I RAN A HALF MARATHON YESTERDAY!!!

OK, let me qualify that…

…there was no starting line, no number to pin onto your vest, no congratulatory t-shirt and certainly no one to hand out drinks (although, to be fair, Jon did regularly offer me a swig of water)…

…in fact, nobody else other than me and Jon. We (OK, ‘he’) drove down to Portishead High Street (“Number Four”, to be precise – our church’s offices), left the comfort of the vehicle and set off towards the nearby (not that it always felt thus) village of Pill and back. I have been on many (hundreds!) of buses that have detoured via Pill on an otherwise direct route into Bristol, but only yesterday did I venture inside and along the Avon – well, above it, anyway. Following on from the Coast Path and Nature Reserve, that’s the third part of this world I’ve seen for the first time in the past ten days or so…

…anyway, we ran 22.24km in 1h58’01”. A half marathon is 21.097494km. So you can see the significance there: I completed a half marathon distance and did so under my 2hr target. Quite frankly, in my mind I had begun starting to push that target back towards 2h15’. But having Jon besides me makes all the difference. It’s like having your own personal running calculator, the way he glances at his watch and figures out our projected time based on the pace we’re doing, the way he’ll figure out whether we need to up the pace… and he can do that, because his legs have seen him through four marathons and countless halves, let alone all the training runs leading up to those. The plan now is for us to run together in three weeks’ time. I’ve actually caught Jon at a good time, in so much that he’s still coming back from injury and is not aiming for a PB, so his pace is more akin to what I am capable of. He is under strict instructions to leave me standing (or at least running slower) on the day if that’s what makes sense, but hopefully it won’t be so. Yesterday was certainly highly encouraging in that regard.

What else?

Nah, you’re safe. That’s my brief entry for today. Over the rest of the week, I plan to flesh out some thoughts as to why running isn’t free and some medical notes as to why this month means so much to me. But, for now, I just wanted to share this. Just the way yesterday Jon and I high-fived and hugged (manly) on Portishead High Street in our respective glo-orange shirts (and yes, mine was a tad glowier), today I am high-fiving you via this screen. Oh yeah, baby… bring it on!