GLOUCESTER SPORTS BLOG

366 days! ( Part 1)

With three days to go i thought i might start to write a little about my epic (stupid) challenge for 2012. Late in 2011 we had a conversation about Ron hill, a European and commonwealth marathon champion and also a 3 times olympian. He is just short of his 75th birthday and has logged 17,546 days of running (nearly 48 years). Ron hills minimum run (so i was told) was 800 metres so i thought "whats the point of 800 metres, my minimum would be 10 mins". So with that the gauntlet was thrown down!

January 1st 2012 was a steady run due to celebrations the night before and so the year began. It turns out a friend of ours Barry from Tewkesbury also started on the same day as me, and this helped that apart from Ron hill there were other idiots (sorry Barry and Ron) who were doing the same challenge. With foresight i  should maybe have had a little chat to Ron Hill about days when you just could not be bothered to go out, we have all had them and its easy to say "i will run tomorrow" but if you laid down a challenge you have to see it through.

During the year i ran with my local club, raced and trained with my training partner who i must have said numerous times to her "this is stupid" and she has said "you are". Cheers then!  If i had to do this again i would start it in april and finish in march as i am finding the cold wet evenings a bit of a challenge to go running in and maybe starting and finishing the year run in warmth would be a bit of a bonus.