On the running front I notched up 1014 miles, my lowest since I started. A reasonable training month in January, Rok the Stones at the start of Feb and then the knee went for 6 weeks and with it the Green Man. Building back up saw my highest mileage month of the year in April, it also meant a glorious day out in London, with sweaty Hollywood hugs and Max’s “Yee-haws” ringing in the ears.

May had my favourite run of the year when Jim and I slipped away from HU and arrived in Stratford. The look of surprise and then bewilderment and then realisation on HDs face was so, so worth it and it was a real pleasure and honour running one of his challenges with him. With a bonus completion of the A-Z game and meeting up with Bev & Tony. A self-supported Green Man later in May helped me mentally think I was prepared for what was to come next.

Meriden, self-supported at the start of June. A bitch of a run. A case of lots of little things building up and getting the head down. Heavy rain at the start, early aches, longer than expected stages between “checkpoints”, heat. If Jim hadn’t been alongside I’d have packed it all in much earlier. As it was 56 miles completed. Later in June the joy of a realbuzz gathering at Hawkesbury for the 5k (16th June 2018 folks http://hu5k.org/ ) always lovely to have folks over and Jim an excellent host as ever. Finally our second time as Hawkesbury Runners in the Cotswold Way Relay, another great set of runs and fab gathering in the Beaufort afterwards.

July had our family holiday to Guernsey and therefore my sneaky scouting of the coastal path in preparation for 2018. August saw Kim & I up to Manchester for Jenny & RDs wedding and the Lyme Park Parkrun, where I reckon my silver service could do with some refinement.

After that running was on the back burner. Snowdonia was a real tonic, as ever I burnt my bridges early, enjoying the downhill to mile 8 and then paying for it the rest of the run, but it was the camaraderie that was just what I needed and a fitting way to celebrate HD’s challenges.

November looked to be quite a high mileage month until I realised that I’d left Jim’s Meriden run on my Garmin, so in fact it was my lowest month of the year. Supporting RD & Jim was really enjoyable and I’m also glad it made a difference. My Realbuzz hall of fame T Shirt arrived and whilst it is a great privilege, I have not yet worn it and will not do until I get back to commenting on blogs and blogging more regularly myself. It is one of my New Year resolutions.

The year has finished well. December started with our “Gentlemen of Hawkesbury” run finishing at the pub. An icy road run, a couple of runs to Park run and quite a few smaller runs finishing with a half today to close out the year.

Having written it all down now, it’s not been bad on the running front, it just hasn’t felt that I’ve achieved new things in comparison to previous years. I’ll call it a fallow season and know that I’m in a good place to build from.

 

So to 2018, well there is changes planned with my Mum hopefully moving closer to us (and more importantly for her, closer to Waitrose), in fact she’ll be perfectly placed to offer me a post Parkrun shower on Saturday mornings (although I’ve not told her that little fact yet ;-)

On the running front there is a couple of small races in Feb & March, Green Man Ultra on 3rd March (45 miles round Bristol if anyone else fancies it). Then London in April and Guernsey Ultra in May. After that the diary is clear, although I’ll be unofficially running Meriden with Jim in November.

Thanks for all your support this year, more than ever it has been needed and greatly appreciated.

Happy New Year everyone