for it by using our newly acquired exercise bike, and I was intrigued by the results. I thought my legs would kill afterwards, but actually they weren’t too bad at all. I presume that is something to do with all the running, perhaps my legs are actually stronger.

There’s not much to report this week. I ran twice - the first was an excellent workout, I felt good and strong and capable of taking on the world. The second was the complete opposite, slow and muggy, and ended in tears. I was disappointed and frustrated and figured it was all pointless. You know how it gets sometimes. I posted my immediate thoughts on RunKeeper and had some brilliant feedback, although I was a little embarrassed by my over-reaction when I read it back. However, it was worth it to get this fabulous supportive comment from Ron:

This past week only involved two runs, which was pretty disappointing. However, they were both much better than any of the other weekday runs I’ve done this year, I reckon. I also think I know why. On Monday evening, I suddenly decided that it was the time to start eating properly. There were three main reasons I decided to get an app. The first was to find out more about the foods I was eating (have been surprised at the calories in some things and the lack of in others). The second was accountability, as knowing you have to programme in the food you eat makes you think twice about excess snacking. The final reason was encouragement to have breakfast, of which I have never been a fan.

After last week’s enforced break thanks to some poorly timed germs, it was hard going to get back into it this week, but I didn’t do too badly. Went out on Monday and Tuesday - both of which felt like I had wooden legs and had forgotten how to use them. It was bitterly cold, and in places it was frosty, and as it is quite dark I was stepping carefully. That wouldn’t help my speed, but I can’t pretend I was capable of anything spectacular anyway.

This week has been a complete bust. I came down with a sore throat that developed into a cold and kept me indoors all week. I was starting to feel better on Friday, and thought I might get out today, but I think it might be moving into my chest and I want to be a bit more precautionary than reactionary. I know January hates me, and I don’t want to give it any more opportunity.

After running on New Year’s Day, I started my new regime - which essentially was “running more.” I wasn’t sure exactly what the plan was, but I had found a suitable route for the less than daylight post-work hour. Having said that, it’s amazing how quickly the daylight extends once the shortest day of the year is out the way. So, I ran on Bank Holiday Monday to try and get in a routine, and then I ran on Tuesday to make sure running after work really was part of the deal. I must say that I really loved getting back to running at that time of day - I think that’s the hour that suits me best.

I ran on Christmas Day, and now I have run on New Year’s Day as well. I had plans to run in between but as ever, they didn’t quite work out. Already, amazingly, the daylight is creeping in of an evening. As soon as we had the shortest day, it felt like the difference could be seen - but perhaps that is a psychological thing. I have found a route filled with street lights and such, so I may be able to run during the week sooner rather than later. I make no promises on this front, but it is my intention to up the once-weekly schedule!