Me, me, me!

I've set my stall out a couple of times for 2015.  Both here on Run Sancho Run and in public I have told people that I will not be entering and running any half marathons this year.  Instead I have entered a lot of 10ks, the 100k Trailtrekk Challenge and my first marathon, the York Marathon to be precise.

Over the last few months I have managed to get back to comfortably running 10k, but because the marathon isn't until October I've not bothered pushing myself to longer distance runs.  Instead I have focused most of my spare running time on leading South Leeds Lakers, either planning routes, running slower than I normally would or marshalling runs to make sure that nobody got lost on streets they didn't know.

This week I led 32 people on a route we are now calling The Beeston Rollercoaster, a 5k route made up entirely of hills.  Everybody managed two laps of the hill section, some people managed three sets, but I only ran the hills once as I was making sure nobody got lost on the first loop.  Marshalling, cheering people on, and making sure everyone is OK is, to my mind, more important than me pushing myself and ignoring everyone else.

But while everyone else has seen improvements in their running over the last 6 weeks, I have at best maintained form.  I'm really happy for everyone who is benefiting from the Lakers sessions.  PBs at parkrun are falling left right and centre and people are signing up for races that a month ago they would have run away from.

My problem is that while all of this gives me an sense of enormous well being*,  I'm not seeing any of the benefits.  My recent parkrun times are still a minute slower than my PB, a time I set last year.  As I pointed out earlier I've not pushed past 10k on my long slow runs yet.  All of this was brought home to me on Tuesday night after the group session.  I opened up my in-box to find an email from Run for All, subject: Time to check your details for the Leeds Half Marathon.

13.1 miles completed in 1:51:48

It turns out that the day after last years Leeds half, I signed up for this year, then promptly forgot about it.  After all that I have said I am running a half marathon this year and it's in 8 weeks! I trained for months and months through rain, wind, and snow last year to get around the 13.1 mile route of the Leeds Half, this year I've, well, this year I'm not even close.  I had already started to feel the urge to do more running for me and less for the group but this settles it.

I am no longer the kind of runner who is happy to just finish a race, I need to finish with my head held high knowing that I did my best, preferably better than last time out.  That's not to say that I'll be neglecting South Leeds Lakers.  It's a fantastic group, and one that I am proud to be part of, but I need to make sure that I make time for me as well, after all I have a PB to beat.

*Parklife!