I've been mulling over starting a running blog for years but the coronavirus finally forced my hand. I'll start with where I am now....
I ran at Seville marathon at the end of February, finishing with time of 3.01.38. My A goal for the season was the ACP 100km in May so it was a nice marker to put down ahead of Manchester marathon which I had planned to do 6 weeks later. In a perfect world I would have slipped under the 3.00 marker at Manchester and used London Marathon as a training run before the A goal in May.
Then coronavirus happened! All the races have been cancelled and the ACP has been rescheduled for the end of September with Manchester and London in October. The rearranged dates mean the marathons are out for me and I've deferred my entry.
I'm continuing to run a pretty similar schedule although my mileage has dropped a bit and there aren't any races to build for. In addition, my working hours have reduced hugely (I'm a veterinary anaesthetist at a referral practice in Hampshire) and I've just started 3 weeks of furlough. Like probably every runner on the planet I seem to swing between excitement at the prospect of living like an elite athlete, albeit with one run per day and no access to physiotherapy, and feeling total despair about the reality of sickness and death due to coronavirus. Add in feelings of guilt for currently being well, worry about my family and their health and all of my normal routine going out the window. It's a potent mix of feelings!
I'm hoping to use this blog to record my training, racing (assuming races restart at some point) and my thoughts on running generally. I'm hoping I'll be able to strong-arm some local athletes into chatting to me about their experiences too.