It’s the 9th April 2012 and I’m in Anglesey with my family for Easter. It has been a very pleasant weekend, spending time firstly with my parents and later with friends John, Lisa and their children Amelia and Regan. Today is the last day of our holiday and it hasn’t stopped raining. I suppose we can’t complain as it hasn’t rained much recently. At least it has given me time to get a bit of gardening and DIY done.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about my goal to reach 100 marathons. With 72 marathons completed my quest to reach 100 feels very possible and only a matter of time. I’m hoping to reach 100 for Windermere marathon in 2013. This should be fairly achievable if I continue running marathons at my current rate of 2 per month and can manage to stay injury free.
After thinking about this goal for the last couple of years my thoughts are now turning to what comes after this challenge. Where will my running take me next? This weekend while out having a beautifully picturesque run with John from Penrhyn Castle to Anglesey, poor old John had to listen to my rambling thoughts coming out for the first time. I’ve seen some runners reach 100 then almost hang up their trainers and others that can’t stop adding to their marathon total. I don’t want this goal to burn out my running interest and I’m fairly sure this won’t happen but on the other hand I don’t want to get sucked into an obsessive endless marathon count.
I’m really looking forward to the day I can wear a 100 Marathon Club vest for a marathon but I also hope to put marathon counting to the back of my mind.
I must admit and I’m not keeping it any secret, I would love to have one more go at running the 10 in 10 around Lake Windermere. I’m looking forward to following this year’s runners through the challenge and am eager to enter it for 2013. I do love the challenge of running marathons on consecutive days. It gives me a great buzz being on the starting line on day 2 when most of the other runners think one marathon is more than enough of a challenge. The 10in10 is just a fantastically ridiculous extension of this.
After 100 marathons, will I still want to run marathons or will I return to halves, 10k’s, fell running and running with my club at local races, like I used to? Or will I fancy the challenge of some ultras? I think some marathon running will continue, there are lots of places I would love to run a marathon and it will be a great excuse to don a 100 marathon club vest.
I suppose only time will tell but whatever happens there is definitely still plenty of running to do.
