It’s #REDBED Day 17 today!

An update on the various challenges

As you might have expected if you read yesterday’s blog, I was pretty close to achieving the 2017 run 1000 miles challenge ‘officially’. Today, I made it official:

So that’s 1001 miles and counting for 2017. As you can see, the lion’s share of the mileage was achieved during just 5 months. The 90-day running total graph helpfully shows the point where my piriformis shouted ‘enough’; the running total dives at that point. It also marks the ‘longest break of the year’ which is shown below.

Actually the longest break figure I’ve had since re-commencing my running in 2011 was a 59 day period in 2012 after Mark passed away. It’s no secret that a secondary goal to the #REDBED Challenge is to create a run-streak that exceeds the length of this period. Not a matter which will change anything in the world, but for me it’s something I’d like to do. To say to 2012, I acknowledge you represented a chasm in my world, but that Mark would have wanted me to move forward and so I’ve spanned that chasm with a bigger bridge.

My biggest ever annual mileage was in 2015 when I managed 1087 miles. I don’t think that figure is at risk of being toppled this month, but all being well, I won’t be far off, with a full fortnight of 2017 left to run.

Today’s Run

Today’s run was an early start. Due to next Sunday being Christmas Eve, the #Trust10 run at Lyme Park was moved forward a week to today. I’ve frequently been the Run Director for the monthly event; I’ve been involved from the very first one and designed the route. When you have a park as diverse as Lyme Park, you can’t organise a path-based run which visits 0.1% of the acreage. No, it has to be a trail/fell route; that way you get to see the Park in all its glory.

Anyway, with permanent National Trust staff available to deal with the runners, I set up the course. As RD, you don’t generally get to leave the car park area, so it was nice to go for a run.

The conditions under foot were somewhat treacherous. Most of the snow had thawed but the ice remained in several areas. But with over an hour to put the flags out, I had plenty of time . Being off-road, gritting wasn’t an option in many areas, so a timely reminder to the runners to take care was the best we could do. Aside from that the weather was warming up and rain coming in, so it was just going to end up a very muddy run!

That said, I’ve not run a slower 10k ever! 13 min/miles is half the speed I ran at Wilmslow. Although the latter didn’t have any hills or compacted ice to negotiate! I enjoyed the plod around, and had a chance to speak to others along the way.

Here’s the route: