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It's been far too long since I wrote about running; the hobby I discovered last spring blossomed over summer, lingered in the autumn and died back over winter. I got the fear that I had left behind the days I could enjoy pounding the streets in my running clobber. The treadmill became my reluctant companion for a few months since Christmas but as soon as the evenings drew out I dumped it in favour of the great outdoors, how fickle my affections are. Over the past six weeks or so we have been heading out to run 10ks which at first was dreadfully disappointing – finding it so tough going to make the distance at a significantly reduced pace. It felt like I'd dropped back behind about ten months of training even though I'd kept active over the indoor season and I did question whether I really wanted to persevere with it at all. Then after a couple of weeks Chris volunteered to run with me as he wanted an 'easy' run (thanks a bunch). That 10k training run was absolutely one of the worst runs I've ever been on, the effort I put in to keep going was ridiculous but tried to keep my concentration focussed on keeping my breathing in a relaxed rhythm. I made it round in around three minutes quicker than the week before but felt sick as a parrot afterwards. We ran together for the following three weeks and progress was up and down but still in a positive manner which was a relief – I feel like all the effort is worth it when progress is made.

On Sunday we took part in the GEAR 10k race locally which was a flat, fast, traffic free road race with around 1800 competitors, so easily the biggest we've taken part in locally (we did it last year too as our first 10k race)

My 2014 resolution of setting a new pb was safely out of reach so I wanted to run a race I was happy with as opposed to anything else. The nature of a large race meant that there was so much congestion from the start, which seemed to last for at least the first 2k, giving a most irritating slow start. Despite wearing my Garmin watch I found it difficult to keep track of my overall pace with so many other runners speeding up and slowing down all over the place. My chip time was confirmed at 48:12 which was an exact match for this season's best so I have to be satisfied with that in challenging conditions. My time was just over three minutes faster than my time for last year's race (and beat Chris' time from last year too) which was pleasing but the main difference was my recovery time; I got my breath back far sooner and only felt a bit peaky for a minute then pretty good. My boot camp training coach had come to support us and we had a little chat after the race and I was entirely capable of conversation if dripping a little sweaty.

The most exciting thing is that I feel like the fun has been put back in to fun runs for me, I can look forward to going out for a spin in the sunshine as well as a slog to get a good time. It's not all uphill anymore and I can stay realistically hopeful that progress can be made towards my running goals. Thank goodness.

Sophie