Month: March 2017

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Northern Road Relays 2017

UP until Wednesday I was all set to race 5km at today’s Northern Road Relays. Then, late on Wednesday afternoon, I got a text message.

‘Hi Liz, would you mind doing a long leg on Saturday pretty please.’

I was at university at the time, enjoying a cuppa and a flapjack with my friends. I glanced at the message. Something had obviously gone amiss with our team.

Immediately I replied, ‘No probs,’ and carried on chatting with my friends. In fact, I carried on chatting for a good few minutes before something dawned on me.

‘How long’s a long leg?’

‘What you on about?’ My Uni-writing friends stared at me, puzzled looks on their faces.

‘Running,’ I said. ‘I’ve just signed up to a long leg and I don’t know how long a long leg actually is!’

I tried to think. Continue reading →

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Running and racing so far in 2017

THIS week I start my next block of training. My target race is the Salford 10k on Good Friday where I am aiming to break 41 minutes and get near to my 40:31 personal best. But before I focus on my next goal I wanted to look back at what I achieved during my last block of training.

It started in December with the Percy Pud 10k. It was my first 10k in six months and I was a bit race rusty. I found the race tough. I ran 41:43, just squeezing into the medals with third vet 35. I was pleased with the time, considering I’d not raced for a while, and happy to be back racing. The other great thing about the Pud was that we were joined by Olympians Eilish McColgan and Michael Rimmer.

This is Eilish McColgan gliding into the finish.

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And this is me stomping towards the finish.

Later in December I managed to run sub 21 at Pontefract parkrun, something I’d not done for a while. I clocked 20:58. Unfortunately on Christmas day I could only manage 21:23. Rather than let this ruin my Christmas I decided my slowness could have been down to a slight hamstring niggle and a bit of a cold. A few festive drinks later and I’d forgotten all about it.

My first race of 2017 was the 5,000m track race at Dorothy Hyman stadium, where it was rather windy. I finished in 21:21.

A couple of weeks later, back at Pontefract I ran Continue reading →