Ugh, January.

I don’t usually mind January. It’s a time for new beginnings, good intentions and at least two weeks with a bit less cake. But this year I definitely didn’t get the best out of January and am pretty happy to see the back of it.

Having had Horrid Lurgy which pretty much stopped me from running for a few weeks, I’ve since been so busy both in and out of work that I realised today I’d completely forgotten I’d been so poorly at the start of the month. The whole of January has disappeared in a blur of too many meetings and not enough running. It’s also been such miserable, cold and disgusting weather that I just haven’t fancied running much in the week. How people have managed RED January (Run Every Day), I really don’t know.

That’s not to say there haven’t been some highlights. I built back up from 0 miles to 4 miles to 7 miles to 10 miles pretty quickly at the start of the month with the help of good running buddies.

We also popped along to the Osterley Park Night Run a couple of weeks ago. Last time we braved this event there was a different route and fewer people, which resulted in us making a sharp turn in a field at one point and being faced with a massive cow. Surprise cows in dark fields are disconcerting, to say the least. This time there were fewer cows and more glow sticks, which was a lot of fun.

But those bits aside, my running has been quite haphazard and unfocused. This lack of focus has been playing havoc with my goals for the first part of the year and it’s been getting me down a bit. Last week in an impressive feat of clumsiness I broke my Kingston 20 mug, which I love, and I was hard pressed not to consider it a metaphor for broken promises to myself and the false start to how I’d planned to train this year.

I’d planned to be well on my way to the first two of my goals for 2018 by this point; a sub-55 10k and a sub-2 half.

I’ve actually got three half marathons booked between now and my big Spring A race, the Vienna Half in late April. Training for Vienna officially starts on 12th February, so I’m not too worried about that one. The half is probably my favourite distance (ok, maybe it shares that status with the full marathon) and I’m pretty comfortable with the balance of pace and endurance needed. I should be ok there.

It’s these pesky 10k’s that are causing me concern.

The first one is this weekend, the Cancer Research Winter Run. To be honest I’ve been looking forward to this one regardless of how the running goes. Having volunteered on the Skins team last year I know it’s quite a big event and it’s around the streets in town that I spend a lot of time walking around in the working week, so I’m excited to get to race around such a familiar area for playtime and see the sights.

There’s also a medal with a spinning snowflake, which I am very much here for and was not at all a factor in my decision to run this race.

But it would be nice to do well. I sort of know what I’m going for, but I’m not sure I can match my PB at Osterley of just over 56 minutes. I find 10k hard as it is – the temptation to go out hard when it’s ‘only’ 6 and a bit miles and then the realisation that 6 and a bit miles is actually quite far when you’re starting to properly die on your arse is tricky enough when you know you’re fully fit, so goodness knows what’s going to happen this weekend. Oh well, too late to worry about it now I suppose.

So yeah, that’s what’s been going on. There’s nothing especially inspirational or uplifting about this post, but then life isn’t always inspirational or uplifting.

I guess sometimes there’s nothing else to do but persist and hope for the best.

Just keep running. But maybe not every day.

Duffrunning is shortlisted for the 2018 Running Awards. You can vote here til 15th March. Thank you!