{"id":12117,"date":"2023-12-27T12:35:46","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T12:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=12117"},"modified":"2024-01-09T07:45:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T07:45:30","slug":"a-year-of-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/12117-a-year-of-running.html","title":{"rendered":"A year of running"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am not sure exactly when I became a runner, nor for how long I will be one. But I am sure that when I think back over 2023 from a personal point of view, running is the first thing I think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pic courtesy of Microsoft Paint Cocreator AI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most of us discover the need for exercise at some point in our lives and for years I have been in the habit of doing a short daily workout, hardly even a workout, but based on the old 5BX plan which takes all of 11 minutes. 5BX includes running on the spot which is effective but quite boring. I replaced it with going out for an actual short run and omitting the jumping jacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then a couple of things conspired to persuade me to do more running. It was partly a side-effect of lockdown, when my wife who was on furlough did the NHS Couch to 5K programme which was followed by an addiction to Parkrun<\/a>, free 5K runs which take place every Saturday morning at numerous locations around the UK and some worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, an event called the Winchester Half Marathon passes our house and I found myself thinking that I would like to do it myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided that I might as well join in with the Parkrun and soon enjoyed the challenge of trying to improve my time week by week. That began in July 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was enjoying it enough that in April 2023 I booked myself into the Winchester Half for September. That gave me 6 months to train, more than enough. I increased my daily run to a 15 minute hilly run three times round the block near my home. I started doing a long run on Sunday mornings, working up from 8K to 10K to 12K and up to 20K, just short of the half marathon distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Winchester Half is somewhat hilly so I booked for the flatter New Forest Half Marathon earlier in September as a practice. That went OK despite rain and I finished in 2:03:50. Winchester went a bit better and I did 1:58:27. Ambition fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was enjoying it too much to give up though, and since then have joined the local Winchester Running Club<\/a> and booked for several more events next year. I also did the AWS re:Invent 5k<\/a> in Las Vegas which was fun if a little odd in the way it was organized!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have started running relatively late in life and wish I had done it earlier; but it is also fun to do something new. Often I meet people who tell me they also loved to run but had to stop due to injury, sometimes knees, sometimes something else. I do not think running is risk-free but I am convinced that it is more likely to do good than harm. I have just read Daniel Lieberman’s book Exercised<\/a>; Lieberman is a professor of biological sciences and writes that “the negative effects of too much exercise appear to be ridiculously less than the negative effects of too little.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the risk to knees is not clear-cut. “Physical activities like running that load joints repeatedly and heavily do not cause higher rates of osteoarthritis and may sometimes be protective,” writes Lieberman, referencing a 2008 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are consequences though. I have lost weight. My resting heart rate has slowed. And it is time-consuming, especially if one trains for the longer distances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realise though that I may not always be able to run. That for me is all the more reason to run while I can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not sure exactly when I became a runner, nor for how long I will be one. But I am sure that when I think back over 2023 from a personal point of view, running is the first thing I think about. Most of us discover the need for exercise at some point in … Continue reading A year of running<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1597],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12117"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12124,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12117\/revisions\/12124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}