Blimey! It’s been a long time since I wrote about anything to do with running. Mostly because it hasn’t been going what you would call well…

So, I shall perhaps be chronological and start with the Coad Cup. Last year this was one of my first Ranelagh races and I got well and truly lost! This year I was thinking I would still get lost - I also wasn’t helped by the fact that my Garmin was apparently fully charged but then it decided it was flat. Naturally the charger was with David in Denmark…hey ho. Unfortunately that made me a bit grumpy and my grump wasn’t helped by seeing my fellow group members whizz off into the distance down Queen’s Ride. I carried on though, being overtaken by people left, right and centre. I managed to only get a teensy bit lost this time and finished in a time of 50:03, last year I finished in 53:14, though I got more lost last time! I am pleased I got a course PB though, especially aftermy running had not been good for quite a few weeks beforehand…including antiobiotics, which really knocked me for six.

Next up for me was the Wedding Day 7k race. I unfortunately had been bitten at the Tuesday night training session by a vampire flying red ant and for the second time in a few weeks was on antibiotics. Consequently, given that I had also been at a low ebb for weeks, I was not expecting much from this race. I set off reasonably well, dragging a fellow Ranelagh woman with me, feeling not too bad. When we got to Chestnut Avenue, I was overtaken by a newer runner in my training group, which I wasn’t surprised by. However, as we reached the 5km point, I started to catch her back up again.At about 6.5kmI saw some friends sitting on the grass, being quite vocal, all I could muster was, “I don’t like this anymore”. It was starting to hurt at this point but I pushed on, less than 5 minutes left to run. As I came around into the final straight David was shouting for me. I could see the finishing clock and saw how close I was to last year’s time (which I hadn’t expected at all), so I pushed as hard as I could. I crossed the line with a 5 second PB and was chuffed to bits. It doesn’t sound like much I know but after the recent poor form, it was fantastic. It’s the first time in a long time that there has been a double PB in the Rowe household. Even better was that when the results were produced we saw that David and I had won one of the “Couple” categories. We won the category where one is old and one isn’t (I am a Vet, David is a Senior) by ONE second. How glad was I that I pushed really hard at the end? However, I don’t know if there is a prize or anything…there were some on the night but some mix-ups too I think. Who cares really? We won! It’s awesome.

Next up I think was the Ratchford Relay. Again last year I ran this race. It’s a relay in a team of three runners where your fast runner runs three laps, the middle runner runs two laps and the slow/novice runner runs one lap. Each lap is a kilometre long and through a bit of a rabbit-hole infested, hillocky, grassy bit, with a couple of tight turns and a bit on an incline to the start/finish line. My team was pretty awesome and comprised Weibke (fast), me (middle) and Theresa (novice, only started running about 4 months ago). It transpired that for the first time in a race, my miling pace was less than 8 minutes/mile, which I was chuffed about. Last year my laps were completed in 5:05 and 5:07,this year I ran them in 4:54 and 4:56. So only slightly faster but both consistent, which is good. I would expect to be faster than this really but there’s always next year. Overall our team finished in third place, which was fabulous. The first placed team included our friend Heather as their middle runner and the second placedteam contained Kirsty as their middle runner, well done ladies! You ran fantastically.

Finally for this mega-update is my debut as a track and field official! I went down to the track to watch the Veterans track meeting at St Mary’s, where there are a couple of Open categories too. One of these is the long jump,in whichfellow Ranelagh Kate was hoping to compete. Unfortunately no-one else wanted to, so we had a quick instruction from Mr Gutch and away we went. Danny was in charge of raking, Kirsty and I performed the vital task of constructing the foul board with plasticene (along with Kate’s oldest son Johnny) as well as the measuring. Kate was awesome, jumping 4m 69cms…she did used to be a heptathlete in her younger days though. Danny tried a jump and managed 3m something…and got sand in his trainers. So Kirsty and I are now on standby to be Chief Measurers ready for London 2012. Or perhaps not!

Finally is a more recent race, The Stragglers Club 10k (which David wrote about below). I didn’t run this last year (I can’t remember why) but thought I would do it as a training run this year. I was not feeling positive about it and I have to say it was horrid. The course was difficult underfoot, not helped by the recent bad weather meaning the towpath was slippery, muddy and puddly! That’s fine really but all in all I didn’t enjoy this at all. Then coming up to 9kms completed, my neck started to really hurt - I had physio the day before and I think everything is a bit clunky at the moment. I was overtaken about 500m from the end by Kirsty’s dad, Mike. I didn’t mind as he was due to celebrate his 70th birthday two days later…consider it a present Mike. I managed to finish in 59:41, which isbittersweet really. It’s a very disappointing time for me, 5 minutes slower than my PB but the course is quite tough, it’s renowned for being slowish and my running for the last few months has been, quite frankly, rubbish. However, what I am pleased about is that I still finished under an hour - it was a big battle to go under an hour for the first time a year ago and now I can get under it even when I am not running well. See, every cloud has a silver lining. However, I think that this race has been consigned to the “Races I Don’t Ever Want to Run Again” list…