A few days later.....

Hi all,

It's been a few days since I've had a run. These few days are to recover from the Reading Half Marathon on Sunday, to get many things done that I've neglected over the past couple of months, and to just put things into perspective. Having trained hard for 16 weeks I've more or less had to neglect a few things which kept building up over time. I've moved into a new house at the start of the month, and have just finished unpacking! And I've managed to complete a bunch of tasks on my never-ending to-do list. It's now more manageable, though when I start running again in a couple of days, it'll probably grow bigger.

I've had some time to think about the Reading Half Marathon and take in comments from many people, most of them being non-runners. I can honestly say that I gave it my best and that I'm happy to have set a new personal best despite not meeting my original goal. Goals are supposed to be ambitious, but also realistic at the same time. If the goal is too easy, then that could hardly be called a goal.

In saying that, my goal is to break three hours. I could reach my goal this year, but on the same token I might not reach it this year. But it is still a goal that I believe is realistic for me. And it is something that I'll continue to work towards whether it will take me one year or 10!

I've received a lot of supportive comments from friends, family, colleagues and others who have helped me look at things differently, and allowed me to refocus. One colleague told me that we only appreciate things that we achieve slowly or not at all. If we are able to do something quickly we lose interest. How very philosophical.

My office manager told me that I shouldn't always try to push so hard, and told me about the mail girl in another office who ran the Reading Half Marathon for charity and a couple of days later is now walking around in crutches! Bizarre! This reminded me of a runner I saw collapsed on the side of the road, just 1 km from the finish line. He needed paramedic assistance. What price for trying to beat 90 minutes? By the way, the mail girl ran for a charity and finished in over 2 hours, however since she's not a runner the stress of completing a half marathon took its toll on her body, so she's just taking things easy with regards to moving around.

I also got a text from my former housemate, who has no interest in running but knows how much I'm passionate about it. She simply asked me if I had a good time and if I was okay. Messages like that can be very uplifting.

And I've had many kind comments from others congratulating me on my new personal best, to learn from the experience and not to get discouraged. Thank you all for that.

I've more or less figured out why I ran how I ran on Sunday. Simply put, I wasn't fast enough (obviously). I got my split times and they are:

• 5 km: 22:29
• 10 km: 44:05
• 15 km: 1:06:54
• 20 km: 1:29:41

My average times over 5 km are nowhere near the pace to be achieving a 90 minute half marathon time. Between the 5-10 km mark, I ran the fastest 5 km with 21:36, but that is still too slow. Having run mostly marathons and halves, I've never really prepared for shorter distances which specialise in speed over endurance. I say this because I haven't really got a 5 km race time, so I don't know if I can run a 5 km race under 21 minutes. This is one area where I feel I really need improvement. Training from now on will need to incorporate a lot more faster running to build speed and maintain that speed over long periods of time. It's amazing to see what my split times can reveal.

Also I've decided that in order to take my running to a whole new level, and hopefully break three hours, I've decided to get myself a running coach and have approached George Anderson, the 1:30 pacesetter from the Reading Half Marathon and the guy I was trying to catch up to last Sunday. George is a running coach and strength conditioning specialist who has a wealth of experience. Before, I was my own coach but sometimes I went about things the wrong way. No doubt this was evident when I spent 16 weeks training for the Reading Half Marathon, and only managed to improve by 2 minutes. Having someone experienced like George to guide me along the way will no doubt improve my running. George is going to call me tomorrow morning (and it's for free too) to discuss training direction, focus and sub-goals I may have. Very excited!

So those have been the few days since the Reading Half Marathon. Just a time for relaxing, reflecting, and refocusing. In a couple of days I'll get back into it. And this time I cannot wait.

Excited about things to come,

Aaron