#RunTheDate May 22nd – 22km. Reluctant to Say My Best Run So Far

Running is a fickle sport and this will definitely come back to bite me. I’m still not sure whether I want to say it now…I really enjoyed today’s run and my legs felt really good. There, I’ve done it. Let karma smite me down.

Only kidding, I’ve hopefully been doing this long enough to know that one good day isn’t necessarily followed by more good days. The opposite is also true though and that is probably more important over the next week or so. Bad days don’t necessarily mean the end of the world is approaching and a good day might just come along when you least expect.

Let’s keep this positive though and focus on today. First off, the weather was great; a bit fresher and breezier than the last couple of days but nice to run in. I ran over to Stowe, a National Trust house nearby, just for a change from woods:

Anyway, my legs had been OK really over the last few days, considering the abuse they’ve had so far. I did, however, have a tight right calf and a tight left hamstring. Nothing major or earth shattering but enough that I wasn’t getting too big headed in all of this.

Today though my body thought it would give itself a break and ease all of these niggles. Granted, any steep hills were treated like I’d just asked them to sprint a mile but all in all they were sympathetic to me and felt quite strong. Only ‘quite’, let’s not go crazy.

It’s amazing the confidence booster a run like that has. Always the boring engineer, and really always, I tried to work out what was different. The only difference really was getting more sleep last night. It might be that, might not. It still didn’t help me look any better though:

Sleep isn’t necessarily that easy to come by and with two youngsters it’s even more difficult. Massive kudos already has to go to my lovely, long suffering wife, Bethan, for holding the fort so much to allow me to go off on my wistful running expeditions. Getting the rest of these runs done, especially given how much longer they’re getting, is definitely a team effort. I may be the ugly face of it but it’s the family behind me that are doing a lot of the work to help this happen, for which I owe them massively.

Still, having a good day like today certainly makes it feel worthwhile and, with so many positive comments from others, I’m feeling equally positive about the next 9 days. 9 days! Single figures remaining. Plus, at 254km, I’m over halfway for the month too.

Could there be any more positives? Why yes, I get to do it again tomorrow but 23km instead.

Thanks for getting this far with me and all the support so far, it really is massively appreciated.

Usual reminder of why I’m doing this:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/tomfanthorpe2