Half way...almost

Well Sunday was the half way marker in the 2012 challenge, half the year gone. So how does the target look?

After last weeks epic Mull mileage I had hoped to be almost bang on the required 1006 miles, looking towards the long run home...well I'm not quite there yet.

As of yesterday my total was 992.2 miles.

It's been a fun year to date, if a bit of rollercoaster! The mileage has grown steadily and at one point in February it looked as though my weekly totals were heading well above the required 38.5 miles. However this turned out to be too much too soon and I was soon nursing shin pain that had me back to minimal mileage.

But I got through that and in the process of recovery smashed my 10k PB to a new 46:13 and hit a new marathon PB of 4:13:15.

Things were looking up as June started until life took over and I only had time for small runs. However I had a plan!

As I knew we would be heading up to Mull at the end of the month, I hatched a plan to catch up my mileage in an epic week of running around the island.

You can read more about that adventure when I post at the weekend, but for now I'll just say it wasn't quite the loop I was looking for and resulted in a nasty shin injury that is proving very painful to get moving.

So, back to minimal slow two mile runs to sustain my LUR streak for the foreseeable future and hope that I don't slip too far behind again.

But I have learnt a few interesting things.

Slow long runs (10min plus pace) can happen on consecutive days without the world ending. And pain is a funny thing...I know it wants me to stop, but it somehow motivates me to keep going.

A friend said to me after my Mull run..."learn to love your pains; you've earned them". So that's what I'm going to do, it's a reminder of the journey that I'm on and so long as it doesn't get any worse I will keep the streak going as long as I possibly can...in some ways that is becoming more of a challenge that the miles.

Anyway, most of all I know that I'm in better shape now than I have been for a long time...I feel happy, have made a few new running friends and can't wait for the new challenges that this year still has to offer.