Well what a weekend that was. From mile race to 145 mile races, PBs, bronze medals, epic feats of endurance and short sharp shocks of fast pacing. Starting with my own household, please sound the PB klaxon for my six year old, who broke her junior parkrun PB, dipped under 11 minutes for the first time, and got her ‘marathon’ wristband for completing more than 22 events. Cue much pride and excitement (from her and me both).

Later that day I headed into town for the Westminster mile. Divided into a series of waves throughout the day, a total of 8,048 runners cracked out their fastest mile. I really love this event – you can chose which wave you take part in, whether it’s a family wave, the parkrun wave, the ‘my first mile’ wave or, as in my case, the British Masters Championship wave. I was delighted to come home with a bronze medal (and let it be noted than bronze medallists are happier than silver ones…) in my age group, coming home in 5:44 despite going out at suicide pace (the first 800m in about 2:45 – what was I thinking??) It was a great event to take part in, with around 200 runners from the very recently Masters (ie just over 35) to – well, I’ll diplomatically go for ‘true Masters.

Meanwhile, while I was feeling a bit knackered from a couple of very short races, my friend Emily was running 145 miles without stopping from Birmingham to London on the Grand Union Canal Race – finishing 15th overall and 2nd lady. Running, at that sapping humidity, blazing sunshine, then through a night of torrential downpours, then back into the next day … still running. My head can’t even get around the concept.

And that’s not all! So much running awesomeness happened this weekend I might need a whole other blog – possibly website – just to touch upon it. In Edinburgh marathon, my colleague (and BTL regular) Jonathan broke sub-4hrs, while regular running blog writer Michael Crawley only went and came THIRD in the entire race. Then in the Vitality 10000m yesterday – which I went to watch – I got to see some fantastic performances by elites and friends alike. It was another hot day for racing, so particularly well done to anyone who got a 10k PB in those conditions.

So, over to you. Come and share your own tales of running awesomeness – whatever the distance.

Source: Read Full Article