The Starting Line

Welcome to my first post in the latest extension of my small hobby/mild obsession of running, that is Fartleking About! To get the introductions out of the way, my name's Matt and I'm a pseudo-healthnut of 23 years of age and hailing from North Yorkshire, where all the fields be. I've been running for almost a year and a half now, so I've gotten to the point where I'm feeling brave enough to acquire all the shiny gadgets and try some of the more 'interesting' training flavours that are out there, this blog feeling a natural extension of all this. I'm hoping that it'll serve as a handy tool for not only giving some vague structure to the amorphous mass that is my running schedule, but some insight into why I get up at 7am to run through horizontal rain, and why I will inevitably found in a ditch 10 miles from nowhere with naught on me but a cheefully-coloured running vest, a timing chip and a windswept grin plastered across my face.

So, before I tell any new dramatic training tails, here's a few handy facts and figures:

• I'm 6'3"-ish with about 14st strapped to my frame, so I'm not a gentle runner by any means.
• I generally run around 20 miles a week, with two 7-ish mile runs with the Selby Striders, the local running club, plus a 5k race with the Parkrun team on a weekend, with the odd run inbetween.
• Outside of training, I've ran a total of 8 5k races, 4 10ks and 1 London Marathon
• Since the London Marathon, I've run 148 miles roughly, as counted whenever I can remember to up the tally.
• I run with a Garmin Forerunner 205 training watch and a pair of Nike Zoom Structured Triax 12 running trainers, after I wore my last pair of Asics into oblivion.

My current PBs are:

• 5k - 22:44
• 10k - 47:38
• Marathon - 5:29:13

So, what am I hoping to achieve in the future? I've got the last race of the York Road Race League tomorrow night, which'll be a 10k, and fun and unusual enough, it's a reverse handicap race, so the slowest from the previous 4-5 races go first, then the next, all the way back to the quickest, which should result in a dramatic finish as everyone scrums across the line in one go in a bid to get the shiny winner's t-shirt, although I have these ominous visions of fences at a Grand National, when one horse goes down in the front and everyone else trips up over them in the ensuing panic. Should be interesting at least, and the best chance I'll have at crossing the line first for a while at least.

After that's all done with, I've got a couple of goals on the horizon. I'd really love to get my 5k time under 20 minutes, which seems as though it should be possible with my ridiculously long stride, and then work on slowly knocking down the time from there, and then as the afternoons get a bit cooler and long runs become a bit more acceptable, I'm going to have a stab at a half-marathon to see how well I can cope with distance at a reasonable speed, opposed to my 10-min mile plodding for a full one, and if anyone can recommend a good one to break me in gently, or one which will snap me in two but at least have pretty views, the hints would be more than appreciated.

Anyway, I think this enough waffling and PB ego-stroking for one night, so I'll be back later when I have the full race report from the Stillington 10k tomorrow. If you're around, kind words of support for the beardy git in the Striders running vest will not go amiss.

Good running!

Matt