2019 – THE END

If I said 2019 hasn’t been the best of years for me and my running then that would be an understatement. I’m so glad to see the back of the year. It did start off quite well with reasonable training for the Brathay 10in10 through the spring and I managed 25 marathons during the first 7 months but apart from that there isn’t much for me to rave about.

I did complete the Brathay 10in10 for the 6^th time, which I suppose is extremely impressive, especially as I equalled the record for the number of times to do this. Sadly it didn’t entirely go to plan. I had hoped to run steady reasonable times each day with my eye on the possibility of attaining the record for the fastest for Male Vet 50. Up to the end of day 6 I was on track for this but pulling my hamstring on day 7 quickly put an end to this and I spent the next day and a half walking most of the course. On the final day I did get back to doing some half reasonable running but all hope of a record time had gone.

After a few weeks rest I got back to marathoning and completed the Lions Bridge 50k on 7^th July with a PB of 4 hours 38 minutes. This should have been something to cheer about but it soon became over shadowed by a pain in my hip which appeared only a week later. This pain, ruined my marathon at San Francisco and became the most painful marathon I have ever endured, taking me 6 hours 34 minutes to complete. I almost missed to cut off time and was one of the last finishers in the 5000 strong field.

After an MRI and CT scans it was confirmed that I had a stress fracture of a bone in my hip called the Sacrum. This is a bone at the bottom of your spine which your coccyx joins on to. This put me firmly on the injury bench and unable to run for the whole of August, September and the most of October. Slowly over November and December I have had the pleasure of building up a bit of running mileage once again.

I should have left it until 2020 before I got back to running a marathon but I didn’t want 2019 to beat me and decided instead of doing a long run on New Year’s Eve I would run the Liverbird marathon day one. This was a bit of a rash decision but I wanted to know where my fitness was and I had the opportunity to do a race I hadn’t done before. It is a 4 lap affair, up and down the bank of the river Mersey on a pedestrian walk way near the centre of Liverpool. I thought if anything went wrong then I would never be too far from the finish and would have the opportunity to drop out if the worst happened. I took it easy and was very pleased that the first 3 laps went well and I felt pretty strong. During the last lap I did feel my lack of endurance and slowed noticeably over the last 3 miles. On the positive side my hip and muscles were fine and I had virtually no stiffness the next day.

I’d like to thank Kaja for holding the Liverbird event, maybe I’ll come back another year and do both days. Her small team were brilliant, the whole event is lovely and friendly. I would highly recommend it that is if you don’t mind taking the chance of running a marathon in the middle of winter when the weather has the chance of throwing anything at you. Luckily this year it was relatively dry and mild with only the wind to contend with.

I feel my decision to run a marathon on the last day of the year paid off, it gave me the mental boost I needed and finished a poor year on a good note ready to start 2020. I just hope 2020 brings me a some better running fortune.

I wish you all a healthy, happy running New Year and success with any goals you have set yourself for 2020.