The beginning

For a few years now I have self-identified as a runner. Not a jogger, I don't go to the gym or occasionally spend half an hour plodding round the blog for fitness, I run. Running is part of who I am now. That will sound pompous if not pretentious but it is important. For me running is less about fitness or targets and more about finding space, mental well being and really just being connected to the world in a meaningful way.

 

Being a runner rather than a jogger does nothing to imply speed. I am a plodding sort of runner but that isn't important. Where there is competition it is with myself and with whatever my current level of fitness is. This year that has been somewhat variable. With injury and other circumstances my running has been disjointed and ineffective for most of this year. Where I imagined I would have made significant progress I have at best stagnated. There has been no continuity to my training and I have achieved none of my long-standing goals.

 

I am now embarking on a new challenge (more on which later) with a greater degree if optimism and that is where this blog comes in. I have always been a bit of a geek with the numerology of running. I religiously log all my runs, heart rate data, paces, even weather and pore of the results, the trends and their underlying performance implications. What I have not done is really record how it all feels. Despite running for me being about how I feel more than anything else this is an aspect of my training that I have long neglected. That is where The Mansionhouse Runner comes in. I plan to use it as a record of my running and my progress over the remainder of the year and also as an outlet for the mental and psychological burden that an extended marathon training programme can bring.

 

And that marathon is the new challenge I am embarking on. In November I aim to run Florence marathon. This will be marathon number 2 for me. In running terms it is no more significant than a marathon inherently is, but this year is different in a couple of ways. Firstly, only days before running the race I will be 40. If you are gong to celebrate an arbitrary age milestone running a marathon in a beautiful city seems like a good way to do so. That is just part of it though. This year has been difficult and traumatic and we have seen some major highs and crushing lows. We have gone from being prospective parents to having to make the most awful decision and then having the aftermath of losing all that potential to deal with.

 

This marathon then is to mark and remember the child we have lost. Along with Lucy I will run the Inverness 10k I'm September, on the weekend our son was due to be born. I will double that up with the marathon a couple of months later. We will both be running for charity with the proceeds gong to Antenatal Results and Choices, a small charity who provide invaluable advice to parents in similar situations to us. More on that on this blog once we set up our giving page.

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