Tom Roper's Running Training

Roaming in the gloaming

There’s something special about the first late afternoon run after the clocks go back. I went out into fierce winds blowing foam over the Seaford Head golf course, and down to the seafront. It reminds me of the winter Sunday afternoons of childhood, in the back of my father’s Austin Cambridge, driving homewards from Ely across the darkening fens, where we would go for tea with my great-aunt Ada and her companion, Marjorie. There were a few walkers on the promenade, watching the spectacular waves.

This week also included my return to WNS (code for Wednesday Night Striders, one of my running club’s running nights), which I managed, although the distance involved was more than I’ve done for a few weeks.  Braver and fitter souls went to Ashdown Forest, for the first event in the East Sussex Cross-Country championship; I’m not ready for these, though I hope to be for some of the six events.

It's been quiet, Carruthers, too damned quiet

I haven't written anything here for a ridiculously long time, but today I completed the Couch to 5k programme, and this is worthy of comment. I have turned to this to recover from injury several times in recent years; this latest version, started at the beginning of September after a flare-up of knee trouble, and before that I resorted to it in the autumn of 2020, after some over-ambitious running, and in the spring of that year. I've also led some of the ever-popular Seaford Striders C25K groups 

So the question now is, what next? I will try to learn the lessons of previous flare-ups and not try too much too soon. But it would be nice to enter a 10k before long, and a half-marathon perhaps after that.